Do you love your mirrorless camera but still long for the days of lo-fi vintage photos? Modern technology struggles to replicate vintage images, particularly the creamy softness of old, cheap disposable cameras. Thankfully, the mad scientists behind Pocket Dispo offer a lens that gives you a top-dollar disposable camera.
You’ve probably seen Pocket Dispo advertised on Instagram and wondered if that works. I asked the same thing. So, I pulled out my credit card and purchased one for my Canon R5.
This isn’t sponsored content. It’s a Pocket Dispo review from someone who wants to know if they wasted $50 bucks. The good news is, I didn’t.
What Is the Pocket Dispo Lens and Who Is It For?
The Pocket Dispo lens is a small, inch-long mirrorless camera lens for Sony, Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, Micro 4/3, and L-Mount cameras. It has no circuit connectors, so you’ll need to set your camera to fire without a lens attached. Without connections, your camera can’t tell when the lens is attached.
It has a small plastic disposable camera lens with a focal length of 28mm, a fixed aperture of ~F/11, and a set infinity focus. That means anything beyond 1.5 will be roughly in focus. This lens is ideal for anyone who misses the softness of old-school point-and-shoot disposable cameras.
Photos taken with the Pocket Dispo have a lush softness to them. After years of smartphones and apps automatically filtering your face, it’s almost jarring.
This is the easiest, low profile, most affordable way to get a vintage look to your mirrorless camera photos. Best of all, you can still shoot in RAW and edit them later. It’s like buying a magical disposable camera that lets you be a nerd about shutter speed.
If you’re a vintage fanatic or a photographer looking to add a lens with a ton of personality to your kit, Pocket Dispo is a steal.
Pocket Dispo Lens Specs
Price: $49.99
Focal Length: ~28mm
Fixed Aperture: ~F/11
Focus: Infinity Focus (everything is in focus beyond 1.5m)
Build: ASA Filament
What Do Pocket Dispo Photos Look Like?
To understand what this lens can do, you need to look at a bunch of photos. Rather than make you go through a gallery, we’re turning to Florida’s indie rock act, Virginity, for some help. Here’s a short music video for their song “Getting Good,” made using photos I took during a day at Rosie’s Dog Beach in Long Beach, CA.
What Is Great About the Pocket Dispo Lens?
1) Durable 3D Printed Lens Made with ASA Filament (Acrylonitrile Styrene Acrylate) and a Recessed Lens
The Pocket Dispo is a 3D-printed lens, so it’s understandable if your first question is if it’s durable. Pocket Dispo prints each lens using ASA filament, which is so strong it can be used to build bridges.
ASA provides resistance to weathering, UV rays, and impact damage. My lens looks as new as the day I bought it, even after heavy use.
Pocket Dispo has a recessed lens. That helps protect it from scratches even without a cap, which is good because, like a disposable, this doesn’t have a lens cap.
2) Pocket Dispo Delivers All The Charms of a Disposable Lens With Mirrorless Customizations
Some people might not immediately understand the appeal of the Pocket Dispo. It’s not unreasonable to ask, “Why would you want a disposable camera lens on your $1,000+ mirrorless camera?” The answer lies at the intersection of nostalgia and technology.
On one hand, you’ve got the soft, almost dreamy photos of a disposable camera. It’s a specific look that is hard to replicate digitally and gets expensive if you keep buying the cameras.
Then you’ve got technology. Disposable cameras can get beautiful shots, but they don’t offer any customization. Pocket Dispo puts all of the technology of your mirrorless camera behind a cheap disposable lens.
It has the same fixed aperture of ~F/11 as store-bought disposables. However, with your camera, you set the ISO and shutter speed.
This opens up your world for composition. If a give-and-take between its limits and your camera’s advantages. My Canon R5 has built-in image stabilization, letting me shoot longer exposures at night without shaking. Blasting your ISO with the Pocket Dispo is a blast, especially in glowing city settings. Who cares if there’s some grain? Don’t you want that film look?
3) Infinite Focus Makes This a Blast For Street Photography and Hip Shooting
If you’re used to auto-focus, there might be a brief adjustment period with the Pocket Dispo. Then, after an hour of shooting, the charm of its infinity focus comes into play. Roughly everything at the center of your shot at least 1.5 meters away will be in focus. Use that as a guide, and you’ll be fine.
This lens’s lack of needing to focus also makes it an excellent low-key street photography lens. You don’t need to line up your shot and spot the focus perfectly. This is an ideal lens for walking around and shooting from the hip. Set your ISO and shutter speed, walk out the door, and hang it from your neck.
The wide-angle lens is perfect for capturing a soft landscape or crowded street scene. If you’re worried about soft images, we suggest turning on focus peaking if your camera supports the feature.
