Like most parents who are photography aficionados, there comes the point where we hope to expose our kids to photography, and this is the same for me, with the 2 young ladies being exposed to cameras since they were 1 year old onwards.
Teaching photography to children | Lynn X Instax mini Tsum Tsum post here.
A 3 and 5-year old’s adventures with cameras post here.
So today, I’ve one more camera to add to the list, which is the Paper Shoot camera by George Lin. Design-wise, this is a pretty exciting camera – quite literally all made out of stone paper for an environmentally friendly slant with pretty legit functions like SD card support, 4 filters which work with a 13 megapixels sensor on a 22mm f2 lens.
In fact, the Paper Shoot camera has a German design nominee 2019 winning nomination and has achieved the reddot award winner (2018), Taiwan excellence 2018, Golden Pin concept award.
In the kit I got, everything you need is provided, except the SD card and AAA batteries. The PaperShoot supports USB-charging, so using rechargeable batts is a good idea.
You receive it in a kit and assemble it yourself. You probably need a maximum of five minutes, with the screws holding the whole setup together. I chucked the provided strap though, it was flimsy.
The Paper Camera is lightweight and easy to use, so you can take it absolutely everywhere (note, its stone-paper so anywhere wet wouldn’t be a good idea)
There are many designs available actually, here’s the nostalgic cassette tape design.
Marketed as a higher-end (aka expensive in my opinion) camera for teens, I find the straightforward design suitable for handling. All one needs to do is to simply use the cut-out for framing and depress the shutter button to capture. (Button under the Letter A)
It’s pretty easy to handle, even for kids.
When you run out of battery, the camera will release a buzzing sound whenever the user tries to depress the shutter button. Easy to remind and frankly, the size and the handling of the Paper Shoot camera
Photo Samples. (here are some photo samples from Lynn and Kei).
Conclusion
The Paper Shoot is a pretty thin device that is very easy to carry around. In comparisons, I have seen larger power banks and wallets. It’s slim and powers up with just two AAA batteries, which will last you a whole day or two if you keep it assembled with the camera.
The SD card support and a USB port, ensure ease of use for uploading photos or simply, recharging on the go.
Paper Shoot camera is a no-fuss gadget that gets the job done. One thing to note is one will not likely obtain the clean photo image quality one has gotten used expect from the much more advanced cameras today, especially in low light situations. But to me, that’s actually the charm of it all. It mimics the feel of early digital cameras (think of the lomographic effect—slightly blurred and distorted on the edges but with a clear render on the center).
While there is the ease of operation with this paper camera, one does need to familiarize oneself with the lens since the viewfinder is pretty much a crude cut-out. But once you grasp how to point and shoot with it, you’ll be able to start snapping easily.
Thank you for reading.
