Digital Cameras Go Disposable

iforgotmyfirstlogon writes: "Three Japanese companies are trying to make money off "disposable" digital cameras. You pay for using the camera, take it back to the store to get your pictures, and they recycle the camera so someone else can use it CNN story here. I think it's just a matter of (little) time before hordes of enterprising geeks figure out how to get the pics out and reuse it without paying the fee, or simply gut the camera for parts. Can't see how they'll make money..." And at $16 for .3 megapixels, this sounds like more of a novelty than a bargain, considering that 4-megapixel cameras are available now for less than a thousand dollars.

Comments

I would pay $10 to $20 for this

[WillSeattle]

Seriously, I'd love to rent a high-end digital camera, cause I can't justify wasting more than $300 on buying something I don't use that often.

But I'd love to rent one when I have guests from out of town, fill it up with pictures of us doing the town, take it back and get the pictures.

Will they be offering those digital movie cameras too? This is something I'd also be willing to rent, take it on a short trip, maybe film a ski trip with friends, then turn it in.

Re:I would pay $10 to $20 for this

[DShor]

I don't think that the issue is whether or not people will pay the $16 or what have you for the camera. The issue is whether the company will lose money on people hacking the cameras. Remember, if they can get in to get your pics (even if they encrypt the data), you can get in too. It's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to get the pics out, and/or bypass whatever security measures are in place.

The only way I see this working is if they place a hold on your credit card for the value of the camera. The problem is, most people won't want a $300+ hold on their card just for this.

Besides, at $10 to $20 per use, you could've bought your own unlimited use digital camera after 15 or so uses of which you would probably need 4 or so uses per trip. It just doesn't pay.

Re:I would pay $10 to $20 for this

[stripes]

Seriously, I'd love to rent a high-end digital camera, cause I can't justify wasting more than $300 on buying something I don't use that often

These are not high end, 0.3Mpixels is not enough to make a good 4x6 print (2.1Mpixels is more then enough).

Places like Penn camera do rent high end digital cameras (Nikon D1, D1h, D1x, Canon EOS-D30, and I would assume the EOS-1D in a few months), but they run more like $100 to $300 a day (oddly enough a weekend is one "day").

I think you are going to be better off "renting" one of the disposable film cameras. The quality from them is pretty bad (far worse then a good $100 film P&S like the Stylus, or T4), but a lot better then 0.3Mpixels!

Bargains

[dmorin]

You're telling me that of all the people who might benefit from a digital camera, that the majority will see 4megapixels for "under a thousand" as the better buy? For a large part of the universe, "under a thousand" could very well mean "more than I paid for the whole PC in the first place". When the heck did our perspective on price get to be so...so....so Rain-Man? How much is geek toy X? Bout a thousand dollars.....

We got my dad his digital camera about 4 years ago. Cost like $400. I'm sure its resolution is a tiny fraction of what can be done now. But he's gotten 4 years out of it and is still going strong. He's still the hit of the family parties. Still the only one in the immediate fam that even has one. If we're at a point now where the disposal version can do even a piece of what his can, I'm sure they will be an instant best seller, not a novelty.

Re:Bargains

[stripes]

I don't think I could find a use for anything greater. 2megapixels is 1200x1600, which is full screen at the resolution I run at

In a word: printing

2Megapixels from most digital cameras (say the Canon PowerShot 100) will not make a good 8x10 print. The Nikon D1 is a pretty big exception, it's 2.7Mpixels can make decent 8x10 prints, you have probably seen some on the cover of Newsweek or Time. However it has exceptionally noise free images (as does the EOS-D30, Nikon D1x, and Nikon D1h, and some of the other $2000+ digital cameras).

Another good reason to have excess pixels is for cropping. Most good photos have their subject off center, like about 1/3rd over and up or down. Most cameras either only have a central focus point, or have the best focus point at the center, so cropping is useful. It is also useful if your viewfinder doesn't show a 100% view...

Wander over to DP review (digital photography, not double penetration) and see how disappointed people are that the new Canon EOS-1D has only 4.1Mpixels!

Re:Bargains

[stripes]

But not many people print 8x10s. 4x5 or 5x6 is as big as the average person goes.

Yes, but see my reply to the other message almost like yours. Also for no apparent reason large digital prints seem to cost less then large wet prints, er film prints. Like $10+ for a 8x10 or 8x12 from film, vs. $3 at ofoto.com, shutterfly.com, or any of a dozen (down from 100 last year) other places. Oh wait, that's the reason ".com" :-)

The lower cost may give some incentive to having larger prints made.

