Kodak Charmera vs Vetek keychain camera: a comparison
Keychain cams: They’re tiny, but the images are… also tiny, lol
I love a good keychain camera. They travel in my pockets and I don’t worry about them getting damaged because they’re the right combination of rugged and inexpensive. There’s virtually no learning curve. Kids love them. Adults love them. You can’t go wrong with keychain cameras.
I have found myself in possession of TWO keychain cameras, so of course I pitted them against each other in a battle of wits - and charm.
About each camera (Kodak Charmera vs. Vetek Keychain Camera from Amazon)
Kodak Charmera
- You have to bring your own mini SD card
- Leaning on its decades of camera-making experience, Kodak wisely put the camera strap loop on the same side as the shutter button
- No timestamp on photos
- Several color modes
- It has an undeniable charm
Vetek keychain camera:
Vetek keychain camera on Amazon.com
- Ships with a mini SD card already inside (unlike the Charmera)
- Camera strap is in a weird place (opposite the shutter button)
- There is a timestamp on photos but whoops, I shot a ton of stuff with the wrong date first
- An overwhelming variety of color modes
- Lengthy boot-up song announces I AM STARTING MY CAMERA NOW (you can turn this off)
- Better than you’d expect for its price tag
This winter I found myself in possession of TWO keychain-style cameras so as soon as the weather turned halfway decent I took them out for some side-by-side comparison shots.
Vetek keychain camera and Kodak Charmera
These side-by-sides are all “SOOC” (straight out of camera), but saved as jpgs so some compression is inevitable. Charmera first, then Vetek.
Two things are immediately apparent:
- They have different aspect ratios (the Charmera’s is more square-ish, and the Vetek’s is a bit wider)
- The Vetek has a much wider field of view compared to the Charmera (the Vetek captures way more of the scene)
The timestamp on the Vetek photos was a surprise. I would have input the correct date first had I known it was going to be on every photo (I did not take these pics in July of last year, lol).
Here you can see how differently blues are captured. The bicycle was more teal than blue in reality, but it wasn’t GLOWING. I think the Charmera tends to make things very bright in general.
I think I might’ve been too close for the Vetek - the bottles are blurrier in the Vetek shot than the Charmera shot.
Charmera’s blown-out colors add just the right amount of crappy that I appreciate in keychain camera photos. I like the Vetek a lot, but it’s got less of that “disposable camera” look.
Indoor shots
Woof. The Charmera produces a dark, noisy image in this scene lit only by a table lamp, but the early-2000s webcam aesthetic wins it nostalgia points. (The poor composition of the shot is on me.)
Ok but Charmera really excels at this food shot. The orange chicken glistens and beckons, and the up-close bowl of panang curry is more in focus.
Other tidbits
In general, both cameras struggle with close objects. I took a whole bunch of these cube shots to demonstrate colors, and every single one is insufferably blurry. Lesson learned: no close-up stuff.
Vetek color filters
The Vetek comes with so many filters I lost count. There are the usual standards of sepia, b/w, and a few “vintage” looking treatments, but there are also some color-isolating filters, filters that tint the whole image a color, and filters that invert the colors or make the colors look radioactive. I’ll have to shoot something other than my test cube with them - they look fun.
Charmera color filters and frames
The Charmera also has a selection of filters: black and white, warm, cool, and a bunch of pixel filters that crunch the image down to black pixels and a primary color.
The Charmera’s frame modes are very cute, too. There are 4 of them to pick from:
Do I have a favorite?
My favorite is the Charmera, and half of that favoritism comes from the ergonomics of the camera (and the other half from the overall look of the images).
You can’t argue with the camera strap being on the same side as the shutter button. This feels like a silly thing to complain about, but it also feels like a silly thing to get wrong. And I’m willing to admit skill issue, but on the Charmera the strap is so useful as a handle to grab the camera by (I pinch the camera between my right hand thumb and index finger, and use the rest of the strap as a handle held by my remaining three fingers).
I also just love the Charmera’s images: they’ve got that late-90s digital crunchiness that has apparently come full circle back into style, which is funny because a lot of us remember spending hundreds on new digital cameras every few years in the early 00s just to get away from that kind of image quality. (See my earlier post featuring some Charmera pics)
The Vetek is still portable and plenty of fun, You know who I would definitely give the Vetek to? A kid who has expressed interest in photography. The price point makes it a no-brainer, and the image fidelity is going to match reality more closely and the overall camera is quite user-friendly aside from the weird camera strap placement.
They are both fun, though, and I’ll definitely be taking both of them with me on my outings this summer. I’ll do a follow-up post once I have some more authentic (not just test) pics to share.
Vetek keychain camera on Amazon.com
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