Digital Cameras Go Disposable 221
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.
What's the point? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:economics (Score:2, Insightful)
KidA
Re:I would pay $10 to $20 for this (Score:3, Insightful)
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:same problems as the iOpener? (Score:2, Insightful)
Please, try to remember this. Not all the countries have stupid laws (like DMCA or SSSCA) to avoid this kind of hacking.
There are many other places where you have the right of full free speech (different from limited free speech, AKA as DMCA limitations).
I don't think Dmitri was dumb, he just haven't even imagined that in the so called country of freedom he would have full free speech, just like he have now a days in Russia.
Whats the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
The do have a market... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
They're not selling to us (geeks) ... (Score:2, Insightful)
If you think about 35mm disposable cameras, and the people that use them, they don't own all the equipment that goes along with 35mm because they don't want the hastle and expense of dealing with it. They just want to take some pictures and get their prints made. The same is true for these things. People that don't own computers can still run around taking nice digital pictures that they use either to print out (at the photography shop) or have them put them on a CD to email from a cyber cafe.
We wouldn't use their service because we have our own equipment. Just like 'real photographers' don't use disposable cameras because they have $3,000 Nikon F5s and a spare room turned into a darkroom.
But yea, the quoted resolution is a joke, by anyone's standard. They need to get that up to par with the midrange cameras of today (:
~LoudMusic
Re:8x10 printing? ha (Score:4, Insightful)
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 $600 for a toy-of-no-clear-value).
Digital cameras are cool for learning. I don't have to pay for my bad pictures snap snap snap, I can see almost right away if the shot was good snap snap snap, I can show them to people 3 seconds after I take them snap snap snap. I took about 30 to 50 pictures a day for the first few months after I got the thing. Really. That is in a single week I took more pictures then I use to in a year. And I got kinda good at it. In fact lots of people who take that many pictures tend to get good at it.
Now I have a new hobby, a new reason to spend money, and if computer jobs get scarce enough a new skill :-) (actually most photographers are quite poor, so I think I'll try to avoid that!)
Hmmm, where was I going with all this? Oh yeah, go out and buy a digital camera, but don't expect to stay pleased by 4x6 prints after you get good. I had to buy a film camera a scant six months after the digital! (no, you can't have my digital, it is still my pocket camera, the film one is too bulky to fit in my pocket!)
I see these things Taking Off... (Score:2, Insightful)
Big booth at the front gate, rent camera (place security deposit), wander around shooting stuff. when it's "full" go back, store the pics you want "in booth" and continue on.
End of day get back the security deposit (not refundable if it flys off the Whirlly-Gig and you lose it)
Two options for end of night retreval.
1)Burn to CD (10$ per disk)
2) Print the photo's right away ($1.50 per)
They'd make millions!
Re:Quality will suffer severely- (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Bargains (Score:2, Insightful)
heck they give the cameras away when you buy some cheap computer peripheral like scanners. And the scanners only go for $100-$200.
Its not "disposable", its "renting" (Score:1, Insightful)
If this should be called a "disposable camera", then a car rental agency should be calling its cars "disposable cars".