Sometimes an inexpensive, no-frills camera is all you need.
I was recently gifted an Up-Tech 35mm point-and-shoot camera sold by Five Below. The camera comes in a simple white box that looks a little like a very inexpensive imitation of an iPhone box. Inside you'll find the all-plastic camera and a very basic instruction pamphlet.
The price? $7.00.
And your $7 buys you about as simple a 35mm camera as you can imagine.
The Up-Tech is a reusable, fixed-focus 35mm film camera with essentially no exposure controls. There is no autofocus, light meter, adjustable shutter speed or aperture. There isn't even a flash.
Its basic specifications are:
- Lens: 28mm plastic fixed-focus lens
- Aperture: Fixed at f/8
- Shutter speed: Approximately 1/100 second
- Film: Standard 35mm
- Film advance: Manual
- Film rewind: Manual
- Exposure counter: Yes
- Flash: None
- Hot shoe: None
Five Below lists the camera at approximately 3.8 × 2.6 × 1.3 inches, so it really is small enough to toss into a pocket, purse or backpack.
That's about it.
And in some ways, that's part of its appeal.
Load the camera with film, advance the film, point the camera at something and press the shutter button. There are no settings to think about and nothing to adjust.
Putting a Roll Through It
Just for fun, I loaded the camera with a test roll of Harman Kentmere 200 to see how it would perform.
Because the aperture and shutter speed are fixed, your choice of film speed and available light become the camera's exposure controls. ISO 100 or 200 film should be usable outdoors in reasonably good light, while faster film may provide a little more flexibility under overcast or darker conditions.
Obviously, none of this is terribly precise. With a camera this simple, you're relying heavily on the exposure latitude of the film.
As expected, the resulting photos were somewhat soft, particularly toward the edges of the frame. That's hardly surprising considering we're dealing with a simple plastic 28mm lens.
My particular camera also produced a noticeable vertical light leak near the center of several images. Whether this is typical of the camera or simply a defect in my copy, I don't know.
Another characteristic worth keeping in mind is the viewfinder. Reports from other users suggest that the viewfinder doesn't show the entire area captured by the wide 28mm lens, so you may end up with considerably more around the edges of the photograph than you expected.
Here are some of the images from my test roll:
cImage showing the occasional light leak
Better Than I Expected
The photographs were actually not all that bad.
Remember, this is a $7 camera.
Nobody is going to confuse photographs from the Up-Tech with images made using a Leica, Nikon or even a decent 1990s autofocus point-and-shoot. Sharpness is limited, the lens is plastic, exposure is fixed, and quality control may be questionable.
But it does produce recognizable 35mm photographs.
And there's something entertaining about that.
Who Is It For?
Will I use this camera regularly?
Probably not.
But I can think of several situations where a camera like this could be fun.
It might make an interesting first film camera for a beginner or child because there is virtually nothing to learn beyond loading, advancing and rewinding the film.
It could also make a great outdoor party or wedding favor. Load several with inexpensive film, hand them out to guests and let everyone document the event from their own perspective. You might end up with some wonderfully unpredictable photographs.
It would also make a decent little "car camera." Load it with film, throw it in the glove compartment and have it available whenever you unexpectedly want to take a photograph.
Without a flash, however, its usefulness indoors is limited. Even with faster film, I'd consider this primarily a daylight camera.
There's another practical consideration: processing a roll of film can easily cost considerably more than the camera itself. That makes the economics of a $7 film camera somewhat amusing.
Final Thoughts
The Five Below Up-Tech isn't a good camera in the traditional sense.
It's an extremely simple plastic camera with a fixed 28mm lens, fixed aperture, fixed shutter speed and virtually no controls.
But perhaps that's the wrong way to judge it.
For $7, you get a reusable 35mm camera that fits in your pocket and actually takes photographs. It strips film photography down to its absolute basics:
Load. Advance. Point. Shoot.
Sometimes that's enough.
Not bad for $7.
