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My regular-stylee film-based camera is busticated. I have accepted this. It's a fair cop - I think the thing must be about ten years old now. In the long term, I plan to replace it with a digital camera, but I have too much other stuff on at the moment to put proper thought into this, and besides, I'd like to be clearer about my employment prospects for the immediate future before I start shelling out that kind of cash.
So, in order to avoid leaving Belfast without ever having taken a single picture of anybody or anything in all the time I've been here, I decided that in the meantime, I'd buy one of those single-use cameras, just to take a few basic snaps with. In Tesco's this evening, I looked at what they had on offer. Single-use cameras with flash - £6.92. Great.
But wait! What's this? Reusable camera, also with flash, £7.97. What? Surely not? Surely you've missed the bit on the packet where it says 'single use'? *checks about ten times* Nope, I haven't, and the way they've packaged it with a separate film (yes, folks, also included in that bargain price!) next to the camera itself is kind of a hint that it can be loaded up with new films in the future, too.
So now I have come home not with a single-use camera, but with an actual new film-based camera, and it cost me less than I've seen some single-use ones going for elsewhere. OK, so it's manual wind-on, has no zoom function, and is 'focus free' (an abbreviated euphemism which actually means "Your pictures will be completely free of anything which is in any way in focus"). But so would a single-use camera have been.
Hoorah for technical obsolescence and cheap Chinese manufacturing! Anyone in my immediate vicinity for the next month had better prepare to strike a pose.
So, in order to avoid leaving Belfast without ever having taken a single picture of anybody or anything in all the time I've been here, I decided that in the meantime, I'd buy one of those single-use cameras, just to take a few basic snaps with. In Tesco's this evening, I looked at what they had on offer. Single-use cameras with flash - £6.92. Great.
But wait! What's this? Reusable camera, also with flash, £7.97. What? Surely not? Surely you've missed the bit on the packet where it says 'single use'? *checks about ten times* Nope, I haven't, and the way they've packaged it with a separate film (yes, folks, also included in that bargain price!) next to the camera itself is kind of a hint that it can be loaded up with new films in the future, too.
So now I have come home not with a single-use camera, but with an actual new film-based camera, and it cost me less than I've seen some single-use ones going for elsewhere. OK, so it's manual wind-on, has no zoom function, and is 'focus free' (an abbreviated euphemism which actually means "Your pictures will be completely free of anything which is in any way in focus"). But so would a single-use camera have been.
Hoorah for technical obsolescence and cheap Chinese manufacturing! Anyone in my immediate vicinity for the next month had better prepare to strike a pose.
