Dustyrobe: more films part III // spoilt $20 camera

Yes. I wear shoes, and socks to the beach.

But that's not the point. Third blogpost for more films, simply because I felt I should split up the films accordingly to the cameras. This time, it's a $20 camera I bought from Plain Jane Cafe while I was out with Xuan. The camera looked really cute, and it was only $20 so I thought it would be a good idea. Long story short, it was not a good idea.

First off, the flash did not work. Well at least for mine. Shannon bought one as well, and her flash worked just fine. As the cafe was all the way in Serangoon, I was lazy to go all the way back there just to get a refund. After all, the roll of film was already loaded in. So I did the best I could, I would just use this camera in sunlight.

the photo when I realised the flash did not work

Next up, the camera body got increasingly sticky over time. I'm not exaggerating. It honestly felt like the body was melting, which made it kind of gross to hold. But I'm not one to complain about ergonomics like this one. The number one cause for my regret was... the camera broke down halfway. I wasn't even done with the roll. Maybe halfway? But the shutter button just stopped functioning. (Shannon's one worked all the way till the last shot by the way)

But not only that, the rewind button was broken as well. Which meant... the film was trapped in there. Shannon's camera had this problem as well. But good news is, Whampoa Colour Centre can manually remove the film for you without damaging it. What you will get however, are light leaks when the photos are developed. For me personally, that's a win. I love light leaks, and they are impossible to get unless you deliberately open the back of your camera and expose the film to sunlight. And you'll see in all of the photos here that there are orange bits at the sides, those are light leaks. But there are others who think light leaks ruin the photos and their opinions are valid too.

Anyway, colours wise, I didn't really like how they turned out. It was way too muted for my liking. And this post is to simply serve as a warning to not buy way too cheap film cameras. But since it was only $20, I'll simply take it as a lesson learnt. I'll be sticking to my disposable cameras from now on for sure. They never ever let me down and they produce the aesthetics I want all the time. May go back to the Kodak M35 from time to time, but I'm not the biggest fan of loading and rewinding film on that camera, it's way too difficult.

But enjoy whatever photos I managed to get out of this camera and the light leaked goodness. Cheers.