The Kodak Charmera came into my life via the algorithm of a social media platform a few months ago. I’ve now spent some time with it and wanted to share my experience of it.
It’s the smallest, cutest digital camera I’ve owned. It’s small enough to fit in my pocket or hang on as part of my key chain. It’s really as small as one of those key-chain charms. They come in a range of designs and colours and the exact one I got was a surprise. You can also collect them in case you want different colours for different outfits. lol.
As someone who has practises photography, I cherish opportunities to experiment and have fun. The Charmera can be used for videos and photos and it has some in-built filters. It returns images in small resolutions (around 1.6 megapixels) and in 1080 × 1440px mode. For reference, the iPhone 17 snaps images in 48 megapixels. The Charmera’s images have the 1995 home video effect which can be cool. The videos surprisingly come with audio too! Images will look fine on a mobile phone screen but tend to look noisier on larger screens.
Since the image resolution of the Charmera is so small and there are further restrictions such as a low ability to diffuse light and colour in the same ways that we expect of modern-day cameras, it does not always capture finer details e.g. small-sized text. Images can also come out as differently saturated, over-exposed or poorly contrasted. The Charmera works best in more controlled lighting settings e.g. one source of direct light pointed at a protagonist or object. It also works decently outdoors when it’s cloudy.
Having said the above, I found it rewarding to test the limits of this little gadget and to snap images without lofty expectations. I loved the textures and patterns it can create– precisely because of it’s limitations- as well as the ability to snap images inconspicuously. You can also have fun editing the images in your favourite photo editing software.
Here’s a selection of images showing what it can do. Don’t expect any masterpieces with this one. Or maybe you should.
Ifeatu Nnaobi 