The Charmera is a tiny fully functional digital camera. It comes in seven different designs but you can't tell which design you get until you open it. This is often called a "blind box". The clear case version has 1 in 48 odds, so good luck trying to find that one! The specific camera that I have is number four. A friend gave me this, so I did not get the whole blind box experience. Fine with me and I was very thankful to him for the gift. I hope he eventually got a copy of the clear camera.
Let us go over some of the details and specifications of this camera to see what it can actually do.
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| The Kodak Charmera blind box package. It's got that retro look! |
It has a 1/4 inch type CMOS sensor with an output resolution of 1.6 megapixels, or 1440 by 1080. It only outputs in JPEG format. The equivalent field of view of the lens on this camera is around 35mm on a full-frame camera. The aperture is f2.4 according to EXIF information. I compared it to a 40mm lens on my Nikon Z5, they are relatively similar in their field of view, so I'd say the specification is correct.
Term Information:
A CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) sensor is a widely used type of image sensor in digital cameras and smartphones. It converts light into electronic signals and is known for its low power consumption.
UVC (USB Video Class) is a standardized protocol that allows devices like webcams and digital cameras to send video data over a USB connection without the user needing to install proprietary drivers.
[Information generated by Gemini Pro]
They officially state that the micro SD cards used in the device can be from 1 GB to 128 GB. I put a 16 GB card in this camera, and the screen told me I could get about 56,000 photos on there! You really do not need a super large SD card for this camera, but consider that it can also record video which will take a lot more storage than photos. In that case, it shoots 30 frames a second in the AVI format.
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| A from from a sample video clip. |
The camera does have a built-in battery. It is rated at 200 milliamp hours, which is relatively small, but this is a small camera to begin with. I did not do enough testing to see exactly how long that lasts in continuous use. However, you can attach a USB power source and use the camera at the same time. You can keep it topped up charge-wise when you are actually using it if you want.
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| The camera turned on and operating while connected to a USB power cable. |
The exact dimensions are 58 x 24.5 x 20 mm, and the weight is 30 grams. It does include a keychain you can attach to it, as well as a USB-C to USB-A cable. There is a USB-C connection on the bottom of the camera alongside a micro SD card slot. Also on the bottom is a small hole for resetting the camera. You will need some type of phone SIM card accessing tool or a paper clip to press that recessed button if the camera ever locks up.
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| Comparing the size of the camera directly next to a standard USA quarter coin. |
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| A close look at the bottom of the camera, highlighting the USB-C port, micro SD card slot, and reset hole. |
On the top, we have the power button and the shutter button. On the back, we have a full LCD screen with an optical viewfinder. That is a pass-through type viewfinder. Because of that, it is going to have parallax compared to what you actually capture through the camera lens. In addition, you have three buttons: an up button, a down button, and a review button, which is used for other menu selections as well.
On one side, we have a speaker grill and the connection point for the keychain. The other side just features a bit of the exterior case design.
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| Viewing the back of the device: There is the LCD screen, optical viewfinder, and navigation buttons. |
Let us go over some of the specific quirks and details I learned while using this camera.
You can store two photos in the internal memory if you do not have a micro SD card inserted. However, you will not be able to access those specific photos over a computer connection until you put a memory card into the camera. When you connect the camera to a computer without a card inside, it defaults directly into UVC webcam mode.
If you do have two photos saved internally and you want to save them to your computer, you have to insert a micro SD card and then attach it to a computer. At that point, you will be able to see two folders: one for the micro SD card and one for the two internal photos. You can easily copy them over at that point. It is a little quirky, but I think the reason they did this is to make the UVC webcam mode easy when there is no card present. That is actually a really cool feature so I'd say it's fine.
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| Connecting the camera to a PC. You need a memory card in the camera even when trying to access the two internal photos. Otherwise it will default to UVC webcam mode. |
It is pretty simple to navigate the main menu. You have options for photo, video, and settings. Within the settings, you can enable embedded date information if you want that stamped onto your media. You can set the current date and define which format you want, such as year-month-day, day-month-year, or month-day-year. You can also format the SD card directly from this menu. But I did run into a quirk when letting the camera format a memory cards which I'll talk about later.
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| A sample photo showing the camera does not do autofocus. |
When you are in photo mode, you simply press the shutter to take photos. On the front of the camera, a bright light is going to go off every time. I do not see any way to disable that. You will also hear an audible ding noise when you take a photo.
While in photo mode, you can use the up and down buttons to adjust which color filter is currently enabled. The available filters include black and white, cool tone, warm tone, pixel filter, yellow, red, blue, and gray. There are also four different graphical overlays. They appear to be a mix of old Kodak applications, as well as one featuring emoticons. Those are a fun addition but not especially practical.
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| The camera screen displaying one of the retro Kodak graphical overlays. |
You can attach this to various devices via the USB-C port. It includes a USB-C to USB-A cable that works fine with computers, but the cable is very short. If you want to use this in webcam mode, you are probably going to want to use a longer cable.
I did some testing with Android phones and noticed an issue. If you try to format the micro SD card inside the camera itself, it is not going to be readable by an Android phone. There is some type of issue with how the camera formats the card. However, if you format the SD card on a Windows PC or likely another standardized device first, the camera is still able to use that formatting. Once you do that, it works perfectly with Android devices. I used a separate USB-C to USB-C cable to connect directly to my phone, and I was able to see the photos without any problems.
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| Successfully connecting the camera to an Android smartphone to view files after formatting the card on a PC instead of within the Charmera itself. |
It is pretty awesome that it has a built-in UVC webcam mode. I attached it to one of my Android phones, and with the correct application, you can actually access the UVC stream and get a video view from the camera directly on your phone.
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| The camera operating in UVC webcam mode and displaying a live feed on an Android smartphone. The app I was using wasn't working right with the aspect ratio. |
In my testing, I also tried a few clip-on lenses that are normally meant for smartphones. Basically, I just held the lens right up to the front of the camera. They worked just fine. Using a macro lens allowed me to get much closer focus, though it is obviously a little awkward to just hold a lens manually in front of the camera body.
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| Getting closer focus with an add-on lens meant for smartphones. (Xenvo 15x macro lens) |
Let us go over some of the downsides of this camera.
First, it sells as a blind box. Obviously, the clear version is going to be very difficult to get. I am fine with the design I was given by my friend, but a lot of people probably don't like that purchasing model.
The main disappointment for me is I see no way to adjust the exposure. This camera could be so much more if you could manually adjust the shutter speed or ISO. Even simply giving us EV compensation would work. Sadly, that is not the case as far as I can tell.
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| The main menu screen. |
Additionally, a bright light and a sound goes off every time you take a photo. It is irritating. I understand why they do it; they want to notify people around you that you are taking a photo. It is a tiny little camera, so using it could look suspicious without some kind of indicator to people around. You could try to cover the light, but it is very bright and will most likely shine right through the plastic case of most of the designs.
Finally, like any camera that relies on a built-in rechargeable battery, it will lose capacity over time. Years into the future, the battery could completely fail. Looking at the camera construction, I see one main seam connecting the two pieces of the external case. Maybe you could pry it open, but I am not sure how it is connected internally.
Overall, I think it is a great concept. It is a relatively functional camera with some surprising features, like the UVC webcam mode. While the lack of exposure control is frustrating, it is still a fun, convenient, and surprisingly capable little camera.
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