Product test
Portable printers – because photos you snap on your phone deserve a moment in the spotlight
by Michelle Brändle
Canon Zoemini S tested: all junk, but still damn fun
12.6.2019
Translation: machine translated
There is no photographic reason to buy a Canon Zoemini S. But there is a big "but" that makes the camera a good companion. The thing is great fun.
"It's definitely something that exists," is the first verdict on the Canon Zoemini S. A thing that Canon has thrown onto the market because something had to be thrown onto the market. That's why the engineers at Canon presumably hunkered down, somehow wildly assembled components from the lab's own rubbish dump, used scrap parts from a printer and then smeared the whole thing with old pink paint. And that's it.
It's not that simple. Or not quite. For once, the manufacturer's marketing is 100 per cent accurate. Hence the really lurid headline above, which Canon's Marketing Department certainly doesn't like. But it should get a nice click rate. Sorry, not sorry.
Quality like in 2003
Somehow the idea of the stickers is funny. Because the Zoemini is something like a Polaroid camera. You load the blank stickers into the paper tray, take a photo, wait what feels like sixteen years and then a sticker in 76mm x 50mm format rattles out. And that's it.
I know potatoes that take better pictures. In purely photographic terms, the Zoemini delivers roughly the same results as my mum's old Olympus C-350 Zoom from 2003. But not as a digital file, but as a print. Colours pale, lines surprisingly clear, but all in all a bit gurky. The trash look seems to be fashionable with the Zoemini.
How, however, a Zoemini with an 8-megapixel camera can go head-to-head with a sixteen-year-old 3.2-megapixel camera is not explained by Canon.
The test with street art and stock photos
Somehow, the camera finds its way into the luggage of video producer Stephanie Tresch and me. We shoot pictures of street art in a backyard in Zurich. Because that's what Zoemini's hip target audience does. Either that, or jumping up in the air in front of a wall. Does anyone actually know what the crazy "I'm going to jump in the air" shot is all about?
Since Stephanie is an expert with the camera and likes the unicorn with a heart, she takes the pictures. Meanwhile, I take pictures of her taking pictures. Also hip. It's called street photography. Or something like that. And somehow I have to illustrate this article.
The pictures rattle out of the camera. It's funny. Now we have stickers of street art. But as the colours all look a bit washed out, one question arises: is it the Zoemini's lens or the built-in printer?
Printing with the Bilderbüechli app
After that, you can use the app in much the same way as you use the Instagram app. Put a picture on the screen, text over it, or avocado emoji and then off to the printer. This is where it gets a little complicated again. As the app tries to get by without text, it's not entirely clear what's going on. You can see a battery indicator at the top right. Maybe. If you see it, then the camera is connected to the app. If not, then it's not.
The printer comparison with Bluetooth and without
It's easy to determine whether the problem lies with the printer or the lens. Theoretically at least. Because the Zoemini also works as a Bluetooth printer. In other words, you can send pictures from your smartphone to the Zoemini and it will then print them out. Of course, this is only possible via an app called Canon Mini Print.
The comparison between the printouts of the following images:
- Photo from Zoemini: Stephanie Tresch's impression of a slightly creepy graffiti bunny
- Photo from Huawei P30 Pro: Woman with bunny mask on backpack
- Photo from Sony a7sii: Picture of a Sony a7iii in the studio
- Stock photo of a wet otter
The shooting techniques and technologies differ here just as much as the amount of stuff that an artificial intelligence has included. Or how much a human has changed via Photoshop. But it's not about the quality of the photography, it's about the quality of the printer. Does the mini printer spit out better images if the snapshots don't come from the Zoemini's camera?
No, it doesn't spit them out. The printer struggles with grey tones in particular. The studio shot from the Sony a7sii looks like a normal printer would run out of colour. However, as the Zoemini has no cartridges, this is no longer the case.
But according to Canon's Marketing, the Zoemini is not about taking good pictures, it's about having fun. With this camera and print quality, nothing else is possible. The Zoemini is supposed to be something you can leave lying around at a party and take snapshots with. These are then printed out and then the party guests run into the same problem as me and Stephanie: what to do with the stickers?
So, done. By the way, a Polaroid camera is cheaper, looks nicer and probably takes better pictures. <p
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
