Vibe camera shootout: Camp Snap Pro vs. Flashback One35 V2

There’s been a surge of interest over the last few years in inexpensive digital cameras. Younger folks are snapping up old point-and-shoots because they view the aesthetic as more authentic and more appealing than smartphone images. Companies are even rereleasing old tech at new prices. And there are cameras like the original Camp Snap: a $70 single-button point-and-shoot with no screen, designed as a modern take on a disposable film camera. It’s cheap enough to send off with a kid to summer camp and accessible enough for just about anyone to enjoy its lo-fi aesthetic.

I’ve been testing two charming examples of this formula: the $99 Camp Snap Pro (aka CS-Pro), which is an upgrade to the original Camp Snap and looks like an all-plastic Fujifilm X100, and the Flashback One35 V2, which costs $119 and looks exactly like a disposable camera.

Both cameras aim to give you the aesthetics and screen-free experience of a disposable film camera with the convenience of digital. One of them hits the mark.

Both the Camp Snap Pro and Flashback One35 V2 are compact and built from lightweight, cheap plastic. The Flashback is noticeably smaller, about the size of a disposable film camera, and it slips into my back pocket better. But both are best toted in a jacket pocket, small bag, or purse. They don’t feel precious like regular cameras. My wife and I own an original Camp Snap, and we’d often toss it in our diaper bag without giving a damn.

Neither camera is special when it comes to specs (scroll to the bottom for a side-by-side comparison table). The Camp Snap Pro’s 22.5mm-equivalent lens and 16-megapixel sensor are respectively wider and higher resolution than the standard Camp Snap (8-megapixel, 32mm equivalent). The Flashback V2 has a 13-megapixel sensor. These basic smartphone-sized image sensors and tiny lenses yield image quality somewhere between a disposable film camera and an old phone. Unlike film, you’re not paying money with each shot. And they both feature proper xenon flashes for brightly illuminating dark settings at close distances — a sought-after look that also helps alleviate their awful low-light performance. (The original Camp Snap’s LED flash is mostly useless and not as flattering.)

But the biggest way these cameras differ is how you use them. The Camp Snap Pro has a dial that lets you swap between four filters; the defaults are STD (standard), VTG1 (vintage 1, with a warm magenta tone), VTG2 (vintage 2, with a green tone and boosted blues), and B&W (black and white). Each preset is user-customizable, allowing you to replace each with a custom look made in Camp Snap’s online Filter Builder. The original Camp Snap has a community built around free and paid downloadable filters, though some aren’t available on the CS-Pro yet. The included 4GB microSD card fits over 1,000 photos, and you can download them via USB-C cable or microSD card reader.

The Flashback also has four preset filters: classic, mono (black and white), beta (a reddish-toned look), and cine (exaggerating a teal-and-orange aesthetic). But you can only change between them in the camera’s companion app (iOS / iPad and Android), and you use them as “rolls” for up to 27 shots at a time. This is meant to mimic a disposable film camera. Once you select a filter, you’re stuck with it for the whole “roll,” though you can download a roll early and start over. The One35 V2 pairs to a phone or tablet via Bluetooth, allowing you to check battery level, enable a self-timer, or change your film type. Downloading the images to your device requires either Wi-Fi or a cable. By default, the app makes you wait 24 hours to see your images. Alternatively, images can be instantly developed by activating Digicam Mode, which I enabled after just one batch of shots.

It’s a nice app, but virtual roll-by-roll shooting quickly goes from charming to annoying. I’ve had a few occasions where my film type didn’t apply to the camera, causing rolls to come out in the wrong color tones or in black and white when I thought I was shooting color. Waiting to see your photos, and the occasional unexpected result, are part of the charm of analog photography, but I never dropped off a roll of black-and-white film and had it come back in color or vice versa.

The One35’s dedication to the bit has other drawbacks as well. After 27 shots, you can’t use the camera again until you offload your pictures to the app or a computer. This negates one of the major advantages of digital cameras, not to mention the whole point of a #screenfree camera. You can’t just hand it to a kid and set them loose with it. And its reliance on a disposable-camera-style advance winder to wake it up and re-cock the shutter means you constantly miss shots. The advance dial takes only one turn to wake the camera but around eight to prime the shutter. It doesn’t stay ready to shoot like a proper film disposable camera, which makes no sense for something designed around spontaneity.

When asked if this issue could be circumvented, Flashback’s external PR rep Bethany Andros told The Verge, “Yes, this is a known issue we’re trying to fix right now.” A firmware update will help, but it won’t solve the Flashback’s other big handling issue: due to lens placement, wrapping your hand around the camera’s sizable grip often results in my fingers getting in the shot. What’s the point of having a nice contoured grip if you can’t use it?

As far as image quality, the Camp Snap Pro yields a significantly sharper and cleaner image than the Flashback. Even the standard Camp Snap, which I also used for comparison shots, has slightly better image quality. “Better” is of course subjective, since these cameras are all about vibes. There’s none of the technical sharpness or minimal noise we’re used to in modern phones and full-size cameras, but the aesthetic flaws and limitations are kind of the point. I’ve even come across users within the Flashback subreddit preferring the One35 V1’s image quality over the V2, because it looks worse.

I recommend the Camp Snap Pro, and I simply can’t say the same for the Flashback. The One35’s concept is fun and endearing (and its see-through variants look amazing), but by trying to replicate the physical experience of the disposable camera, it winds up keeping the old flaws and adding new ones.

The Camp Snap Pro is focused on the utility disposable cameras provided in the days before digital cameras and smartphones. It’s cheaper than the Flashback, easier to use, more customizable, and yields a higher image quality — but not too high. It’s perfect for someone who wants something just a little better than the basic Camp Snap, or at least a proper flash. If you don’t take the bait on the Flashback’s nostalgic stylings, there’s just no comparison.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge