Konica Wai Wai Super Wide camera

The Konica Wai Wai camera is one of those strange cameras that only the Japanese can imagine. Selling for less than $10 USD, this disposable camera has a 17mm ultra wide angle lens. There is a mirror attached around the lens for taking self-portraits. Taking self portraits with a whole bunch of people is great fun, and very easy. The camera has a fixed aperture of f/8 and fixed shutter speed at 1/100. Just press the shutter button and hope the film has enough latitude! A flash is included for indoor pictures (an absolute necessity).

Lens performance is of course not even close to competition for an SLR lens. Center is acceptable and the corners are quite fuzzy. The minimum in-focus distance is 40cm, which is somewhat limited for such a wide lens, for example if you want to close up pictures of your dog and keep it not too small in the picture. For people pictures though, it's perfect and produces very interesting effects.

There's just one tiny little problem: this thing is disposable. Luckily, Konica has designed it well enough that people discovered a way to reload the film! I tried it myself, and didn't find it too difficult. The only tricky part was that I had to hide in a dark room under the blanket to unwind the film completely to put it into the case. It made me a bit nervous but the result was worth it.

Samples

(Konica Wai Wai x Konica 800 expired 2 years)

(Konica Wai Wai x Fujicolor Natura 1600)