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Kids nowadays honestly have no idea how much work it was to get a photo then compared to now. We had to go out, buy a roll of film with like 24 photos on it, take the photos without having a clue what they looked like, and knowing we only had a limited amount, then we mailed them off and waited like a week for them to come back. If someone was blinking or your dumbass kid (me) was pulling a stupid face then you were stuck with it.
The flashes were also limited use, and even more expensive than the film.
Wow, I feel like we go back further in time with every comment
My dad had magnesium flash bulbs, but by the time I had a camera they were all electric flashes. It was still film that needed to be developed, but at least there weren't bulbs you had to replace
There was a lot of overlap between the two. Expensive cameras had electric flashes, but cheap cameras would have a spot to hook up a disposable flash instead. I had a cheap camera. I could basically only take pictures outdoors in the daytime.
I might have been too-young when they transitioned; i had a children's camera that didn't have a flash at all, and by the time I was in middle-school everything had switched to electric flashes and disposable cameras (which we enjoyed abusing by charging the flash and then smacking the camera to short the flimsy flash circuit without exposing the film).
Yea even in the early to mid 90s I remember those disposable camera with the flash packs you could buy separately. I used to take a bunch of pictures but almost never got them developed since i enjoyed taking the photos more than seeing the results.
The hardest parts were setting up the tripod and then getting the subjects to hold still for so long. That Lincoln guy was the worst.
Oh, and you forgot the next steps if you wanted it on your computer: Find some one with a scanner and copy it to a floppy disk or wait 10-20 minutes to email it.
Digital cameras were a revelation! They removed those stepsSHIT I FORGOT THE DAMN PROPRIETARY DATA TRANSFER CABLE!
That's why you get one that can take a floppy disk.
Good old Sony Mavicas 🥲
Remember photo cds?
It never even occurred to me that people may have had to mail them. I live in a fairly small town, and even we had a 24hr photo shop.