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.

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: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.'

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.