Far less than 1% of what I do photographically these days is done with something other than a DSLR or a cell phone, with the choice between the two depending on whether on not I'm doing "serious" work. Very rarely do I use anything else, but in earlier days I used 110 format film cameras, Polaroids, and regular 35mm film. 35mm is still a viable format, but the other two are long obsolete and no longer viable for anything other than novelty usage. So what to do with the stuff already in my back catalog? The best of it is presented here, along with anything new that I decide to take using similarly obsolete formats and cameras.
$10 keychain camera pictures
In 2007, while I was still completely immersed in film photography, I purchased my first ever digital camera. Measuring about 5.7 x 4 x 1.5 cm in size, it cost about $10 and featured a tiny display and controls so cryptic that reading the manual was absoutely mandatory. I picked it up at CVS or Walgreens, and the pictures it took were just what you'd expect. Still, it was my first foray into the world of digital photography.
(These photos are all shown at actual size of 352x288px resolution, the same as the old VCD video format)
1999 Sony Mavica floppy disk camera
My very first experience with one of these - and, coincidentally, my very first digital camera experience ever, was somewhere around 2002 using one that my educator mom had borrowed from her school. It stored 640x480 resolution photos onto an inserted 3 1/2 inch floppy disk, and the quality wasn't at all impressive compared to what you could get with 35mm film. Being a bit of an (unjustified) elitist, I was decidedly unimpressed. But fast forward many, many years, and I became interested in getting my hands on another one of these in order to have some fun with it. In 2021, I finally acquired one. These photos are absolutely not serious work. The viewfinder on this thing is horrible, with the view through the eyepiece not even close to what is actually being captured on disk.
Polaroids
Unlike the preceding two formats, the Polaroid camera is still somewhat viable, with film for it still being actively produced. When I first picked up a Polaroid camera in 2007, it was because I wanted to get the instant film experience while I still could, as I figured the format was not long for this world. I failed to anticipate the formation of the Impossible Project, a group of enthusiasts based in the Netherlands who made it their mission to salvage the format and make it live on by coming up with an alternative chemical formulation for the film. Today it is still possible to buy new film packs film for 600 and SX-70 Polaroid cameras.
110 format film
The first camera I ever used was a Kodak Instamatic 608, which used 110 format film. Apparently this format is still clinging to life today for hobbyists, but the last time I saw any 110 film cartridges in the wild was in 2010 or 2011 at a Walgreens in Mesquite, Texas. On an impulse I bought several boxes of it, and actually ended up shooting four of them. I still have yet to get it developed.