Even if not, it is pretty nice for ray tracings (my former hobby), ofoto even does 16x20 prints now...

that's a laugh...

[Sj0]

And at $16 for .3 megapixels, this sounds like more of a novelty than a bargain, considering that 4-megapixel cameras are available now for less than a thousand dollars.

Yeah! I mean, for the low price of 50 of these, you could buy a high end camera!

Seriously, high definition isn't really as important as an accurate picture. even a decent 640x480 picture is fine, as long as the picture is accurate(no glitchy pixels). my USB webcam sucks in this regard except outdoors in summer (and even then it's not always a sure thing). Spending 16 bucks for a camera to go on vacation and take a few pictures sounds fine.

Re:Why worry?

[dillon_rinker]

The manuyfacturer is not the copyright holder. The photographer is. Those disposable cameras from Kodak "encrypt" photographs by storing them in an unusable state, substituting for each color the complementary one. (They call these "negatives"). Kodak develops (or could, anyway) the pictures for you but does not hold the copyright.

I suppose it would be possible to award the copyright to the manufacturer in the rental agreement, rendering my point moot.

Ooo, I almost hate to say it...

[dmorin]

But it seems like one way they could make money is to offer some sort drop off / email service where you turn in the camera, and then they email you the pictures. Of course, that means that you have to give them your valid email, thus automatically opting you in to whatever evil schemes they have in mind.... :-/ I don't particularly love the idea, but I've also watched people with traditional cameras who rush to the 1hr place, and then gleefully proclaim "The pictures are ready! Let's go get them!" so to these people the idea of having the pictures show up right on your home PC would be a major win. It would never even occur to them what else it's costing them.

Duane

(Note, on that "automatically opt in" thing. While I don't agree with it, it's the logic that a "bulk email provider" friend of mine used on me once: register with a company and you are implicitly opting in. Yeah, sure. Glad she's out of work now :))

What a great idea!

[BillyGoatThree]

Here I am, like a fool, with a digital camera I spent $250 on and requires me to own a computer with a "hard drive" and "monitor" and "serial port". Instead of that massive outlay I could instead pay $15/pop for the priviledge of driving back and forth to the store for my digital picture needs. The more I use it, the more I save!

Whats the point?

[chinton]

I guess I'm missing the point. The reason I have a digital camera so I don't have to bring anything anywhere to get my pictures. I don't see how this is any better than buying a disposable camera and then bringing it to a 1-hour photo lab. Am I missing something?

Quality will suffer severely-

[purduephotog]

I work for an imaging company...

At 0.3 megapixel, or 640x480, you are BARELY able to make a full resolution screen image. Yes it will probably look OK on that screen, but the typical person can see to 150 lpi (lines per inch)- benchmarking on that your print will be roughtly 3x4 inches.

Now, without even going into the sensor... the size that the image could be safely res'd up is probably 1.5, which gets you to the magic 4x6 print that consumers have come to expect.

Don't think about it going to 8x10 without some serious degradation. JPG artifacts alone will prohibit that sort of enlargment- blocking artifacts, clipping...

I think for parts the camera might be on the right track, but this has got to be the wrong approach.

I'd go into the other issues like noise, light sensitivity (speed), robustness... alignment... but i think that would rather bore most people.

Re:Quality will suffer severely-

[Shotgun]

My GAWD!!

Excuse me for just a moment while I rant, but every time we get a story about some sort of technology that deals with human perception such as sound or sight, we have to have someone who steps up to the plate and explain how the quality sucks.

For instance, in nearly every article about MP3s, we have people telling us how badly the MP3 format trashes CD quality; blithly ignoring the fact that the majority of the people out there listen to those MP3 out of $10 speakers stuck to the side of their monitors which are fed by a $5 SB(arely)Live chipset stuck on their motherboard.

Heh, buddy, here's a clue. Nobody gives a shit!!

These cameras won't be used for artclass. They'll be used by drunk-assed people to take pictures of their mates at company parties. Would you want ultra-clarity in THAT picture? Most people take their drugstore developed snapshots and cram them in a shoebox at the bottom of a mouldy closet for years before ever looking at them. Do you think they give a shit that their yellowed picture of their college graduate when he was standing at the plate in little-league is a little grainy? Here's a little help with the question. NO!!! Hell, they want to remember that he was the one who won the league championship for the team, instead of what he really did which was act as lead benchwarmer. (The great thing about memories is that they get better with the fading 8*)

So take your chitzy "I work for an imaging company..." ass out of here, along with your "MP3s sound bad" buddies, because the rest of us have priorities that rank 'trying to decide if a pic is 150lpi vs 160lpi' right there at the bottom with 'trying to decide if I should rip at 128 or 146 bit.'

