Digital Camera

Disposable digital camera – these three words fit naturally together in today’s world. After all, in today’s world, everything seems to be disposable and everything is digital, why shouldn’t a camera be, too? But is a disposable digital camera really a good idea? Do the brains that came up with this idea deserve to be saved in jars of formaldehyde and studied for many years to come? My opinion is, “no.”

First of all, if we have so much technology these days, why do we continue to think of ways to make things disposable? Shouldn’t we be coming up with things that will last long for the pleasure and use of many generations to come? Instead, we are coming up with items that will fill our landfills for many generations to come.

Granted, because you have to take your disposable digital camera into a processing center to get the photos, it will not be you, personally, who is disposing of the camera. And, in fact, many of these disposable cameras are recycled or reused almost in full. Nonetheless, in a world of disposable diapers, paper plates, plastic forks, one-day-wear contacts, and so many other things that are meant to be used once and never again, do we really need to add disposable digital cameras to that list?

As far as the “digital” of a disposable digital camera goes, this part is just fine… in theory. Let us first think of why people love their digital cameras: People love their digital cameras because they can take seemingly endless amounts of photos on them. People love to look at their LCD screens and decide immediately whether or not they need to take another photo to really capture the moment. They like to be able to delete the really horrible photos, right on their camera. They love the ease of viewing all of their photos at home, on their own computer.

The problem is, a disposable digital camera does not have any of these things. You can only take a limited amount of photos and you certainly cannot check them out on an LCD screen – that would make the disposable camera way too expensive. And you cannot go back and delete photos (although, many have a feature that allows you to delete the one that you just took – of course, if you cannot see it, how do you know you want to delete it?) And you need to take your camera to a processing center -- you cannot simply set it up on your computer at home.

So, why, would you want a disposable digital camera? I guess that after you pick up your photos from the processing center, you will have them on a CD so that you can put them on your computer – but you can pay a few bucks and get such a disk with a disposable film camera, too. And unless you are a complete film connoisseur, you likely will not be able to tell or care about the difference between the images.

So, for now, I am not a huge proponent of disposable digital cameras. Although, I do believe that they will improve greatly in the future, so I am going to leave myself room to change my mind. For now, though, either buy yourself a disposable film camera, or go out and get an inexpensive digital camera. You will be happier in the long run.

Anne Clarke writes numerous articles for websites on gardening, parenting, fashion, and home decor. Her background includes teaching and gardening. For more of her articles on disposable digital cameras, please visit Disposable Digital Cameras.

Written by: Anne Clarke

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