A disposable or single-use camera is a simple

box camera A box camera is a simple type of camera, the most common form being a cardboard or plastic box with a lens in one end and film at the other. They were sold in large numbers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The lenses are often singl ...

meant to be used once. Most use

fixed-focus lens A photographic lens for which the focus is not adjustable is called a fixed-focus lens or sometimes focus-free. The focus is set at the time of lens design, and remains fixed. It is usually set to the hyperfocal distance, so that the depth of fie ...

es. Some are equipped with an integrated

flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Barry Allen) ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Wally West, the first Kid F ...

unit, and there are even waterproof versions for

underwater photography Underwater photography is the process of taking photographs while under water. It is usually done while scuba diving, but can be done while diving on surface supply, snorkeling, swimming, from a submersible or remotely operated underwater v ...

. Internally, the cameras use a 135 film or an APS cartridge. While some

disposable A disposable (also called disposable product) is a product designed for a single use after which it is recycled or is disposed as solid waste. The term is also sometimes used for products that may last several months (e.g. disposable air filte ...

s contain an actual cartridge as used for loading normal, reusable cameras, others just have the film wound internally on an open spool. The whole camera is handed in for processing. Some of the cameras are

recycle Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...

d, i.e. refilled with film and resold. The cameras are returned for "processing" in the same fashion as film cameras. In general the one-time-use camera represents a return to the business model pioneered by

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

for their KODAK camera, predecessor to the Brownie camera; it is particularly popular in situations where a reusable camera would be easily stolen or damaged, when one's regular camera is forgotten, or if one cannot afford a regular camera.

History

A company called Photo-Pac produced a cardboard camera beginning in 1949 which shot eight exposures and which was mailed-in for processing. Cameras were expensive, and would often have been left safely at home when lovely scenes presented themselves. Frustrated with missing photo opportunities, H. M. Stiles had invented a way to enclose 35mm film in an inexpensive enclosure without the expensive precision film transport mechanism. It cost . Though incredibly similar to the familiar single-use cameras today, Photo-Pac failed to make a permanent impression on the market. In 1966, a French company called FEX introduced a disposable bakelite camera called "Photo Pack Matic", featuring 12 photos (4×4 cm). The currently familiar disposable camera was developed by

Fujifilm , trading as Fujifilm, or simply Fuji, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, operating in the realms of photography, optics, office and medical electronics, biotechnology, and chemicals. The offerings from the ...

in 1986. Their QuickSnap line, known as 写ルンです (''Utsurun-Desu'', "It takes pictures") in Japan, used

35 mm film 35 mm may refer to: * 135 film, a type of still photography format commonly referred to as 35 mm film * 35 mm movie film 35 mm film is a film gauge used in filmmaking, and the film standard. In motion pictures that record on f ...

, while Eastman Kodak's 1987 Fling was based on

110 film 110 is a cartridge-based film format used in still photography. It was introduced by Kodak in 1972. 110 is essentially a miniaturized version of Kodak's earlier 126 film format. Each frame is , with one registration hole. Cartridges with 12, ...

. Kodak released a 35 mm version in 1988, and in 1989 renamed the 35 mm version the FunSaver and discontinued the 110 Fling.

Common uses

Disposable cameras are popular with tourists and people traveling around the world to save pictures of their adventures. Since the late 1990s, disposable cameras have become increasingly popular as wedding favors. Usually they are placed on tables at wedding receptions to be used by guests to capture their unique perspective of the event. More commonly they are available in colors to match the wedding theme such as ivory, blue, white, gold, etc. So-called "accident camera kits" containing film-based disposable cameras are increasingly being carried in vehicles to take images as evidence after an

accident An accident is an unintended, normally unwanted event that was not directly caused by humans. The term ''accident'' implies that nobody should be blamed, but the event may have been caused by unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Most researche ...

. The absence of batteries allows instantaneous usage even after extended storage, for example in a glove compartment. They often have cheap plastic lenses, questionable film quality, fixed focal lengths but quick and 'point and shoot' ease make the disposable camera popular with many photographers who enjoy the 'less than perfect' style these cameras provide, in a move away from digital imagery, which can also be seen in the rise in popularity of '

lomography A toy camera is a simple, inexpensive film camera. Despite the name, toy cameras are fully functional and capable of taking photographs, though with optical aberrations due to the limitations of their simple lenses. From the 1990s onward, ther ...

'. This has also led to a number of 'lost art' type projects where disposable cameras are left in public spaces with a message for anyone finding the camera to take some images and then post the camera back, or pass it on to another person. The low cost of the cameras makes them a perfect tool for these sorts of projects.

Digital

Digital one-time-use cameras (and also digital one-time-use camcorders) are available in some markets; for example the US saw the introduction of one such digital camera in 2004. Digital disposables have not had the success of their film based counterparts, possibly from the expense of the process (especially compared to normal

digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices ...

use) and the poor quality of the images compared to either a typical digital camera, or a disposable film camera. Usually, the display shows the number of shots remaining, and once this is completed, the camera is returned to the store. The digital files are then extracted from the camera, and in return for keeping the camera, they are printed out or stored to CD (or DVD in the case of the Video Camera ) for the customer. Almost all digital 'single use' cameras have been successfully hacked to eliminate the need to return them to the store. The motivations for such hacking include saving money and, more commonly, the challenge of overcoming artificial impositions (such as a 25 shot limit on an internal memory that can store 100 images).

Other uses

The high-voltage photo flash capacitors in some cameras are sometimes extracted and used to power devices such as coil guns, stun guns, homemade Geiger counter projects and "RFID zapper" EMP devices.

References

External links