Young people pay 10 times the bill for 30 yuan "e-waste" and turn around gorgeously
Why is the second-hand CCD camera a "net celebrity"?
"Canon ixus210 or ixus100, and Sony tx5 with complete configuration." "My family, is this CCD seller reliable?"... CCD cameras that have been eliminated by the times seem to usher in spring.
The digital card machine using CCD components that was common more than ten years ago was sought after as an Internet celebrity camera because it claimed to be able to achieve "film texture" and "straight out of the original image".
The full name of CCD is Charge Coupled Device, which is a charge-coupled device, which is a photosensitive element.
It can store the collected light in the camera in the form of electrical signals, and then convert it into a picture format through other components in the camera.
This kind of photosensitive element was eliminated by mainstream camera manufacturers more than ten years ago because of its low performance, high cost, and high production difficulty.
No one thought that after more than ten years of being eliminated, it would become popular again.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News survey found that on online platforms, the price of second-hand CCD cameras generally ranges from 100 to 400 yuan, and most of them are around 200 yuan.
In the second-hand markets in Beijing, Changsha, Chengdu, Guangzhou and other cities, there are gradually more physical stores selling CCD cameras.
According to a consumption report from JD.com, in the first half of 2022, sales of CCD cameras will increase by 15 times year-on-year, and sales of film cameras will increase by 105% year-on-year.
From "e-waste" to "retro internet celebrity"
It turned out that these were all electronic waste, which cost 30 yuan to dispose of, but now they are sold for two or three hundred, which is thousands of dollars more expensive.
1 sudden fire
Almost every day people come to ask if there is a CCD camera
On November 21, the reporter came to a flea market in Chengdu. There were many shops selling CCD cameras in the market.
The owner, Mr. Li, told the reporter that around September last year, a store-exploring blogger came to the store to take pictures and posted them on Douyin. After that, it quickly became popular. Almost every day, people came to ask if there was a CCD camera.
In the small shop, different types of cameras are casually placed on the table and hung on the edge of the bookshelf, and occasionally customers pick them up to look at them and choose them.
"I'm almost sold out of CCD cameras, and most of the rest are film cameras." Mr. Li said, "It turned out that these were electronic waste, which cost 30 yuan to dispose of, but now they sell for two to three hundred, which is thousands of dollars." Li said According to the gentleman, Canon's G series and A series are the best sellers now, and some rare models such as Olympus U2 are also more popular, and the price of ordinary models is more than two hundred.
Mr. Li said that now CCD cameras are sold in small shops like his, and he will not deliberately collect them.
He learned that some people who mainly sell and repair cameras promote it on social platforms. At the same time, some people set up recycling points in Germany, South Korea, Japan, etc. to recycle foreign CCD cameras and sell them in China, so now it seems that there are everywhere online It is a CCD.
"In the beginning, people would buy online, but some platforms were not guaranteed, and the cameras bought for hundreds of dollars could not be used. Later, many people came to pick up the goods offline, feel the feel, and take pictures in person." Mr. Li said that many Novices go to the store to try it first before buying. They upload pictures or videos to Douyin and Xiaohongshu to encourage more people to check in.
Mr. Li said that although mobile phone photography is very popular, in his opinion, most of the "soy-sized lenses" on mobile phones are flat and not wide-angle, the colors are not bright, the picture quality is not good, and they blur when zoomed in.
In contrast, the photos taken by some film machines and CCD cameras are not blurred when enlarged, "you can see the eyelashes" and "have the feeling of oil painting and film."
According to his observation, these characteristics are very popular among girls. "Taking portraits will have an artistic sense, which is a kind of enjoyment for them."
Why do post-00s like CCD cameras?
Over the past year, Mr. Li has figured out the mentality of post-00s.
"Young men and women often come to the store on weekends, usually girls are picking, and boys stand aside."
Speaking of this, Mr. Li smiled knowingly: "Photography may be the most popular among post-00 girls. Some girls come to the store and see the cameras used by their grandparents, and they will pull their companions and say, we also want to be old when we are old." Keep those things. Maybe everyone has nostalgia."
2 Who is buying?
Most of the consumers are young female students
In a photographic equipment city, there is a store of about 20 square meters, with several baskets of "accessory machines" piled up on the floor, and the cabinets and drawers are also filled with various types of CCD cameras.
Two customers are selecting and taking test shots, and a clerk has been storing and sorting.
The owner, Mr. Cheng, has been engaged in the camera industry for more than 20 years. He is mainly engaged in camera repair and has experienced the transformation process from film cameras and CCD cameras to mobile phones and SLR cameras.
According to Mr. Cheng, the sources of CCD cameras in the store are "half domestic and half foreign", including many damaged cameras, and they will repair them before selling them.
"Currently the Canon IXUS series is the best seller. The performance of the product is good, and it can basically be used for 20 to 30 years without being broken or getting in water."
