Throwback Thursday: Game Boy Camera
It’s probably no surprise that you won’t find a review or a score for
the Game Boy Camera in DPReview’s archives. Even by 1998 standards, the
Game Boy Camera was a bit underwhelming in terms of technology. It took
0.5MP still images and displayed them at half that resolution. Output
options were extremely limited: you either displayed your photos on the
screen and passed your Game Boy around the room, or you acquired the
Game Boy Printer – a glorified receipt printer that spits out tiny
renditions of your subject on thermal paper.
But it was also the first camera that some of us on the DPR staff
called our own, and for that reason holds a special place in our hearts.
Take a look back at the Game Boy camera with us in all its 8-bit glory.
Throwback Thursday: Game Boy Camera
The camera itself attaches to a standard Game Boy cartridge, and the
camera unit itself can swivel 180-degrees to face forward or backward.
That’s right, Nintendo was so far ahead of the selfie craze that we
didn’t even have an obnoxious name for them yet.
Throwback Thursday: Game Boy Camera
The menu system is about as straightforward as it gets: your three
options are Shoot, View and Play. Of course, it needed to have a game
element, so the Game Boy Camera offers three simple mini-games. But the
real attraction is that camera on top. Hitting ‘shoot’ brings you to a
screen where you can choose to just jump right into a fantastically
laggy live view experience, or navigate to menu options called things
like ‘Items’ and ‘Magic’. There’s a kind of Easter Egg if you select an
option called ‘Run,’ but the less said about that the better.
Throwback Thursday: Game Boy Camera
Here’s what’s surprising about the Game Boy Camera – it offers quite a
bit more than meets the eye. There are time-lapse, panorama and
self-timer options. Nine different ‘trick lenses’ unlock more effects,
like posterize, mirror and a 4×4 collage. You can also add hotspots to
images, that when clicked take you to other images in your album. If
you’ve got the time and imagination, you can actually do a lot with it.
Heck, the cover of
one of Neil Young’s albums was taken with a Game Boy Camera.
That said, low light shooting is not at all a strength of the camera,
so any photo taken in less than ideal light comes out as not much more
than some dark, indistinguishable pixels.
Throwback Thursday: Game Boy Camera
Choosing ‘View’ from the main screen brings you to a simple 3×3 grid
where you can select images individually to view at larger size
(weirdly, you can’t scroll between images in this view). On this screen
you can unleash all kinds of mischief – zany borders, eyeball-shaped
stamps and comments. But the party
really started when you hooked up your Game Boy Printer.
Throwback Thursday: Game Boy Camera
That’s right, if you really wanted to share your photos, you had to
shell out some more cash for the printer. It outputs images on tiny
strips of thermal paper at about the size of a postage stamp. The best
part? The back of the paper can be peeled away to reveal an adhesive
strip, which was ideal for attaching to photos to your Trapper Keeper.
Throwback Thursday: Game Boy Camera
The thing we remember most about the Game Boy camera is that it was
just plain fun. In 1998, digital cameras were still making their way
into the hands of the masses. Being a kid and suddenly having the
ability to attach a camera to your beloved handheld game system was kind
of magical. It encouraged silliness, inspired creativity and was the
first step toward a lifetime of photo geekery, at least for a few of us.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
