Two of these cameras have broken battery compartments, a problem that may one day come for yours too (All pics: Stephen Dowling)
A few weeks ago, Jim Grey of the photography blog Down the Road published a really good piece about compact film cameras.
He's a big fan of the Olympus Stylus (or Mju-I outside the US) and has got back into shooting this most pocket-friendly of compact cameras. But the enthusiasm is bittersweet: he notes that the price of these cameras has climbed in recent years, along with the likelihood that they will fail.
"This is the fundamental problem with point-and-shoot film cameras. They’re wonderful when they work, but they’re also old and nobody can repair them," he says.
He's not wrong. The compact cameras that have become cult must-haves are all at least 25 years old now; some are more like 40 years old. None of them were designed to have the longevity of a classic Leica; camera makers expected most customers to upgrade after a few years, tempted by a newer model with better features. "Consumer products, not precision instruments", he called them. How many of those did you keep and still expect to be working three decades later? Is your CD-playing Discman still working? Does your Swatch still keep time?
The compact camera that may have become your faithful photo-taking friend has several Achilles heels. Circuit boards and electrical connections are particularly prone to failure. Spares are hard to find, and so are repairers who know how to replace them.
Liquid crystal display (LCD) screens allowed camera designers to group all the info you'd need on one easy-to-read monitor, but not all LCD screens are created equal. A model with many different modes at the push of a button becomes next to useless when a dead LCD means you can't tell which is chosen.
To save money, many cheaper models – and some which weren't cheap – used plastic parts instead of metal to save costs. Wear and tear is much quicker on plastic parts that move against each other.
Enjoying Advance/Rewind? Upgrade to a paid tier to help support the Kosmo Foto blog
You are likely to find one of the most frustrating failures in in the battery compartments. Some plastics get more brittle with time and small plastic clips are often the first parts to break. Yes, you can close the compartment with electrical tape – it's unsightly but it works. The rise of 3D printing has meant replacements for certain problematic parts are now available – but only for some of the more desirable cameras.
There are, of course, plenty of compact cameras still with lots of life left in them, and we probably have a couple of decades more before their ranks really start to thin. But each year the number of cameras decreases a little; a natural decline. A new supply of spare parts – electrical or otherwise – will help some older models soldier on. But in the long term, what's needed is new cameras that will be still usable in decades to come.
The recent rash of new models like the Analogue aF-1 and Lomography LOMO MC-A is good news indeed.
The first LOMO MC-A, before things started going south
LOMO MC-A update
Speaking of new compact cameras - you'll have started to see several reviews of Lomography's LOMO MC-A compact appearing on various blogs. Kosmo Foto isn't one of them – at least not yet. The reason? The first example kindly sent by Lomography turned out to be decidedly problematic. As I outlined in my first impressions post on Kosmo Foto, those problems on the first few rolls included stressed rolls, at least one roll snapped out of the cassette and problems advancing the film.
The final straw was when I took the camera along to a busy Portobello Road on a Saturday and decided to try the zone-focus manual focusing. It was fine, it worked, and halfway through the roll I decided to go back to autofocus… which I couldn't, because the switch was stuck. Really stuck. I thought I was going to break my thumbnail trying to move it.
Lomography said the MC-A I had was from the pre-production series and most of the foibles were ironed out before the camera went into production. They've also sent me one of the production examples so I can finish my review. Stay tuned for some more glimpses into the shots captured so far in future 'Advance/Rewind' posts.
Cameraburo in March
I've had a busy start to 2026 with a few pop-ups at Aperture Printing in central London (one of the city's best photo labs, if you're wondering) and this has meant that there's been fewer products listed on Cameraburo. Fear not! I've been beavering away sorting and testing manuals, lenses, accessories and cameras, and expect to add another 50 items in March. I'm also considering announcing what these additions will be on 'Advance/Rewind' ahead of the listings going up. Let me know in the poll below if you think that's a good idea.