I didn’t actually know what to title this post, should I write souvenir camera, tiger camera as it says it on the front, or toy camera. It really is a unique camera, purely a fun camera. You can find the manual here.

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I love toys and I love pokemon. So when I read about this camera from 1999 my inner child clicked on and I decided I must try it. See I said “try” not keep. I already knew when I bought it that I didn’t want to keep this camera. The manual recommends 400asa, like most other toy cameras. The second article says it puts all 150 pokemon around the photo. As of writing this post, there are over 800, so the catchphrase of “gotta catch ’em all” is no longer true. How can you catch them all when they just keep designing more?

I love the look of this camera, with Pikachu, Diglett and some pokeballs incorporated in the design. The on/off button locks the shutter. As it is a very basic camera, it will still work if there is no battery in it. The battery is purely for the flash. On my example the flash was a little hit and miss. I had to add a piece of tinfoil to make it more reliable. The flash fires each time it is charged and the camera is turned on.

If I was using it to take photos of children, they loved it. Even adults had a giggle. Children tended not to understand that they could not see the photos straight away and kept grabbing at it to see the back. But at the end of the day how many photos do you need with a Pokemon border? I took the film out mid roll and put it in another toy camera.

Here are the shots I took. I put in an expired roll so was nowhere near the 400asa suggestion. 🙂

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Well, it works. It was fun while it lasted. I think if the Pokemon was a choice you could make, I would like it more. But the border is built into the camera, Pokemon galore, constantly.