When Cameras Went Weird
This originally appeared as part of my weekly Prime Lenses Newsletter. You can sign up for a weekly update here.
The simple 35mm film canister. Once the beating heart of what most people would think of if you said the word camera, had a side effect upon camera design. Like any consumable it dictated size and to a large extent the function of the myriad cameras that used it. For decades a camera couldn’t be smaller than medium format, 35 or 110 film.
Then digital happened and heralding in this new age of instant image making came another delicious benefit. Cameras could be weird shapes! In recent years I feel like that’s gone away with one generation of Sony, Canon or Leica body looking and handing much like the previous one so I wanted to highlight some of my favourite oddballs from over the years.
Google’s quirky Clips camera is lost to time and e-waste. It was supposed to be moved around your house or worn and it would take pictures of you/ for you. Bit creepy, terrible quality, didn’t last.
Sony are often ahead of the curve but in this case this misread the map and recognised that everyone would use their phone as a camera, but thought that would only happen provided it had a better camera attached. The QX cameras were super cool and super weird. The whole camera was basically in something that clipped to your phone and was the size of a mirrorless lens.
In the early days of digital Nikon decided for some reason that they should make digital cameras that folded flat, a bit like the original Polaroid SX-70 I suppose. I have a 950, there’s still something cool about using it even though the images it makes are very poor by 2024 standards.
They really committed to the bit with a host of twisty-turny cameras that enabled selfies and exciting new angles. Largely redundant now thanks to flippy screens and smartphone control apps. I’ve always enjoyed how weird these cameras were. Look at this coolpix when it’s folded down though. Super practical to travel with.
I came up through digital so have a lot of affection for the attempt to do more with the humble camera. In a lot of ways these were the precursor to modern phones we carry. Doing all sorts of things for us in one small package. I’ll end on the Finepix 40i, I’d love to get my hands on one of these. Look at the advert for it from 2000.
Camera with a fabulous Super CCD sensor or MP3 player? How about both in one handy package! Go take a look at the images in the DPReview article from the time. They’re not bad, you know. I’m going to check out ebay.
World Class Technology
The Olympics are in full swing and Petapixel has this articleabout some of the technology behind the images we’re seeing at the games this time around. In particular I was blown away by the Pre-Capture feature on the Sony A9III. It captures images up to a second before you pressed the shutter so you don’t miss the shot.
Well worth a read to learn how things have changed in a relatively short time. Sports is one of the few areas where I think new technology really enables new types of image making.
