I am not limited to a genre or medium when it come to cameras, and this one shows that beyond any doubt!

Browsing the endless tat at a Sunday morning Car Boot Sale, and only finding a couple of overpriced pieces, something caught my eye… In a box of kids toys was a camera shaped chunk of grey plastic. The seller assured me it was actually a functioning camera, so a deal was struck for £4, and turned out to be my only purchase of the day. There was a time a few years ago where you would regularly pick up bag loads of interesting stuff, but online Marketplaces have killed off the Car Boot bargains.

The questionable camera purchase today is the PlaySkool ShowCam 2!

Released in 2013 you would hope for more than it’s VGA 640×480 sensor, but it is obviously aimed at kids, not serious professionals! It does however have a redeeming feature - the taking lens is not where you think it is - it is the tiny webcam looking lens at the top. The main lens looking part is actually a projector to view your images on a wall! Pretty cool heh!

Without wanting looking like an absolute tool, I hid the camera in my rucksack and took it for a walk to see what it could produce…

Kicking out a whopping 80kb JPEGS, it truly is awful, but in a good way! It’s not for landscape photography, but I can see a place for it with a group of teenagers messing about after a few beverages!

When you think the target audience for this kind of thing is probably well adept to using the latest iPhone, I can’t see these sort of cameras would be very popular these days.

Looking like they are from the early Nineties, the images are small, pixily and only the centre has any kind of clarity (I know clarity is not the right word, but in terms of the outer portion - you get the point). They do remind me of early Sony Mavica colours and look, but without the cool vibe of a floppy disc.

Aside from the terrible image quality, I actually had a bit of fun with it - definitely £4’s worth anyway.

It is big, chunky and plays a stupid tune every time you turn it on or off. Also the screen on the back is square whereas the images are 4×3 ratio. The 1.75” colour screen is ok, and has a grid effect to aid the kids composing using the Rule of Thirds! There are silly effects to keep them amused too, but I am far too serious a photographer for that!!

Back to Playskool!

Making the best of a bad situation!