What defines a "bad" camera? Its image or build quality? Its price? The fact that it doesn't deliver what it promises? Looking deeper, the 1989 Nishika N8000 bounces between these questions like a pinball, and honestly, it's only remembered for one reason: its usefulness for creating animated GIFs today. How can an analog camera with 30 years under its belt do this? In fact, it ended up with more serious problems, being accused of running a telemarketing scam to get rid of surplus stock, but that's another story.
The essential animated GIF is a couple of seconds of video played in a loop. Of course, with more advanced tools you can include effects or use other sources, say a webcam... or an analog camera from 1989. No, it's not a joke, and it's not something the original manufacturer planned.
Nishika N8000
The camera in question is the Nishika N8000, and from the start it's clear that there's something unusual about it. It has four fixed 30mm lenses, with three aperture values available: Sunny (f/19), partly cloudy (f/11), and cloudy or interior (f/8). Its plastic design with aggressive angles screams "1989" at us, but the big question is: How exactly do those four lenses work?
The trick is nothing more than a variant of lenticular printing. A single shot on the Nishika N8000 consumes two frames of standard 35mm film, with each lens "occupying" half a frame. By combining those half frames, you get an effect that is "almost-pseudo-not-so-3D" and works wonderfully as an animated GIF.
Merging these frames is a relatively tedious manual process, but nothing a Photoshop session can't fix. In my personal opinion, the hardest part is digitizing the negative with a scanner, simply because of availability.
Is there anything else to add about the camera itself? It uses two AA batteries, although they seem to play a minimal role in its operation. The body is almost entirely made of plastic, and its weight is actually fake, since it has two metal pieces inside.
Now, I'd like to say the Nishika N8000 is affordable, but its exposure on the Web as a "GIF machine" has only driven up its price on eBay, with units exceeding $300. Most likely you'll have better luck at a thrift store, finding it gathering dust in a drawer.
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