WE’VE COME A LONG WAY, BABY: Reader Jim Herd points to this interesting look at digital photojournalism ten years ago:

It was hard to know if the NC2000e was actually taking pictures properly. It had no LCD for playing back the images it was supposedly recording and, of course, no spinning film rewind knob, nor any way — or need — to open the camera back.

In the middle of the night, somewhere around 3:00am, the shutter blew out,” Kurdzuk says, “but the camera kept working. There was no indication whatsoever that there was anything wrong. Everything I shot after three o’clock had a shutter blade straight through the middle of the frame. That kind of stuff happened all the time.” (A different NC2000’s blown shutter is shown at left.)

Kurdzuk pauses for a moment, and then figures out how to sum it all up: “The NC2000, in general, was a practice in masochistic anxiety.” . . .

There’s lots of interesting stuff. Read the whole thing.