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By default, most people take their smartphone on a vacation in order to document their trip and preserve the memories of their vacation. However, as convenient as a smartphone is for this purpose, there are other options. One of which is using a disposable camera with a limited number of exposures; an experience I recently experimented with myself.
My Experience With Using a Smartphone and a Disposable Camera
I recently enjoyed a vacation on the north-east coast of Spain, a pretty common destination for Brits seeking some sunshine. And for the first time, I opted to use both my smartphone camera and a disposable camera with a maximum of 27 exposures, which is a tiny number of potential photos to document a week-long trip.
I used a combination of the two methods, picking when to use my 27 exposures carefully, while filling in the blanks with my smartphone. Both were appealing in different ways, so here are the advantages of both methods for documenting a vacation or other kind of trip.
The Advantages of a Smartphone Camera
Given that most people already use their smartphone camera to document trips, I’ll be talking to the converted here. However, for those in doubt as to why a smartphone is so useful for documenting trips…
You’re Already Carrying It in Your Pocket
The most obvious advantage of using a smartphone camera is that you’re already carrying it around in your pocket.
Unless you’re one of the small minority of (generally older) people who don’t carry a smartphone with you wherever you go, you’ll probably have everything you need to shoot endless photos already on you. This saves the need to pack extra hardware for the trip, and the need to remember it when you head out every day.
The Ability to Shoot Unlimited Photos
Assuming you have enough storage remaining on your phone (whether physically or in the cloud), then you can shoot as many photos as you want.
This enables you to shoot multiple photos of each subject of interest, removing any risk of missing the moment. You can even check your camera roll after each shot to ensure you’ve got the photo you want, and if not, you can simply shoot another one. This is the best way of not missing the ability to document a trip in full.
The Ability to Edit and Share Immediately
You’ll likely want to share photos with family and friends while you’re away on a trip. With a smartphone, you may edit a shot and share it with others within seconds of shooting it.
Whether you want to share the photo as taken, or want to cropfor the sake of compositionand add a filter, you can. As long as you have an internet connection, nothing is holding you back from providing real-time updates of your trip; whether or not your family and friends appreciate it.
The Advantages of a Disposable Camera
For those who want to try something a little different, or are keen to get away from using their smartphone for every aspect of modern life, a disposable camera does have its advantages…
It Forces You to Think About What You’re Shooting
With a limited number of exposures (generally 27-39) available, a disposable camera forces you tothink carefully about what you’re shooting.
You can’t simply point and shoot without a care in the world, as you’ll soon burn through the small number of exposures available to you. Instead, you need to carefully frame each shot, and consider whether the subject in the viewfinder is worthy of one of those exposures.
Avoid Spending the Whole Trip Behind Your Camera
We all know smartphone zombies who spend their whole lives looking at their phones, and that’s the last thing one should want to do on vacation.
While shooting photos with your smartphone makes this much more likely, using a disposable camera instead removes that threat. Therefore, you’re more likely to live in the moment, enjoying the trip for what it is, rather than spending longer trying to document the memories for future reference.
Waiting for the Exposures to Be Developed Is Exciting
While being able to see what you’ve shot immediately after shooting is obviously extremely convenient, waiting for the exposures from a disposable camera to be developed is an absolute thrill.
Anyone over a certain age will be well aware of how this feels, asbefore digital photography took over, it was the standard way we all documented our lives. But anyone born into the digital world will find it an oddity to have to wait to see the results of their photographic labors.
Why I Prefer Using a Disposable Camera
After my recent vacation, I have to admit that I favor using a disposable camera over my smartphone. The main reason for this is that it forced me to live in the moment, soaking up what was happening at the time rather than obsessing about capturing it for posterity. Plus, the whole process of sending the camera off for processing and waiting to see the results added a frisson of excitement I hadn’t felt since childhood.
However, a disposable camera is clearly less convenient than a smartphone. The latter offers unlimited exposures, higher-quality photos, and the freedom to edit, share, and delete shots at leisure (even thoughI never delete smartphone photos). A disposable camera is also more expensive, seeing as you already own your smartphone, and need to buy a disposable camera and then pay for the photos to be processed every time you take a trip.
So, which you should choose depends on what you want both from the trip you’re venturing on and from the memories you’re preserving for posterity.
