Why make waterproof cameras disposable? First, because photos taken by waterproof cameras, unless they’re really good ones, tend to be visually illegible. You can’t see anything except blue and blur. Which means that taking pictures with waterproof cameras is normally a waste of time and money. Making waterproof cameras disposable protects innocent camera users from wasting a month’s salary on something that isn’t going to work. If you make waterproof cameras disposable, users only have to make their mistake once, at the cost of just one film plus a pittance for the camera shell.
Second – firms make waterproof cameras disposable because disposable cameras let you do things to the casing you can’t do to a normal camera. Normal cameras have cases that need to be opened: they are insulated against light leakage, but they’re not so hot when it comes to stopping water. Particularly if that water is the sea, and they’re in it. A disposable camera’s case is only opened once – when the camera is sent to the developers, where they break it open and extract the film. Which means you can make waterproof cameras disposable: because they only need to be opened once, their cases can be made watertight. So: firms make waterproof cameras disposable because: disposable cameras already are practically waterproof. In fact, the only difference between making normal cameras disposable and making waterproof cameras disposable is this: when you make waterproof cameras disposable, a second seal is placed around the shutter release button to stop the water getting in. Otherwise, making waterproof cameras disposable is no different from making any other kind of disposable camera.
Is it worth making waterproof cameras disposable? Cost-wise, yes. As we’ve noted, most waterproof cameras are hit-and-miss at best, unless you go for high-end super-sophisticated stuff that costs more than your house. Making mass-market waterproof cameras disposable ensures that companies don’t have to spend money R&D’ing something that isn’t going to work (a midrange underwater unit), while still being able to provide end users with a (sort of) usable waterproof product. Making waterproof cameras disposable will never make a splash in the technology journals and it doesn’t produce many pictures worth looking at – but it does let a lot of us have a lot of fun without wasting too much hard-earned dough.
