There is a trend among The Youth
and new parents: a move away from just using their phones to take photos, and embracing cameras that they feel allow them to stay in the moment more. I’ve spent the last year with a Canon EOS R50 to take photos of my daughter, and the last month with the brand new Polaroid Flip.
The two cameras offer vastly different experiences, but both offer the benefit that once you’ve taken the photo you want, there’s no screen to get lost in. You can’t just immediately upload it and then accidentally get distracted by a social media scroll. It also makes it easier to have phone-free days without fearing you’ll miss being able to take a video of baby’s first steps, or photographing a friend in the perfect light.
At the fanciest end of the range in this story is the Canon EOS R50. It’s a mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses that allows people to go deep with exactly how they want their photos to look. But it also allows sleep-deprived novices to take the best photos of their life with almost no effort. You point, shoot, and then marvel at how the scene somehow looks better in the photo than in real life, as though it’s somehow also capturing the emotional magic around it.
It’s easy to transfer the photos from the camera to your phone or a computer, so you can print them and put them in an album. I’ve been using the Canon PIXMA TS9560 home printer when I want the shots to look amazing in any size, and then heading to the Kmart Kodak photo printer area when I’m feeling lazy.
There are photos I’ve captured with the Canon EOS R50 that I’m confident I would never have been able to get with my phone. While it’s true that the best camera is the one you have with you, phone camera sensors can only be so large, and the lenses can only be so fancy without increasing phone size. It’s so easy to see which photos of my daughter were taken on the Canon, and which were taken with my iPhone 16 Pro Max. The quality difference is huge.
At $998 for just the camera and a lens, you’d want it to be pretty great, and that’s a lot of money for someone who isn’t a seasoned photographer to spend. But having seen the photos, and gotten to stay in those moments without a phone getting in the way, I’d say it’s worth every penny for people who take photography (or the subjects of their photography) seriously, even if they’re not really good at it yet.
(Don’t) shake it like a Polaroid picture
On the other end of the scale is the Polaroid Flip. This is not a camera you buy because you want to take the most incredible shots of your life. This is the camera you buy because you like the iconic Polaroid aesthetic, both in the camera and the photos taken.
The instant printouts make it fun to have at a party, and easy to stick in a scrapbook or album without fussing with a printer. I have friends who take photos of their baby with a Polaroid camera most days so they can paste the photo in their diary to help them remember, and create beautiful keepsakes. I love this idea so much.
Plus, remember back in the 90s and early 2000s when we had cork boards with heaps of Polaroids of our friends up in our rooms? It was such a cool tradition.
There’s also something extra special about the experience of taking a Polaroid photo. It’s like a ritual. The physical experience is part of what makes it feel like an occasion rather than just another thumbnail in a digital camera roll you’ll never look at again. Though, of course, you should ignore Andrew 3000 and not shake the Polaroid pictures, merely put them somewhere dark for a while as they develop.
However, the thing that stops me from going all-in on the Polaroid Flip is just how expensive the photo paper is.
I can move past the fact that every photo I’ve taken has been overexposed and generally hasn’t looked amazing. That’s the aesthetic; it’s like complaining that an album on vinyl sounds too warm.
But 16 photos cost $62.95 at full price. That’s almost $4 a photo that you don’t know if it’ll be good. You can buy a 27-photo disposable camera for $28 and then get the photos scanned and printed for $32. The i-Type film gets more affordable if you buy in bulk, with 40 packs going on special for $103.20 (usually $129). But that’s still a commitment after you’ve already shelled out $399 for the Polaroid Flip camera (no film included).
It’s not a dealbreaker, as it still has its place. But it makes the Polaroid Flip more of a special occasion camera, rather than an everyday device.
My foray back into traditional cameras has been a successful one. I still take most photos on my phone, because I’m lazy, and it’s what I have in my pocket. But when I print them, and when I look back, I think it will be the photos I’ve taken on the standalone cameras that I treasure the most. They look better, and the memories around the moment are less blurry because of the lack of screen.
The post Why I went back to the magic of traditional photography appeared first on GadgetGuy.
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