I Really Cannot Get Over This Tiny Retro Bag-Charm Camera
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Hot tip if you’ll be shopping for anyone who’s even a little bit into photography this holiday season: Kodak recently released a series of retro mini blind-box cameras that look like bag charms but actually work. They’ve already sold out at least once, but are currently available for limited preorder and expected to ship in November.
Inspired by Kodak’s first disposable camera from 1987, the new “Charmera” is a key-chain-size digital camera that can shoot both photo and video. It’s quite tiny for a working device, just a couple inches long, but it still manages to squeeze in a minuscule viewfinder, a flash, and the equivalent of a 35mm lens.
Perhaps the most genius part, though, is that it comes in seven retro designs sold Labubu style — you won’t know which one you got until you open the package. And even though it’s based on a decades-old single-use film camera, it’s got an internal battery that recharges via USB-C and a microSD card slot so you can take and store thousands of digital images (just note that there’s no internal memory, so you’ll have to buy a memory card separately to use it).
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I haven’t tried a Charmera myself, so I can’t vouch for the photos it takes. But you should definitely expect images with “vintage charm” rather than high definition and perfectly balanced exposure — according to Kodak, photos will have a resolution of about 1.6 megapixels. There are also four creative “frames” (like the edges of a film strip), an optional date and time stamp, and seven filters you can apply to your shots, if you’re so inclined.
The appeal of the Charmera is undeniable as a novelty gift for someone who’s interested in or nostalgic for analog photography. (In that sense, it feels similar in spirit to the Camp Snap digital camera that my colleague Winnie Yang has come to love.) There’s no telling how long the current preorder will last, though, so if you know someone who would love one to play around with or would like a cool blind-box key chain to open and hang on their bag, it’s a true Don’t Dillydally moment.
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