All photos © John K. Putnam
1. Dragon Ball Z Spaceship Camera
Interchangeable slides inside this anime-themed camera allowed you to give your images special cartoon frames, as demonstrated:
2. Game Boy Camera
Amazingly, when released in 1998 this was the world’s smallest digital camera!
If you hooked up the additional Game Boy printer it also allowed you to print incredibly low-res (14,000-pixel!) Game Boy style photos:
4. The Snoopy-Matic
This, from 1980, is just fantastic.
5. Can cameras
Cameras hidden inside bodies that mimicked aluminium cans were around from the 1970s to the 1990s.
5. The Pokemon Camera
From 1999. The blurb: “Capture the action on film of your favorite Pokemon adventure as Pikachu’s immense electric charge puts the camera into focus and takes a picture! A special Pokemon border with all 150 Pokemon will magically appear on each photo.”
6. Biscuit camera
This delightful curio from Japan takes 2MP pictures and boasts a maximum aperture of f/2.8.
Did we mention it’s shaped like a biscuit? Can’t emphasise that part enough.
7. Lego Digital Camera
Three-million pixels, a built-in flash, and it’s made of Lego. What more could you ask for?
For more amazing instant cameras, check out the book “Camera Crazy” by Christopher Salyers and Buzz Poole. It’s available now from Prestel and costs £19.99.