4) Low Profile on the Camera or in Your Bag
Big lenses look expensive and draw attention to your camera. People tend to be much more paranoid when someone is shooting in public with professional-looking cameras. Pocket Dispo sets flush to your camera, giving the appearance of a point-and-shoot at a glance.
More importantly, it takes up a stunningly small amount of space in your bag. I use a 6-liter camera sling from Peak Design. My Canon R5 with the Pocket Dispo, a small flash, and a spare 80mm lens fit comfortably in my bag.
I had a pro-lens if needed, but let the Pocket Disco stay on my camera for adventuring. Even if you pack light, there’s always room for the Pocket Dispo.
5) Design Encourages Chromatic Aberration, Vignetting, and Halation
We love the look of Dispo’s vintage-style photos, particularly the imperfections they bring out.
The design encourages enhanced halation (fog around bright lights), chromatic aberrations (slight color distortions on the edge of photos), and vignetting (loss of light on the edge of an image). Factoring these features into your photos is a blast, particularly in editing.
These stylized quirks can add a glow to your subjects, softness during event photography, and create a soft vignetted frame on your edges. Learning how to harness them makes using the Pocket Dispo more fun.
6) Pocket Dispo Comes Alive With a Flash
At its heart, the Pocket Dispo is an ~F/11 lens, which means that in low-light settings, you will need light. Sure, you can blast the ISO.
That can get good results. However, when coupled with a simple flash, you open up a world of color and clarity. In our shooting, flash-produced images most accurately replicated a perfect disposable camera photo.
7) Modern Editing Software Means You Can Edit Around Its Quirks
Part of the charm of the Pocket Dispo is its quirks. However, that doesn’t mean you’ll be stuck with all of them. Editing software like Lightroom can help you tame everything from chromatic aberrations, vignetting, halation, and pincushion distortion in a few steps.
Do you think there’s too much haze in your image? Use the dehaze tool. Does your photo look washed out? Address the black levels.
Particularly if you’re shooting in a RAW format, there is a ton of wiggle room for how your photos can turn out. If you don’t like the quirks of the lens, most of them are found in the outer bounds of your photo. Crop them to the size of a polaroid, and most of those imperfections will be gone.
Where Does The Pocket Dispo Lens Need Work?
1) Pincushion Distortion With Landscapes
If you look at the top of the photo below, you’ll see some concave distortion along the horizon line of the photograph. That is Pincushion Distortion, meaning that lines outside the center of the image can bow inward.
You can easily edit out this distortion in Lightroom or other editing software. However, be aware of the issue and remember it during your editing sessions. I like the look. It adds to the natural character of the photos and the vintage look.
2) No Close-Ups
You must be about 1.5 meters from your subject to get a proper clear image. You can pull off a selfie with a flash and a long arm. But it’s limited. Granted, this is an issue with every fixed focus lens, but given its small size, people might imagine the Pocket Dispo could pull it off.
This is a very minor complaint, however. The selfies we pulled off are soft but still captured the moment. Here’s an example of a Pocket Dispo selfie.
3) Without a Flash, You’ll Adjust Settings Regularly or Shooting Automatic
We highly suggest shooting with a flash, even a small one, when using the Pocket Dispo. With a ~F/11 lens, even slight variations in light create noticeable changes from shot to shot.
One solution is to shoot in Automatic and let the camera pick your settings. However, if you’re like me and a nerd about Manual settings, you’ll adjust things regularly on bright days or at night without a flash.
What Kind of Creator is the Pocket Dispo Best For?
Given its size, affordability, and function, the Pocket Dispo is the rare lens that’s great for everyone.
Do you do travel content? This lens takes up no space in your kit while delivering unique photos. Are you a wedding photographer? Throw this on your backup camera and give your clients a vintage film look with your HD prints.
Maybe you just love vintage-looking photography but can no longer afford the cost of film. Buying the Pocket Dispo costs the same as a three-pack of film and development.
From a creative standpoint, the Pocket Dispo provides shoots unlike anything else in the mass market. And it does that without breaking the bank.
I will probably buy Pocket Dispos for friends and family at Christmastime. It’s the sort of lens you don’t even realize how often you’ll use until you’ve started using it. This is not going to replace your everyday goto lens, but it’s small enough you’ll find yourself taking it with you every day.
Even from a videography standpoint, the Pocket Dispo provides a versatile tool for creators. It captures the soft vintage colors of older cameras without losing the editing options of modern video formats.
For just $50, there’s something to be enjoyed here for almost every photographer. Unless you only shoot high-definition product photography, there’s a creative reason to keep this in your bag.
Should Creators Buy the Pocket Dispo Lens?
Unequivocally, yes. If this lens cost $100, I might say no, but at $49.99, it is a simple steal of a deal. It is affordable to almost everyone, powerful enough to take incredible shots, yet simple enough to capture a vintage look.
