A digital camera may be on Gen Z’s holiday gift wish list this season.
If you’re wondering why 12- to 17-year-olds would want outdated technology, it’s probably because digital autofocus is back in style, and Gen Z is driving its popularity. Just like vinyl and film cameras.
“More and more young people are looking for things like point-and-shoot cameras, but you literally can’t get them on the shelves,” said Evelyn Drake, who works at Calgary-based The Camera Store on Southwest 11th Avenue. says.
In addition to new cameras, we also sell used cameras. Drake said he hears from many younger customers who are attracted to a photo experience that is completely cellphone-free.
“I hope manufacturers really take note of this and start making more products because I think there’s a really big opportunity here,” she said.
“Young Gen Zers are increasingly looking for different ways to express themselves in photos.”
Digital camera trend is back
#digitalcamera has over 287,000 posts on TikTok.
Additionally, Google Trends shows that searches for the term “digital camera” have been on the rise in Canada for the past five years, peaking near the end of this year.
There has been extensive coverage of how Gen Z loves the so-called retro digital camera vibe, or how this generation’s appeal lies in its nostalgia for a simpler, more affordable technological era. But perhaps the news cycle doesn’t dig deep enough.
Some say there’s a deeper reason behind Gen Z’s affinity for yesterday’s technology than just aesthetics.
Based in Amsterdam, Sophia Lee is the co-founder of @digicam.love, an Instagram account and online community with over 13,000 followers, and the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute (CARI), an online community analyzing design and visual culture. I am the founder.
Lee believes that blaming the sudden rise in popularity of digital cameras among Gen Z on nostalgia doesn’t tell the whole story.
“I think it’s ironic that Gen Z is stereotyped as being the most logged-on generation. A lot of their counterculture technology practices are breaking away from that and creating a space independent of the internet. “It shows the need to create a new one,” Lee said.
According to Lee, the distaste for smartphone photography also stems from the fact that the images are now HD and so highly processed that they no longer feel like real photos.
Using a digital camera means “it’s not instantly uploaded to the internet like a cell phone image,” she says. “A series of more primitive algorithmic transformations are also performed to generate the JPEG image.”
“Be intentional with your consumption.”
It’s no secret that today’s youth are more connected than ever before. According to Statistics Canada data, young Canadians report higher-than-average usage of a variety of online activities, with more than 99% of Canadians aged 15 to 24 expected to be active online by 2022. It is reported that using the internet.
However, as the younger generation becomes more and more online, the need to touch the grass is also increasing.
Veronica Garcia is a 26-year-old based in Calgary who uses a Nikon Coolpix S4100, a compact digital camera released in early 2011.
“I love this…The way I use it, it feels like it’s less like a phone and more in the moment,” she says, adding that phones in 2024 will be more than just phones. Added device for calling.
Garcia said most older Gen Zers grew up in a time before smartphones ruled everything, but they’ve also lived during the transition to a new digital age.
She says she first had unlimited access to the internet at the age of 13 and it has been a big part of her life ever since.
“I’ve had a worm in my brain for over 10 years,” she says, explaining how being chronically online contributes to the rotting of the brain as a whole. words).
And Garcia’s own tech habits aren’t just limited to photography. She also uses a small black flip phone that she affectionately calls her “dumb phone” as her daily cell phone, a portable MP3 player for listening to music, and a 2001 Canon for videos. I also use a ZR30MC digital video camera.
“It’s really a shift to being intentional about our consumption and how we spend our soul-sucking screen time.”
For Garcia, it’s not really about being on trend or evoking nostalgia that romanticizes the past. At the most superficial level, she says, young people’s affinity for digital cameras is a rejection of modernity.
“It’s all political,” Garcia said, adding that it’s the small choices that ultimately help separate her from the big internet.
People in their late 20s have always had a front row seat to the evolving world of technology, so re-embracing these antiquated machines could be a commentary on the pace of technology.
Lee, a photographer himself, has seen the community of digital camera users grow over the years and predicts that the renaissance of digital point-and-shoot cameras among this younger generation of photographers will be short-lived. There is.
Since Lee and her other @digicam.love co-founders founded the page in 2018, they have organized more than 60 meet-ups for point-and-shoot enthusiasts around the world.
“On the one hand, of course that trend is happening. I think it’s undeniable,” Lee said.
“But I also think you could say that film photography was a trend…As you can see now, film photography still exists.”
