As I have mentioned a few times in previous posts, one of the most interesting cameras from the actual toy world was the Fisher Price Creative Effects Fun Photomaker, a funny little, brightly colored camera that uses a paper similar to fax paper (or heat sensitive cash register tape really). It also used cartridges you could plug into it to create other "frames" over your photos, much like this Barbie themed one on eBay right now.
They didn't make very many, and even back then (1997 ish) it was not widely known how cool the pictures were to the lo-fi camera crowd. Those were the early days of the internet, keep in mind. I luckily got one at Toys'r'us off the shelf back then, bought WAAAY more 'film' for it than I will ever use, though luckily i kept many of the cartiridges and you can easily reload it, see instructions from bentstruments.com here
Benstruments.com also has LOTS more info on this camera. They are a good source for lots of these weirder and still usable toy cameras, and their hacked versions as well. Definitely check them out and bookmark them.
Here is what the Creative Effects pictures look like via Flicker...
It is a really fun camera if you can find one and some of the "film" or at least a cartridge to refill. The only draw back to it, like many of these older cameras, is it takes a bit for the photo to print, roughly a minute, and it also plays an annoying song while it is "processing" the image before it prints, sure the song is fun and meant to entertain kids, but it gets old quick (reminds me to look into disconnecting the speaker on mine).
All in all though, a definite Essential Camera to own.
No comments:
Post a Comment