“Due to a global chip shortage (thanks AI), inventory is limited.” So reads the jarring, red-and-white banner that runs across the top of the Camp Snap homepage. And in that one, nearly throwaway line you get a fairly complete sense of what the Camp Snap is: We know that the device, even a year on from its Instagram-fueled explosion in popularity, is frequently snapped up by buyers to the point that finding one is a challenge. We know that Camp Snap has enough of a sense of humor to show some personality in its swipe against AI, more so than a purely corporate brand that’s had all the humor mechanically drained out of it. And, lastly, that it tells us that while it emulates analog traits, it’s still a digital camera. Yeah, by design there’s no screen, so that you can stay in the moment more when you’re taking shots and not be drawn in by the false idol of perfection, tweaking and analyzing and retaking your shots so much that you spend more time with your head bowed to your camera than taking in the scenery.taken with the camp snap. What you see through the viewfinder isn’t exactly what you get, and there’s no way to immediately check the image once you take it. That’s the point. — credit: Matt jancerBut it’s still a digital camera. It isn’t just people searching out the best dumbphones, turntables, and film photography. People are hungry for devices that don’t separate them from life, and the Camp Snap delivers. With no screen, you don’t get to obsess over analyzing your composition to see if you need to reshoot it (again and again). You don’t get to edit it right then and there on your camera as you zone out from the beach day, birthday party, or Christmas morning. You take the picture and move on. Snapping photographs becomes an accessory to your day, rather than the other way around. Sounds tempting. To try it out for myself, I went walking around Brooklyn to see if the Camp Snap could keep me from feeling like a spectator to my own afternoon.TL;DR – My Quick VerdictLots of the stuff I test for work, I rarely encounter in the real world. And when I do it’s being used by an enthusiast, somebody else as tapped into the tech scene as I have to be for work. The Camp Snap is different. People I know, even people I don’t know and just see wandering around parks and working from cafés, have Camp Snap cameras by their sides.One of my most tech-allergic friends bought one for herself, right after another friend—the most talented professional photographer I’ve ever known—eagerly wrapped his mitts around my Camp Snap to see how it compared to the smörgåsbord of cameras, Y2K old-tech and cutting edge alike, in his photographer’s quiver.The Camp Snap has a nearly universal appeal. No, it doesn’t shoot the best photos. It doesn’t even come close to that five-year-old iPhone in your pocket. That’s not the point of it. The point of it is that with it you don’t need to exercise restraint to keep yourself from zoning out and obsessing over your photos. The Camp Snap won’t let you, by design.(opens in a new window)Camp SnapCamp Snap Screen-Free Digital Camera(opens in a new window)Available at AmazonBuy Now(opens in a new window)Available at WalmartBuy Now(opens in a new window)Available at Camp SnapBuy Now(opens in a new window)how i testedSpringtime is beautiful in New York City. Not enough people say that, but it’s true. My already highly photogenic city (anywhere is photogenic in the right light, honestly), becomes the belle of the ball when the weather gets mild enough for us to quit complaining about the biting cold, but not yet sweltering enough for us to start complaining about the bone-marrow-melting heat and humidity. It’s a narrow window of time.I wandered around Brooklyn, down through the neighborhoods of Bushwick and Bed-Stuy, on my way to meet with a few photographer friends for coffee. On the way I snapped pictures in all sorts of lighting as the afternoon disintegrated into twilight, indoors and outdoors, to see how it compared to the iPhone 15 Pro in my pocket.so many colors. This is barely a fraction of them. – Credit: Camp Snaplow-tech, not no-techLet’s not pretend that its 8 megapixel, F/1.8 (f=4.8mm), 1/3.2″ sensor is a powerhouse. It’s not even average when you take it head-to-head against any smartphone made this decade. And it’s about as far from an action camera as I’ve ever used. Even mildly quick movements came out as anime-style blurs, and in very close-up shots, the focus was off.I had to line up my shots deliberately. Lazy landscapes and photographs of inanimate objects were perfectly fine, and even portraits of my friends were fine as long as they stood still long enough to convincingly pose as inanimate objects.the rear of the Camp Snap – Credit: Matt JancerThe case plastic felt kind of cheap, but it was well-put-together, with tight seams and no rough edges. When I squeezed firmly all around it to see if it’d flex like a cheap piece of junk, it held its composure.The soft-touch, colored vinyl wrapped around was a nice addition that raised the tactile pleasure of using the Camp Snap. And there are so many available colors to choose from, particularly if you buy it from Camp Snap directly. You can even buy a Sleeping Bag Camera Pouch for it.There’s no focus, no zoom, and no manual controls for aperture and focus. You point it at stuff, and then you click a button. There’s a flash you can toggle on or off and a fingernail-sized LCD screen that approximates the battery charge level and tells you