Whilst you can still find some weird cameras to this day, most cameras that money can buy are typically of a decent enough quality to get started with photography, and a lot of analogue cameras that survived the years are typically the ones that saw the most use and most sales.
This is why if you go into a used camera shop, the chances are likely you will find a model that deserves a place in vintage camera bags, but of course, this is not always the case.
Cameras are built on invention and innovation, so there are times when even the best camera designs fall flat on their face.
Kodak The Handle
A camera being so bad that it lost the company that made it over a billion pounds is probably going to end up on a list like this, and so goes the story of Kodak’s ill-fated effort to enter the world of instant film.
Launched in 1977, The Handle lacked any form of design cohesion and despite using a different system for developing film compared to arch-rival Polaroid, lost a lawsuit worth $925m in 1981 (well over $1.5bn) today.
Apple Quicktake 100
Whilst Apple is known today for its sleek consumer goods and surprisingly high-quality cameras given the size and shape limitations of a mobile phone, this was far from always the case, and the Quicktake 100 from 1994 follows in the footsteps of the Newton and the Apple Bandai Pippin.
It looks like a miniature digital projector, could take a grand total of eight photographs at 640x480 (0.3 megapixels), and was clunky and difficult to use.
Whilst it found a niche in the education market like a lot of Apple products in the 1990s, it was one of the products that inched the company close to bankruptcy and was immediately killed off in 1997 by Steve Jobs’ return.