Disposable Digital Cameras Have Arrived 585
damiangerous writes "American chain Ritz camera has begun offering disposable digital cameras for $10.99. The price includes 4x6" prints and a Photo CD of the camera's 25 photo memory. Pictures can be deleted, but there's no LCD."
It's not disposable... it's reusable. (Score:5, Informative)
Ritz Camera store where the pictures inside are downloaded to a CD
or printed. The camera itself is kept by Ritz and recycled to another
customer. In other words your $10.99 is a _rental_ of the camera
with processing of the pictures included in the rental price.
There's a picture of one of these cameras here [technogadgets.com].
The USA Today article has some more details [usatoday.com]
on the camera and its use including the fact that it is likely to be sold at Walgreens
and Walt Disney theme parks (seems like a good idea to me).
The camera has a 2-megapixel sensor.
John.
Misnomer? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Same thing (Score:3, Informative)
You can delete pictures and shoot them again. Can't do that with a film-based camera.
Found out how they do that..... (Score:4, Informative)
One is properity IR connection. The other is a headphone jack that somehow sends/receives data. And it DOES connect through a usb dongle to either type of camera.
More information and pictures here (Score:5, Informative)
3 Seconds? (Score:2, Informative)
Standard framerate for film is 24 frames per second. If you want to slow it down to two seconds, you need to shoot 48 successive frames in the course of one second and then play those back at the standard 24 per second, so to get 3 seconds, you'd actually need 60 cameras.
And 60 at $10 a pop (not counting tax) has already got you up to $600...and that's not counting the equipment to synchronize all 60 of those camera's to fire on cue.
Re:PKI = unhackable (Score:2, Informative)
My GSM phone, which cost me nothing, has crypto cabilities. Surely my phone wasn't free to the manufacturer, so they must be making it up on the service. Same thing could apply here.
In Japan for at least 18 months (Score:5, Informative)
Rich.
Re:It's not disposable... it's reusable. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I just bought two of these at Ritz. (Score:2, Informative)
I never did find any Cue Cats at Radio Shack. They were always out.
Real price is $21.98 for 25 prints (Score:5, Informative)
New! Available in June in selected areas
- Delete & Retake last shot
- self timer
- Return the camera to Ritz Camera or Wolf Camera and get:
-- 25 hires prints
-- index print
-- Your pictures on a Big-e CD
$10.99 Camera Only
Digiprint processing package: $10.99 (Frequent Foto Benefits not applicable)
Avalable at selected stores in the following areas: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Birmingham, Chicago, Dallas, North Carolina, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Tenessee, Washington DC.
I talked to the lady in the store, and she said that only the stores with a Pioneer system would be able to process it (whatever that is). There was only one store in the RTP area that had this, and they were already closed at 7:45 pm.
Re:It's not disposable... it's reusable. (Score:3, Informative)
Not the CMOS sensor like the Canon D30 and D60, but a buffed version of the teensy ones in cellphones like Omnivision's [ovt.com] and Pictos (ESS Tech)'s [pictos.com].
Re:It's not disposable... it's reusable. (Score:5, Informative)
The camera costs $10.99, and then the photo processing is another $10.99. The camera contains no LCD, but you can delete the last picture taken. The image is still stored on regular film, and the capacity is 25 images. There is a self-timer on it for when you want to take pics and have yourself in it. That's pretty much it. The camera's film is unloaded by Ritz personnel, and the empties are sent back to the manufacturer to be reloaded with new film.
Aside from the ability to delete the last picture before it's stored on film and the self-timer, there's nothing new about them. However, the ability to kill that picture you know sucked might be worth the extra dollar or two.
Re:Cheap rental (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong. The camera does use film. I've read about these in "Popular Photography and Imaging." Though the images may be captured digitally, they are stored on plain old 35mm film.
Re:SPCA504B Based camera! Linux Drivers Available (Score:2, Informative)
Pin - Signal
__________
10 - Ground (Black)
9 - Data+ (Green)
8 - Data- (White)
6 - Voltage (Red)
9 and 8 might be swapped. I can't tell for sure. With the wires attached as above, when plugged into a USB port (without batteries) the LCD on the camera says "PC" and the green LED stays lit. Windows gives an error that it can't recognize the device, won't let you install a driver. I haven't made any progress under Linux.