A friend of mine said, “Hey let’s all get a beer camera! It will be fun.” And it was…for about 5 minutes. I will call my friend Beer-dy just for ease. Anyway, Beerdy got one…it broke. I bought one, it didn’t work. I bought another and it worked for one film, then broke. They look nice though.
The first one I got was the Miller Lite, which was a 110 camera. It never worked. It did not have the strength in the cog system to advance the film and cock the shutter. It was advertised as working perfectly, so I asked to return it for a refund…that took some time as the seller wasn’t the most helpful. In the end eBay arbitration ruled in my favour and a return label was issued. So why do I still have the camera? The seller refused to accept the returned package and it was re-returned.
The second one I received was the 35mm Budweiser. These cameras were released around the end of the 1990s. This one worked as it should at first. I loved how the top of the can advanced the film, the “ring pull” engaged the rewind, and its almost perfect can appearance. I loaded a roll of Candido and carried it around for a while, well, for quite a while actually. I felt a bit odd using it in public unless I was with friends. Finally, I finished the roll and sent it off for development. Here are some of the results.
After this roll, I gave the camera to a non-beerdy friend to try and she quickly returned it, saying something was wrong. It was no longer advancing…it had broken. It has the specs of a disposible and acts like one as well, working for one film only.
They truly are awful cameras, a poor build quality combined with terrible picture quality. The fixed f10 aperture and speed of 1/100th doesn’t lend itself to anything else. This blog post had the spec I just mentioned. The writer also said the camera looked great but the images weren’t the best.
Here is another post from someone else who loved the design, but called the images soft. The film plane is slightly curved which lets you know the camera might struggle with sharpness.
So, if a beer-dy man says buy a beer camera…ignore him and save your money. These cameras are way over-priced novelty items only.
Ooooh, but now I have 2 beer cameras I can rip apart and see how they work, and maybe fix them, but I doubt it.
Very quick update: I thought I would try a test film in the 35mm camera before ripping it apart. It went through fine, but caught up on rewind. There is a little black button, I saw a video that said this was for multiple exposures, but it is not. This needs to be pressed during rewind. Once I did that the camera rewound much smoother. Not perfectly, but better…enough that I could use it again if I so desired…I do not.
Novelty items with a novelty that wears off very rapidly.
Within one film.
Hi Peggy,
They are small inventions to tempt the buyer. For the prices I have seen of these cameras, perhaps drinking a good beer is a better deal 😅. They also break easily and are not even useful for a good jug.
Exactly, the prices are not tempting. You could have a fantastic night out with friends for the price. I was very lucky with mine, the price was well below the average.
Technically the specs of these match the reusable plastic point & shoots of today, sold under various names but most likely made by one or two companies in China. But the models of today are a little more robust (you may get more than one or two rolls through them!) and have much better, cheap plastic lenses. I remember having a similar P&S camera as a teen in the 1970’s — and the images were poor at best. But I am surprised at how much better the images are from the modern versions, even though the specs are almost identical. Of course we’re not talking Pentax/Minolta/Canon/Nikon-SLR quality images, but definitely a lot better than my shots from the 1970’s!!! Thanks!
Unless someone donates a modern version, I will never know. I am put off beer/soda cameras for life now. If I had a list of worst camera, this would be on it.
I do have a ‘Coke’ can camera — probably exactly the same as your Budweiser one, other than the outside — and yep, it works but the results are not worth the price of the film and developing. So it’s just a curiosity sitting on the shelf that I can show my grandkids!
I think that’s what mine will be…brought out at parties.
I once had the Coca Col” variant. A piece of crap, basically … but it sold “as-is no warranty” on eBay for close to $25.
That’s about what I paid for this one.