Well, this is going to sound crazy, but I turned my Fujifilm X100V into a disposable film camera. No, I didn’t disassemble my digital camera, rip out the sensor, and adapt a film spool. Instead, I configured my X100V to capture pictures that appear as though they were captured with a cheap throwaway film camera. Why? I’ve done crazier things before, including distressing a camera, so it shouldn’t be too shocking that I’d do this—perhaps it was just a matter of time.

The inspiration for this project has been building for awhile. I have a picture displayed on my dresser that’s over 20 years old—it’s my wife and I, captured sometime shortly after we got married. A friend took the picture with a disposable camera. I can tell that it was a Fujifilm QuickSnap camera by the color palette, which is clearly Fujicolor. The picture is special to me because it’s a very personal (and happy) moment that’s been frozen in time through photography. It’s nothing more than a snapshot captured on a cheap camera, and would be completely meaningless to almost anyone else. I have a box full of these type of pictures, mostly 4″ x 6″ prints. You might have a box like this, too—snapshots that are meaningful to you.

Fujifilm developed the QuickSnap camera, a “one-time-use” 35mm film camera, in the mid-1980’s (Kodak released its version, called FunSaver, a couple years later), and it was an instant hit. These “disposable” cameras were extremely popular in the 1990’s and 2000’s. They came preloaded with 27 frames (a 24-exposure roll of film, but you got three extra shots), and were point-and-shoot. You’d push the shutter-release and advance the film, but otherwise there typically weren’t any other controls, so anyone could use these cameras—no skill required. Once you exposed all of the frames, you’d take the camera to the 1-hour lab, where they removed the film for development and recycled the camera. 60 minutes later you’d have a packet of 4″ x 6″ prints.

Cheap digital point-and-shoots made a dent in disposable camera sales, but it was really the cellphone camera that rendered them obsolete; however, you might be surprised to learn that you can still buy disposable cameras today. Thanks to the Lomography movement and an increased interest in film photography, there’s enough of a market for these cameras to continue to exist in 2022. I briefly considered purchasing one, but instead of that, I decided to capture QuickSnap-like images on my Fujifilm X100V.

Now you know the why, so let’s get into the how.

Note: This was a Creative Collective article, but now it is available to everyone.

I started with research. I discovered that the Fujifilm QuickSnap cameras have a fixed 32mm f/10 lens with focus preset to somewhere near 6 feet. The shutter is permanently set to 1/140. Depending on the unit, the flash is either permanently on or can be powered on-and-off. The film… depends. Nowadays, Superia 400 is what you’ll find in QuickSnap cameras. Superia 800 was also commonly used in these for awhile, but it’s been discontinued for a number of years now. Superia 200 and Superia 1600 had very brief runs in disposable cameras, although they were “specialty” versions: Superia 200 for bright daylight, Superia 1600 for indoors/night. Before Superia, there was Super G Plus, Super HG, Super HR, and probably others. These cameras have no exposure control. Basically, the latitude of the film was the exposure control. Any overexposure and underexposure would be “fixed” when printing. You could overexpose Superia by three stops, arguably four, and still get a usable picture, and underexpose by a stop or maybe two.

The Fujifilm X100V has a full-frame-equivalent 34.5mm focal-length lens, which is slightly less wide-angle than QuickSnap cameras, but pretty close to the 32mm focal-length of the disposable. I figured it was close-enough for this project. I set the aperture to f/10 and the shutter to 1/160, as 1/140 wasn’t an option (I could have alternatively used 1/125). I set ISO to Auto, up to ISO 6400. The X100V doesn’t have the same exposure latitude of the film, so it was important to have some level of exposure control. In bright daylight conditions, I activated the ND filter to prevent overexposure (I programmed the ND filter to the Fn button on the top, as an On/Off switch). The Exposure Compensation Dial was set to +1/3. I manually focused to six-and-a-half feet and left it there. I set the flash to be be On (TTL +1/3), and let it fire on every exposure.

For the film simulation recipe, I went with Fujicolor Superia 800, except that I set Sharpness to -4, Grain to Strong Small, and the White Balance Shift to be -1 Red & -2 Blue. This seemed to be a pretty close match to the prints I was hoping to mimic the aesthetic of.

The X100V’s lens is too sharp and flawless to mimic a cheap one-time-use camera, so I needed some help. I used a 10% CineBloom filter to take the digital edge off of the pictures, and also a UV filter that just so happened to have a thin layer of dust on it (not sure if the dust made a difference or not, but I figured it was worth trying). I briefly considered very lightly sandpapering a UV lens, but decided against that, just because I didn’t want to ruin the filter without knowing whether it would work or not.

I wanted it to be a disposable camera experience, so, after I got the camera set, I disabled the rear screen and the electronic viewfinder, and used only the optical viewfinder. I turned off all of the display information (except for the ND filter, because I wanted to know if it was On or Off). With everything set, I went out and captured 27 exposures!

I didn’t review any of the pictures until after all 27 images were captured. I had no idea what the pictures would look like until the project was complete. The only controls I used were the shutter-release and the ND filter—it really was a point-and-shoot experience, with aperture, shutter, focus, and flash all preset.

Here are my 27 exposures captured using my X100V-as-a-disposable-camera:

I think some of these shots are very convincing as disposable camera images. If I had them made into 4″ x 6″ prints, I could probably trick some people into thinking I actually used a QuickSnap camera. To that end, I think this project was a success. More importantly, I had fun. I really appreciated not seeing the pictures until the end—I might use the optical viewfinder more often, and keep the rear screen off.

The biggest challenge was keeping track of the exposures. I used the notes section (under the recipe) in the Fuji X Weekly App to help remember, but that wasn’t ideal, and I ended up going over by one, thinking that it was the 27th frame when it was actually the 28th. If I do this again, I’ll have to figure out a better method.

I think you could do this technique with any camera, but the JPEG tools, built-in flash, ND filter, and optical viewfinder make the X100V particularly ideal for this. I tried a few shots on my X-T30 using a kit zoom and the Kodak Gold 200 recipe, and it seemed to do alright, but it wasn’t the same experience as the X100V. If you don’t own an X100V, I invite you to try this on whichever Fujifilm camera you do own. You might just discover something fun, and capture some meaningful moments in the process.