According to Mr. Cheng's observation, most of the people who come to the store are young girls, about half of whom are college students, and a considerable number of middle school students.
The price of hundreds of dollars is not a burden for students.
Mr. Cheng believes that the popularity of CCD cameras is due to the needs of young people.
"Photography is a serious matter for the post-70s and post-80s generation. Usually, parents take it to the photo studio. For post-00s generation, daily photo taking is not a ritual." It is more of a ritual to be photographed by close people holding a camera .
A more realistic reason is that some middle school students cannot use mobile phones at school, and a small CCD camera can just meet their needs of "recording their growth".
"Who doesn't want to have a good photoshoot when they're a student, right?"
The customers in the store, Xiao Zhou and Xiao Yang, are two girls from the broadcasting department of the university. They choose from a wide range of CCD cameras to test whether the machines can operate normally.
"We came here by looking at online guides. This is the first time we have bought a CCD." Xiao Zhou and Xiao Yang said that they have been paying attention to CCD cameras for a long time, and they have always been very moved when they saw the renderings taken by others on the Internet.
Xiao Zhou also showed reporters a photo taken by a friend with a CCD, expressing his liking for this "atmosphere".
Talking about his understanding of cameras, Xiao Yang said: "If you want to say how professional you are, you are actually not. You just read other people's posts, see the effects of different models of cameras, choose the one you like, and shop for one. It’s not a professional game, it’s just to take some nice photos.”
Now
Online trading of CCD cameras is booming
The online CCD trading market is also very lively.
The reporter noticed that on second-hand trading platforms such as Xianyu, there are two types of sellers, one is non-professional sellers, who sell CCDs mostly to deal with idle ones; the other is professional sellers, who collect all kinds of CCDs through various channels. CCD publishes “grass planting posts” on Xiaohongshu, Zhihu and other platforms to attract customers to Xianyu for transactions.
Not long ago, the "2022 Photography and Camera Consumption Trend Report" released by Jingdong Consumer and Industry Development Research Institute mentioned that a retro trend has hit recently, and cameras with "retro" labels such as film cameras and CCDs "exploded out of the circle. ".
JD.com’s sales situation shows that in the first half of 2022, sales of CCD cameras will increase by 15 times year-on-year, and sales of film cameras will increase by 105% year-on-year.
Among them, the purchase of CCD cameras by Generation Z has increased by 20 times year-on-year.
On the one hand, it is a hot market, on the other hand, the quality of online products is uneven, and there is even a phenomenon of selling driving recorders converted into CCD cameras.
After all, it is a camera more than ten years ago, and there are very few cameras with normal appearance and functions, so the supply exceeds the demand.
During the interview, the reporter learned that some merchants received CCD casings, even very cheap counterfeit casings, and then rebuilt the driving recorder and sold them at the price of CCD. There are many customers who "step on thunder" on the Internet.
future
How long can this retro craze last?
For the sudden popularity of CCD cameras, many people have different opinions.
"I didn't understand it at all at first." Although Mr. Li runs a "net celebrity check-in shop", he did not have expectations for the popularity of CCD cameras.
He said that in terms of performance, many CCDs are completely inferior to today's new equipment, and the biggest advantage of CCDs is a kind of "experience" or "aesthetic feeling".
The film machine that hit the market earlier may be an example.
"Films are priced from a dozen yuan to hundreds of yuan, and some people even buy movie film, cut it into a suitable size and sell it as camera film." The same is true for XD cards used in some CCD cameras, which often cost hundreds of yuan a piece.
Mr. Cheng, the owner of the photographic equipment store, believes that spending hundreds of dollars to buy a suitable camera and the experience it brings is to give new meaning to "obsolete things".
"It can be said that it is a toy. I don't know how long a toy can be popular. But it is a good thing and opens up a new market. It is also a normal thing because it can meet the needs of young people to self-record ritually, in line with the laws of the market.”
As for the statement that "CCD cameras can produce the effects of film cameras", photographer Li Yang does not agree.
He said: "The media of these two cameras are completely different, and they will definitely not achieve the same effect. It is actually unnecessary to worship such things blindly because of the hype on the Internet." He suggested that if you want When purchasing this kind of camera, it is best to understand the concept of film and CCD first, so as to avoid buying following the trend and not achieving the desired effect.
However, when it comes to the value of CCD cameras, he believes that the value of a picture lies in the content of the picture, not in the model of the camera.
"A good photo taken with CCD in the past, even after many years, it is still a valuable photo. For an image creator, in fact, whether it is CCD or CMOS, or film, Polaroid, etc. , it is just a tool. What kind of theme we want to create, we will choose a corresponding tool, just like we choose chopsticks when eating Chinese food, and knives and forks when eating Western food, it is the same reason.”
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News reporter Ren Jiangbo intern Gao Yao and Wu Yiyang photo report