Friday, 2 September 2011

The Wonderful World of Toy Cameras.



Dug this little gem out of the cupboard when I moved house. Got it at a car boot for 50p ages ago under the naive belief it was a real SLR…how wrong I was. Nevertheless I’ve just had a go with it and to be honest…it’s pretty damn good. There’s a lot of talk online about this camera (affectionately known as the Nippon ‘Crapcam’ in some circles). Basically from what I’ve gathered, it’s a cheap China-made thing that mimics the look of a real (I’m guessing Nikkon) SLR.

Here is a selection of shots using a Kodak ColourPlus 200 film taken on Holkham beach in Norfolk.













It’s lovely having a zillion camera apps trying to digitally replicate the charm of an analogue print (like Instagram and Hipstermatic), but why not just go for the real thing? It’s refreshing to see analogue cameras coming back into fashion (with brands such as Lomography and Polaroid) in a saturated sea of digital mimicry.

With old school cameras, there’s something nice about anticipating the outcome of a print when it’s developed. What will it look like? Nobody knows.One of the best things I discovered with this camera is when someone instructs me to delete a potentially embarrassing photograph I respond,

I can’t…it’s film.

This then raises the notion that we can achieve more honest photos with analogue. My toy camera adventure begins! Black and white film next...

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