Disposable Cameras–The New Photographic Success Story

Remember when disposable cameras were all the rage? Before digital cameras (we thought) came along and blew them out of the water? Well, they’re back. And the reason they’re back is the very thing that ousted them in the first place. Disposable cameras are becoming the fun alternative to digital cameras in the same way that digital cameras were once an expensive way to replace disposables. 

How’s that? Well, disposable cameras carry something increasingly unique: film. A person can still buy non disposable cameras that take film (just)–but they’re horrifyingly expensive and pretty difficult to get hold of. And that makes disposable cameras suddenly a niche market item.  Disposable cameras are the only way the average man or woman on the street can still use 35mm film, without that they have to search high and low for the stuff and then pay a small fortune for the privilege of using it. Even the film is difficult to buy, without the body of a disposable camera to hold it in. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a high street store that stocks canisters of 35mm film, and the Internet daily becomes riddled with banners announcing sales of “final stocks”. 

The average man or woman on the street still wants to use 35mm film, it seems. Judging from the surge in popularity experienced by disposable cameras over the last year or so, there’s something about genuine photographic film that digital just doesn’t replace. 

Digital is easy, true, and cheap: it’s also almost indefinitely self-sustaining. With access to a decent memory card (which, these days, costs less than a fiver) and a computer or ‘phone, anyone can store a lifetime’s worth of photos and never have to buy another bit of kit. What digital isn’t, and never will be, is surprising. Not at entry level, anyway. All normally affordable digital cameras allow users to inspect their shots as they are taking them. 35mm film, on the other hand, and the disposable cameras that hold it, doesn’t reveal its mysteries until it has been developed.

That always used to be the magic of photography–that grace period between pressing the shutter release button and picking up a shiny packet of photos from the developer’s store. It’s a magic, judging by the steadily growing sales of disposable cameras, that people aren’t willing to do without. Digital photography might be cheap, easy, convenient and instant:  but some things, like pleasure, are best left with a delay. Thanks to disposable cameras, people who remember the good times can relive that magic for a little while longer.