how many shots you’ve taken. That’s about it. You can junk the user manual before you ever even open it.The Stats That MatterI’m old enough to remember the point-and-shoot digital cameras of the Y2K era, and they were battery hogs. Anytime I’d go somewhere with an inkling that I may spend a good chunk of the day shooting photos, I’d take along a bunch of spare Duracells. The Camp Snap ditches the annoying replaceable alkalines for an internal, rechargeable battery that holds enough juice for about 500 shots.Everybody wants to know how many pictures it can hold, especially once they see there’s nowhere for a memory card. The Camp Snap’s storage is entirely internal, too. You can pack about 2,000 shots onto it before you need to offload it somewhere, either to a computer or an external drive via a computer.Look, ma. No screens. The Camp Snap’s ultra-simple display – Credit: Matt JancerNo Apps, Just CablesThe Camp Snap is seriously anti-smart. Aggressively anti-smart, even. There’s no Camp Snap app to use even if you wanted to. The only way to get your precious pictures off the camera and onto a screen where you can view them is to connect it to a computer, tablet, or smartphone via a USB-C cable.At least Camp Snap had the good sense to make it USB-C. Even though it’s become the universal standard plug format for both transferring data and charging devices, due in no small part to a 2024 European Union law that made USB-C a compulsory standard, I still run into new devices here and there that use weird, old formats such as Mini-USB and Micro-USB. Good luck finding cables lying around that use those.And there are lots of devices that use the older, bulkier USB-A cable. Then you have to buy an adapter hub to use it, because hardly any laptops these days, and no tablets or phones, come with USB-A ports. Giving owners a USB-C-to-USB-C cable just makes everything easy. I was able to plug the Camp Snap into my MacBook Pro with the included cable and upload my photos so easily, I could’ve had my grandmother do it.the camp snap at a glanceThe Camp Snap is defined as much by what it doesn’t have as by what it does. There’s no removable memory, no replaceable batteries, no app, and no screen. It’s as dead-nuts-simple to use as the old one-time-use, disposable film cameras my family (and every other 1990s family) would get developed at Walmart. You can’t fiddle with it because you’re not supposed to.With enough battery life for 500 shots per charge and enough internal storage for 2,000 shots, you’re not limited by having to carry around a whole support crew’s worth of supplies to use the Camp Snap. Neither are you entrapped by the urge to obsess over your pictures during the day. It’s a tool of opportunity. You enjoy yourself, you yank it out for a quick photograph or two, and then you put it away and go back to enjoying yourself.Why is my favorite color always out of stock??Astrology. A Deep State plot. Because the Cubs won the World Series in 2016 and threw off the functioning of the world.I don’t know, man. Because these things are hot shit on Instagram and TikTok, and like a lot of things that take off on social media overnight, supply takes a while to catch up to demand. Although this has been a recurring feature for a solid year, as I’ve been keeping a close eye on the Camp Snap’s cycle of availability and then drought, availability and then drought.You can buy Camp Snaps at a range of retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, and B&H Photo Video (although no more Huckberry, at least right now), so if you’re shopping at one retailer and not seeing a color that captures your heart, try another. And another and another until you do find one. I’ve consistently found the widest range of available colors when shopping with Camp Snap directly. It’s also the best place to get a good idea of the full range of available colors because they won’t take a color down when it’s backordered or out of stock.taken with the camp snap. looks fuzzy, but remember there’s no digital zoom. This was taken at about 4 PM in waning daylight — credit: Matt jancerthe bottom lineI won’t try to dress up the fact that the Camp Snap is a low-fi camera that doesn’t take the best quality pictures. You’re not going to use it for that purpose. Stick to your Fujifilm X100VI and DSLRs for that. But take the Camp Snap when you just want to enjoy your outing and can’t be trusted not to lose yourself in menu screens and photo folders.Or take it when you don’t want to put a more expensive camera at risk. It costs $70. It’s not nothing, but it pales next to the cost of almost every other digital camera on the market. If you want to dangle your phone over the side of the ferry to take a picture of the dolphins, good luck, butterfingers. Maybe it would be better to dangle a Camp Snap mere feet away from disaster.And hey, once you snap that photo, supposing you don’t tumble it down into the bottom of the sea, you can put it away and enjoy watching the dolphins in real life, because what are you gonna do, obsess over your just-taken photo? Hah, you can’t. So you may as well get back to enjoying life.(opens in a new window)Camp SnapCamp Snap Screen-Free Digital Camera(opens in a new window)Available at AmazonBuy Now(opens in a new window)Available at WalmartBuy Now(opens in a new window)Available at Camp SnapBuy Now(opens in a new window)The post Snap Up TikTok’s Favorite Point-and-Shoot Camera, The Camp Snap (While You Still Can) appeared first on VICE.