Shoot & Print Forever: My Thermal Toy Camera Experience

As part of exploring photography again after the Chuzhao Toy Camera rekindled my interest, I also picked up two thermal print toy cameras. These are actually geared for kids, but they're surprisingly fun to shoot with. There's something magical about holding a physical print of a photo, especially for kids. For adults, that tangible, instant print can feel just as magical and nostalgic.

After watching some videos online, I decided to plunk down some money and got two different cameras from two different retailers just to see if one was better. In the end, the differences were pretty minor. It mostly comes down to which interface you prefer or whether you like having a dedicated button for a specific function.

unedited - direct from the SD Card

Image quality-wise, these cameras (like the Chuzhao) are never going to give you pristine, sharp images like even the cheapest digital cameras, smartphones, or modern Polaroid/Instax cameras. If that's what you're after, these aren't for you. Instead, they’re for people who dig the lo-fi look or just like to experiment. As you would expect, the lenses are plastic. I have no clue what the sensor size is, since most of these are marketed to kids and manufacturers rarely bother listing the specs. They may boast "1080p quality," but you're not getting true 1080p. The software just interpolates the pixels to fill out that resolution.

The fun part, though, is that they can print black-and-white photos. These aren't high-quality prints on photo paper, but they’re still physical prints, and that's the whole charm. If you're a budget photographer like me, you'll also appreciate the price point: around SGD 30–40. Even better, they don't require expensive cartridges or special photo paper. They print on thermal paper—the same stuff receipts are made from—which is super cheap. You can literally shoot and print endlessly, which makes them perfect for kids.

Of course, I doubt most adults will be printing random snapshots all day. Personally, I still prefer to shoot with intention. What these cameras do is remove some of the financial pain from photography and give hobbyists a cheap, fun way to experiment.

The lenses aren't particularly wide. I often had to step back further than I expected to get the composition I wanted. For printing, I highly recommend using the dot-matrix method rather than the smooth mode. With dot-matrix, you'll see fine dots, but the result looks sharper and more pleasing. The smooth mode comes out a bit mushy to my eye.

For me, the real magic is in the printing. The digital photos themselves aren't great. If all you want to do is post them straight to Instagram, you're better off sticking to your phone or picking up a cheap digital camera with some nice built-in filter recipes. With these thermal cameras, you should print the photos. If you want to share them online, just scan the prints or lay them flat and photograph them with your phone. You don't need a high-end scanner. A simple one works fine, and a pricey scanner isn't going to magically transform them into great photos anyway.

I bought my scanner second-hand online. The LCD is a bit wonky, but it works well enough. Because of that, I had to scan the prints using my computer since I couldn't select functions directly on the scanner. That's fine, though, since I don't plan to do this while out shooting.

Anyway, here are a few of the photos I got.

I'll admit I haven't shot a ton with these yet. I picked them up not long after getting the Chuzhao, and I quickly got obsessed with that instead. Then I dove into some infrared photography, which I've been spending a lot of time on recently. But I do have some ideas I'd like to try with these, and one day I may even get a dedicated thermal printer to experiment with printing photos from my other cameras. But that's a project for later.

So, are these thermal cameras worth it? If you're looking for a fun, zero-stress way to play with photography, absolutely. They’re a great reminder that the most exciting part of a photo isn't always on a screen, it's in your hand. And for the price of a couple of plates of chicken rice, you can literally shoot and print to your heart's content. What’s not to love about that?

In the end, these thermal cameras are less about taking perfect photos and more about the simple joy of creating. They remind me that photography doesn’t have to be a big, expensive production. Sometimes, the most satisfying thing is a grainy, lo-fi print that came out of a tiny, plastic box. It's a different kind of magic, but it’s still magic.