disposable

Best Disposable Cameras in 2024

Once a staple of photography for the general populace, disposable (or “single-use”) cameras have become something of a niche -- most people who never stopped shooting film or those younger audiences who are coming to it for the first time choose to use an affordable SLR or point and shoot camera. The image quality is quite superior and a single roll of film is less expensive (though typically not by much) than a disposable camera.

I Spent a Year Refilling Disposable Cameras with Premium Film

My name is Skyler Adams, and I'm a photographer. I’ve noticed that camera communities these days excitedly share news about new cameras, lenses, and lighting equipment, but hardly anyone posts an actual photo anymore. Why?

100 Cameras Were Given to the Homeless in London. Here’s What They Captured.

Cafe Art is a UK-based initiative that aims to connect the homeless with their wider community through art and photography. The project was founded in 2012, and since then they've hung up artwork in more than 20 cafes across London.

Back in July, Cafe Art handed out 100 Fujifilm disposable cameras to homeless people in London, connected them to photography training with the Royal Photographic Society, and asked them to shoot photos with the theme "My London."

Syrian Refugee Children Capturing and Sharing Their Lives with Disposable Cameras

The Syrian civil war has been raging for over four years now, and millions of Syrians have fled their homes and into neighboring countries as refugees. As refugees struggle with basic necessities and figuring out their futures, a new project has popped up to give refugee children a creative outlet and a voice through photography. Hundreds of children have been documenting their tumultuous childhood experience using disposable cameras.

Authenpic Wants to Turn Your Smartphone into a Disposable Camera… Sort Of

Remember the days of the 24 exposure disposable cameras? When you went on vacation or out with your friends, you could pop one of these cameras in your bag or pocket and walk out the door. You snapped one photo at a time, that’s all there was to it: no filters, no #trendy #hashtags, just single snapshots that you couldn’t see until you turned in the camera and had it developed.

For those of you who want to relive those days of disposable glory, there's a Kickstarter campaign that's right up your alley.

ESA’s Disposable Space Camera Will Record and Transmit Its Own Death Upon Re-Entry

The European Space Agency has designed a disposable piece of equipment affectionately referred to as the Break Up Camera. As you could expect from the name, the sole purpose of the camera is to capture it’s own death.

How will it capture its own death though? With the help of a dedicated Infrared camera, hooked up to a storage device that will be contained in a ceramic-shielded Reentry SatCom.

Here, Look: An iOS App for Creating Quick, Disposable Photo Albums to Show Friends

There are those dreaded moments in everyone’s life when you hand your phone over to someone to show them a collection of images you’ve saved or captured on your phone, only to have them continue swiping well past what you intended them to, possibly wandering into dangerous territory.

This, however, could become an issue of the past thanks to a new iOS app called Here, Look.

Using Disposable Cameras as Makeshift One-Time-Use Toy Cameras

When visiting Lancaster, Pennsylvania recently, Portland, Oregon-based photographer Lindsey Boccia made the mistake of not bringing her camera bag along for the journey. Boccia wanted to play around with analog photography, so she decided to buy some disposable cameras.

A quick visit to a nearby camera shop netted her four one-time-use cameras for about $6 each. She then "distressed" them to turn them into experimental lo-fi toy cameras.

Ilford Launches New Disposable Cameras Loaded With Its Black-and-White Film

The camera film industry may be struggling, but there are certain segments that are still profitable. One such niche is the one-time-use disposable film camera market, and Ilford Photo wants a piece of the pie. The company, which makes widely used films, papers, and chemicals, announced two new black & white disposable cameras today.

A Day in the Life of a College Through Ten Disposable Cameras Left Around Campus

Ithaca College, a small private school in New York, recently conducted a fun photo experiment to capture a day in the life of the students on campus. Instead of sending a photographer around to various student hotspots, the student social media team left ten disposal cameras in five locations around campus with a note that read:

Hey, I just left this camera here for the day. Take some fun pictures with you and your friends! I'll be back later to pick it up

At the end of the day, all the cameras were collected, all the film was developed, revealing an "authentic view of a day at Ithaca College."

How to Make a 360° Analog Camera Hat

Mike Warren has written up an in-depth tutorial on how you can build a 360° camera hat using 6-8 disposable cameras. The cameras are worn around the head like a crown, and are simultaneously trigger using a single shutter release with the help of servo motors that depress the shutter when triggered. Warren writes,

With the camera array sitting on your head, you're able to capture a 360° panorama view of your surroundings. This project requires no special electronics knowledge and can be assembled in about an hour.

I designed this camera array off something I saw on the "Radar Detector" music video by Darwin Deez. But, after making the camera hat, everyone kept asking if it was a low-fi version of Google Street View. It's more the former than the latter, but people can draw their own interpretations.

A Review of the IKEA Cardboard Camera

Yesterday I attended a VIP sneak preview of the new IKEA PS designer furniture line in Malmö, Sweden. I was not the slightest bit interested in the designer furniture. I was there for one reason, to play with and acquire the new KNÄPPA, IKEA's cardboard camera.

Photos from Disposable Cameras Left with Notes in Various NYC Locations

A few weeks ago, Brooklyn resident Katie O'Beirne did a weekend project in which she left a disposable camera on a Prospect Park bench with a note asking passer-bys to snap a photograph. After getting the film developed and finding some cool photos, O'Beirne decided to continue with the project, leaving disposable cameras in a number of other spots around NYC. The resulting photographs can be seen on a Tumblr page she set up called "new york shots".

Disposable Camera Captures Its Own Trip Across the United States

Five years ago, web designer Matthew McVickar decided to give one lucky disposable camera a free vacation, sending it through the mail from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Honolulu, Hawaii with the instructions "Take a photo before you pass it on!". When he got the camera back, there were seven photographs taken by various workers in the United States Postal Service that show the cameras journey (and the inner workings of the USPS!).

Mailman Photographs the Dogs That Want to Kill Him

Everyone knows that mail carriers and dogs don't mix very well. San Diego mailman Ryan Bradford decided to document his encounters with the canine adversaries along his route using a disposable ISO 400, 35mm camera purchased from Rite Aid. The delightful photo essay that resulted, titled "All the Dogs Want to Kill Me", shows dogs glaring and barking at Bradford from the other side of fences, doors, and mail slots.