What do AI and the Olympus Trip 35 have in common?
Well – nothing really, but please bear with me and read on.
Maybe it’s because I am part of the older generation that resists change, but I have a mistrust of, almost a fear of, the rapid growth of artificial intelligence – AI – in everyday life.
Not a day goes past without AI making the news in one way or another.
My mistrust of AI extends as far as me having a reluctance to use AI-enabled software such as On1 Photo RAW to process my photographs. I am scared that the in-built AI will take away my personal feelings, and therefore my approach to my photographs. Which is silly when I stop and think about it because my Lumix camera is filled with AI – auto-this, auto-that, auto scene recognition, and so on.
I know, I know – I can hear some of you saying “get over it…get over yourself”.
So today I have decided to try to “get over it” and I not only gave On1 Photo RAW another semi-serious spin but also braved the new world of AI by downloading the free ChatGPT app to my Mac, as well as finding an on-line AI image generator.
Where is this story going? I’m not sure myself – because this is my brain working at this stage – not AI.
So – what about AI and the Olympus Trip 35
I have just started downsizing my small film camera collection (I was starting to find my elderly 35mm SLRs too bulky and heavy) and have purchased a nice compact 45-year-old Olympus Trip 35.
So the first test for this wonderful new AI was to ask the on-line AI photo generator to create an image of an Olympus Trip 35 camera.
This is the result…what the….?
Not a very auspicious start for AI…. because a real Olympus Trip looks like the one below, as we all know…
My next task for the wonder of AI was to ask ChatGPT to tell me what the top 20 most iconic 35mm cameras are, expecting in my naievity that the Olympus Trip 35 would be in the top 20. But – no it wasn’t.
I asked for the top 30 – still no sign of the Trip.
I asked for the top 50 – and yay! The Trip came in at 37. That surprised me – I really thought it would be higher than that.
So I framed my question another way. I asked What is the top selling 35mm camera of all time? Knowing that 10 million Trips were sold between 1967 and 1984 (or so we have been told…) I knew without a doubt that the Olympus Trip 35 would be top of the pile – Number 1.
But,again, no.
This is Mr-AI’s answer…
“The top-selling film camera of all time is widely regarded to be the Canon AE-1 with an estimated 5.7 million units sold”
Smarty pants AI came up with this answer when I asked how many Olympus Trip 35s were sold:
“The Olympus Trip 35 was an incredibly popular camera, and it is estimated that over 10 million units were sold from its launch in 1967 until production ceased in 1984.”
5.7 million vs 10 million? That’s quite a big difference.
But then Kosmo Foto says that the Russian Smena camera outsold absolutely everything else – ever!
I am about as confused as AI is.
And my trust in the technology is even less than before. It’s the same age-old story I suppose…“garbage in garbage out”.
Without the right starting information the answer will be wrong…
Anyway, I’ve worked out where this story is going now. It is nothing more than an excuse to share some of my old Olympus Trip 35 photographs, before I have a chance to pop a roll of film into my “new” to me Trip and shoot off a few frames.
