My unquenchable thirst for photography has taken me to another dimension of still photography. Never has there been such a useless, problem prone and fraudulent camera. I bring to you the Nishika N 8000!!!
The Nishika 3-D N8000 is a lenticular stereo camera made by Nishika Optical Systems. The name is Japanese, but the company was based in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, Nevada and the camera was made in China. Sound like a scam yet? The original plan for the system was you’d shoot with the camera and mail your film back to the Nishika headquarters in Nevada, there they would develop your film and put prints onto a 3D almost holographic style paper, mail them back. People didn’t understand what does and doesn’t make a good 3D image which resulted in poor customer results. The whole concept and company were failing miserably.
Nishika itself went bankrupt in the 1990s when it was investigated by the United States Federal Trade Commission for using a telemarketing scam to unload cameras on a gullible American people. You’d receive a phone call letting you know that you were eligible to receive thousands of dollars in travel and entertainment coupons upon purchasing the camera. When you received the camera and coupons you realized they were everything but useless. The icing on the cake is that the camera came with a VHS tape narrated by vintage Hollywood horror actor Vincent Price. In the video Price mentions that making the N8000 took over 15yrs with hundreds of engineers and cost the company over 50 million dollars (I’ve attached this clip). You’d think they were sending the dam thing to the moon!
The truth about the N8000 is that while looking like a proper piece of technology, it’s actually a very cheap and simple camera (mine is broken). The prism between the viewfinder and hot shoe is purely for show. It is not an SLR camera and what appears to be an LCD display on the top plate is a sticker with numbers under plastic. The two AA batteries located inside the grip appear to power nothing more than the “check battery” light. Some reading online has discovered that the two smaller contacts in the hot shoe are not connected to anything. It was also mentioned that the camera’s relatively solid feel can be attributed to metal weights hidden inside the cheap entirely plastic body.
The come back story of this camera is one I’m very fond of. A camera that once cluttered junk stores for a couple dollars is now a hot item by film and photography lovers. I paid $100 for mine and see it on ebay and other sites for upwards $300. I have truly developed a soft spot for the camera! It’s unique design is always a conversation starter and the images I make from it are definitely one of a kind. Scanning of the images and turning them into a GIF file is the camera’s only real purpose to me. They always say a carpenter has many tools!
Check out these GIF files I’ve created from the Nishika N8000 and let me know what you think!
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