A year or two ago, I became aware of a camera called Papershoot. The concept of it was to replace 35mm point-and-shoot cameras by having a pocket sized point-and-shoot digital camera that has filters that replicate film. I was immediately intrigued.
Earlier this month, I was able to purchase one second-hand on eBay for a good deal. It's the older 16mp version, so is unable to use some of the newer accessories the company provides, but that was fine by me. It has 4 filters built in, that of standard, black & white, sepia and blue-tone, all of which give a unique look to the photos. The gallery below displays each filter in the order described.
Over the past week or two, I've managed to take a few photos on it and have a play around and I wanted to write my thoughts because it's such a unique concept. I really do like it. It's nice to be able to take photos in this sort of style without worrying about wasting film on photos that may not look as good as I had hoped. I can just snap away and enjoy. I like the filters as well, although I am a little disappointed that the filter packs that can be purchased separately online (they plug into the camera like a SIM card) are unable to be used on the older editions of the camera, but on the bright side, that saves me some money!
The camera itself is so simple too, all you need to get going is an SD card and 2 rechargeable AAA batteries. You can charge the batteries via the Micro USB port too (the newer version uses USB-C I believe) which helps keep it simple.
I tried it out in a couple of different conditions. It was nice and sunny at Chatham Dockyard, and the sky was a lovely blue. I like the way the colours came out. Inside the RNLI Museum, it's a bit darker and it has both sky-light and artificial lighting, and it did well with that too. I like the look of the photo of Susan Ashley (photo 3 of the above collage). And of course, it wouldn't be a test of a camera if I didn't photograph my beautiful cat, Ellie. It was so easy to photograph her with this while she was sat on my lap. I didn't have to worry too much about focus as it's just a point-and-shoot.
Overall it's a fun little camera, I think it best serves for walks and days out where you'd like some images to have a film look, but want something that can fit in your pocket and not have to worry about carrying film around or be aware that you're limited with how many photos you can take. This definitely hasn't replaced film for me, I do love film and look forward to the colder months where it may snow, or the odd sunny day where I can have a little walk and play with some expired film. But, I like the ease of use of this camera and it's something a little different. It's a way of taking some photos that look different to your phones images, but you can just keep snapping and not worry too much about it.
(Note, this is not an advert at all, and I am not affiliated with Papershoot. I just wanted to post about a camera I got recently and enjoy)