Using Disposable Cameras to take photos are one of the best ways to capture moments and print photos out on the fly. These photo captures often have an effect built within them that give the printed photos a dreamy and nostalgic aesthetic.

However, Disposable Camera brands, such as Polaroid, and Fujifilm often con people out of their money, by charging them outrages amounts of money to buy the film cartridges in order to take these dreamy, nostalgic, on-the-fly photos.

Seriously, sometimes they've charged like $25, for what? a single cartridge of film only containing 10 individual pieces?

Let that sink in for a moment. That's $2.50 per photo. For comparison, you could probably commission a Renaissance artist to paint your portrait for less per image.

Look, I get it – film production costs money, nostalgia has a premium, and these companies need to make a profit. But when taking a handful of dreamy photos costs more than a decent dinner for two, something's gone seriously wrong in the economics of capturing memories.

As much as I love Polaroid, and FujiFilm, charging that much money to buy film is just fucking ridiculous.

Alas, other alternatives are needed, and in this blog, I will show you how to recreate the dreamy, nostalgic, hazy effect seen in many disposable camera photos, so that YOU don't have to fork over your life savings just to take them.

This photo of a waterfall taken during my trip to Northern Minnesota will be used as the reference:

Original Unedited Photo:

Opening up Adobe Lightroom, this is the final result of the editing that gives the image the m a g i c a l disposable camera effect:

Now it's time to share my edits. These are the settings I adjusted the photograph to.

Lights

Curves

Color

Color Mixer - Red

Color Mixer - Orange

Color Mixer - Yellow

Color Mixer - Green

Color Mixer - Cyan

Color Mixer - Blue

Color Mixer - Violet

Color Mixer - Pink

Color Grading - Shadows

Color Grading - Highlights

Effects

Conclusion

Well, that's how I recreated the disposable camera effect on Adobe Lightroom. I hope that you enjoy it! Feel free to make any adjustments to the effect to your liking.

If you made it this far into the blog, I appreciate that very much.
With love,

Devan Chuyen Lee