FilmCam: Disposable Camera

Wind on, take your 24, send the roll to the lab, and your photos come back about a day later. Two films are free forever, with no limit on how many rolls you shoot.

FilmCam is a disposable camera on your phone. Wind the dial, shoot the roll, send it to the lab, and wait about a day for your photos to come back developed.

There is no preview after the shutter. You get a viewfinder, a frame counter and the small mechanical sound of the wind wheel, and then you wait, which is the part that makes the photos feel like something you found instead of something you made.

Two film stocks are free forever, with no limit on how many rolls you shoot. The camera costs $14.99 once and opens the other six.

THE FREE FILM Gold 200. Warm everyday color, 24 shots. Dream 100. Faded, hazy, one of a kind, 16 shots.

THE REST OF THE FILM Portrait 400. Soft, natural skin, 36 shots. Street 200. Cool, muted street tones, 36 shots. Mono 400. Black and white, 24 shots. Slide 50. Punchy, saturated, deep blues, 36 shots. Cine 500T. Teal shadows, warm skin, glowing lights, 24 shots. Night 800. Pushed, cool and grainy after dark, 36 shots.

Every stock develops on its own recipe: its own grain size, its own halation around bright lights, its own split tone, vignette and print softness. The film you load also sets how many frames you get, the way real cartridges do.

THE LAB Your first roll ever comes back in about an hour, so you see the payoff the day you install. Every roll after that takes 18 to 24 hours. Roughly one roll in eight gets rushed and lands early, which is luck, not a setting. Nobody can pay to skip the wait. We wrote the app and we can't skip it either.

Your phone tells you when the roll is ready.

THE RULES OF FILM The stock commits on your first shot. No swapping film mid-roll. Rolls develop in the order you finish them. Prints shared from the free camera carry a small FilmCam mark printed up the white border, the way a maker's name runs along the edge of a real 35mm strip. It is never on the photograph itself.

WHAT ELSE An optional quartz date stamp, burned into the corner in the orange seven-segment type your parents' photos had. Save a whole developed roll to Photos at once, or leave everything in the app. Nothing to sign into, no account, no ads.

One purchase, $14.99. No subscription. Yours forever, and shared with your family.

Made by Spruzzo Labs — a creative lab.

Questions or ideas? hello@spruzzolabs.com