JJNN 43 July 7th, 2008

Welcome again to JJNN for Monday July 7th, 2008. Today I will be talking about disposable digital cameras.

I found the first story on slashdot and it is given here. It seems that a Japanese company called Plaza Create came up with a new and slightly strange camera idea. I think almost everyone has had one of those days when they went on a trip, but forgot to bring their camera. What do you do at a time like this? Well, most people would either take pictures with the digital camera on their cell phone or maybe go and buy one of those disposable cameras. Plaza Create decided to combine these two ideas by making a disposable digital camera.

Yes. A disposable digital camera. You read that right. Technically it is not disposable, but it is used in the same type of way. A person will buy the camera, take pictures and hand it into a store for developing. The person will never see the camera again, but will get the pictures. The only real difference is the amount of pictures that can be taken. Most disposable cameras come with 24 or 27 pictures, but the digital version can take up to 50 pictures. The camera will also have a resolution of 3 megapixels.

The other difference is price. Most normal disposable cameras cost 1000 yen or less in Japan, but the digital version costs from 1280 to 1980 yen. I guess an extra 280 yen for a few extra pictures is not that bad. To get a copy of the pictures you have to pay 37 yen each. Compared to 10 yen for a normal picture that is a huge increase.

When a person brings in a camera to get the pictures developed the store will take the digital camera and recycle the parts to make another disposable digital camera. I guess that is better on the environment than a normal disposable camera (especially when you take into account the chemicals that are used to develop normal pictures) but it is very expensive. It would probably be better to just buy cheap digital camera and bring it everywhere with you.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 画素(がそ). It is pronounced gaso and means pixel. I remember way back in the day when digital cameras could hardly be rated in megapixels. That was a long time ago. Also, I got to say I like the feel of a film camera better that that of a digital camera any way. There is something about the wurl of the film advancing that I love.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.