The do have a market...

[Once&FutureRocketman]

And at $16 for .3 megapixels, this sounds like more of a novelty than a bargain, considering that 4-megapixel cameras are available now for less than a thousand dollars.

No they're not a substitute for one's personal primary camera. But they're excellent for two applications:

1) Taking pictures in places that put the camera at significant risk (hiking, rafting, Burning Man)

2) Handing out to lots of people -- i.e. weddings -- without spending a bunch of money.

Re:same problems as the iOpener?

[ichimunki]

From linked article which you did not read: Customers are under no obligation to return the camera to the store or collect their prints, once the service fee is paid.

It's not a camera rental, it's a camera purchase. But once you have used up the frames, you have no further use for the camera body since you cannot reset it yourself (just like with disposable 35mm cameras, which you cannot reload easily by yourself), so you may as well let the store re-use the camera body because in theory they are the only ones who can reset it.

Personally, I'd rather see camera stores rent out high-end digital cameras and offer to burn the images to CD-ROM for me (replaces negatives) and make some high-quality prints on glossy paper... the cost of maintaining all that (camera, burner, printer) at home is not cheap, and printing the images is a pain. But I *would* be willing to pay around $1 an image for processing and probably an up-front fee of about $10/day for use of the camera.

But as I ponder this business model, I don't see a good way to recoup the cost of the capital required to purchased the high end computers the shop would need and the cameras themselves without trying to provide additional services to people who have their own cameras. And people with their own digital cameras tend to have their own computers right now, otherwise I think most consumers are fine with analog film. I suppose the massive advantages of digital would have to appeal (i.e. no dust, no negative to degrade, PhotoShop filters-- have all your beach shots look like Monets!-- that sort of thing) for people to want a digital camera that they wouldn't use on their home computer (if they even had one).

Re:8x10 printing? ha

[stripes]

Ya know, there's a -lot- of us out here that use relatively cheap cameras for 4x6 pictures taken at birthday parties.. Not everyone out there is looking for 8x10 prints.

I don't disagree that most pictures are only printed at 4x6, or even that most pictures not only don't deserve to be 8x10, but many don't even deserve to be printed :-)

However if you get a really nice shot, whether it is via luck, or skill, it is nice to be able to have a reasonable size print.

Oh, and if you own a film camera and never got anything you want bigger then 4x6, don't assume it will be so with digital. I had a few film cameras over the years. I tended to shoot a roll or two on vacations and family gatherings and the like, never get anything astoundingly good, and put the camera away for months. Sometimes long enough to lose it (thus the "few" in "few film cameras"). Then I got a digital camera (because the new economy was still working for me, and I had $600 for a toy-of-no-clear-value).

Digital cameras are cool for learning. I don't have to pay for my bad pictures snap snap snap, I can see almost right away if the shot was good snap snap snap, I can show them to people 3 seconds after I take them snap snap snap. I took about 30 to 50 pictures a day for the first few months after I got the thing. Really. That is in a single week I took more pictures then I use to in a year. And I got kinda good at it. In fact lots of people who take that many pictures tend to get good at it.

Now I have a new hobby, a new reason to spend money, and if computer jobs get scarce enough a new skill :-) (actually most photographers are quite poor, so I think I'll try to avoid that!)

Hmmm, where was I going with all this? Oh yeah, go out and buy a digital camera, but don't expect to stay pleased by 4x6 prints after you get good. I had to buy a film camera a scant six months after the digital! (no, you can't have my digital, it is still my pocket camera, the film one is too bulky to fit in my pocket!)

Doomed to fail because...

[Asikaa]

...the only reason anyone uses digital cameras is to take "those" kind of pics without getting a strange look from the photo shop clerk when you pick up your photos. :)

Er... no, that just looks like a well-buttered hamster... Wow... er, my neighbor must've borrowed the camera... no, I don't have any idea how that goat got in the shot.

Tsk - it's bloody cheap!

[Lars T.]

And at $16 for .3 megapixels, this sounds like more of a novelty than a bargain, considering that 4-megapixel cameras are available now for less than a thousand dollars.

But if you buy 13 of them, you can build your own 3.9-megapixel cam for just $199!

