Last month, Kodak introduced a single-use camera loaded with its iconic Tri-X black-and-white film. It got a lot of news coverage in the film-photography community.
I don’t buy the hoopla. Single-use cameras aren’t all that useful, and they’re certainly not economical.
The Tri-X Single-Use Camera costs about $15, and offers 27 exposures. Ilford also offers a single-use camera with HP5 Plus inside; it costs about $12. And both Fujifilm and Kodak offer single-use cameras with ISO 400 color film inside. I’ve seen them available for anywhere between $12 and a whopping $20.
Why buy one when you can buy an old point and shoot camera for under $20 at a thrift shop, load a roll of film of your choice — and reuse the camera? Even the simplest point and shoot probably has a better lens than any single-use camera, and you’d be money ahead after only a few rolls of film.
I can think of only one reason to buy a camera like this: you need a camera but don’t have one on you. It happened to me once. I had flown to Washington, DC, on business. On arrival I learned that an illness had postponed my meetings by a day. I had a whole day to myself, and I’d never been to DC before! I stepped into a drug store and bought a single-use camera, and then took the subway to the National Mall to do some sightseeing. (I stumbled upon a mostly struck set from the movie Forrest Gump that day; read that story here.) Here’s a photo I made of the U.S. Capitol with that camera.
But this happened in 1993, long before all of us had a camera phone in our pocket. Today I’d just use my iPhone. It’s not my favorite camera, but neither was this single-use camera I bought. Both would have gotten good enough shots for an unexpected day as a tourist.
I think disposable cameras sell primarily to people with too much disposable money.
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