Sounds like an eventual money maker

[Mr T]

I think it's a pretty cool and good idea. It's in the same vein as the disposable conventional cameras, I thought those were stupid and they are huge money makers for the film companies. I can get an APS camera that will take decent, not great or really even good pictures but decent ones (the smaller negative makes them more grainy) do the zooming and stuff, take 3 sizes of picture and be drop in loadable for somewhere between ~$70 and ~$400 depending on features and quality. Or I can buy a $5 disposable and for a lot of uses the disposable is much nicer even though it doesn't take great pictures. The way I see it, if I'm climbing a mountain and something goes wrong and I have to start dropping balast, I'd rather lose a $5 or even $10 disposable than my $200 (3 years ago) Nikon APS camera. If I'm on the bike and take a digger, I'd rather break the little kodak throw away then anything I've spent real money on and plan on keeping, which is ironic because when I bought the $200 Nikon instead of the $300 tiny Cannon elf my thinking was that I didn't want to spend that much money because I wanted something I wouldn't mind replacing as much. I wanted to take it every where, or so the intention was.

Now I've got a wicked sweet digital camera and I love it. It's a blast because you get nearly instant gratification and you can email the pictures to the relatives the same day rather than waiting to develop them and then scan them or pay for copies. Unless you're some kind of photgraphy buff, a 2-4Mpixel camera is going to be more than good enough for most of your uses, you snap the pics, download them to the computer, put them on the web or email them to the fam and then you take some more. It's highly cool. The only problems I see, a) still complex to get pictures in to the computer, your average grandmother is going to have some issues. b) Still a bit costly. c) this one is only a partial problem but my 3MPixel camera takes pictures that are too big for most uses, I've written a bunch of scripts to down sample them before I put them on the web or mail them and I usually use the compressed mode on the camera, the typical fun snaps user doesn't need 2048 x 1024 x 32bpp TIFF

I think this is an awsome idea. The pictures are going to be of lesser quality, no question about that. But if my grandmother can get them transfered to a CD (presumably, she could go to the drug story, drop off the camera, shop for 10 minutes and then pick up the disc) at minimal cost and the initial outlay is minimal then it starts getting interesting. Assuming there isn't a deposit or something, that would be the camera I'd take scuba diving and on the bike, or just leave in the glove box of the car in case there is a kodak moment. It's not going to be the geek's camera, those of us who pay attention and are technologically minded are still going to fork out the dough and get a nicer digital camera just like we have with conventional cameras but for people who just want to take pictures and share them with their families I bet this is the wave of the future.

If they make vending machines that put the pictures on to CDs right then and there then forget about it, they will essentially replace cameras. There maybe some screwing around with the prices but the economics are just too good. You have any idea how much a photo developing machine costs? You could build a digital camera vending machine out of off the shelf parts, from that fact alone there is economic insentive to make this happen. Also if you look at the digicam market over the last few years, they've steadily got better but the costs haven't really dropped that much, I think you can build the lower res cameras for dirt cheap these days. This idea as incarnated may not work but I think the bigger idea of disposable digicams is a winner.

Consumers dont really care that much for quality

[grahamsz]

Realistically i dont see that the quality will be THAT big a deal. My mother's main complaint with her digital camera is that the pictures are too big when she downloads them from it!??

If you care about quality then why would you be using digital anyway. I appreciate that there are some very high MP cameras, kodak's digital back should be 16MP if they've realeased it yet and some other company produce large format cameras that were touching 100MP (last i looked) for reprographics use.

My scanner will pull 8MP from a 35mm frame and that doesn't look close to maxing out the definition that the negative has. Yet how many home users ever blow photos up beyond 5x7". In fact the recent APS situation made it shockingly clear how happy the average guy on the street was to sacrafice quality in place of gimicks and convenience.

I suspect that the worst part about these is that the images will suffer from low light noise, poor colour balance and lens distortion. The MP count (imho) is a lesser factor.

Oh and if i'm out clubbing with my friends then 640x480 is a fine resolution, but if i'm capturing shots of wildlife or panoramic landscapes then I sometimes find my 2700dpi optical scanner limiting.

Once I get a bit of cash saved up i'm going to buy a small digital camera for casual photography, and a 5x4" large format system with a black cloth over my head for when quality is the overriding factor.

Re:HERE'S THE POINT

[chinton]

Its not really clear in the article that you can take more than 24 pictures... At the beginning it says:

At the store, they can view all the photo images on a display screen and choose any 24 images to be printed.

But later:

The camera is equipped with a flash and 8MB of flash memory, which allows users to record 24 images.

They also don't state whether or not you can delete pictures from the camera before you bring it back. Being able to do that would let you get 24 (relativly) perfect pictures for your $16.