A camera prototype swallowed my memory card and other weird stories from the life of a camera reviewer

I’ve been testing and writing about cameras for more than a decade, yet I still have some moments where I sit back, scratch my head, and think, well, that’s never happened before. In fact, I was just testing a prototype camera a few days ago when I put the microSD card in and…it just disappeared.

I was testing a prototype of the Rewindpix, a Kickstarter digital compact camera meant to mimic film with dozens of presets and the process of using a physical winder after each shot. I pulled the microSD card out to try to fix a firmware update.

When I went to put the microSD card back in, the card just disappeared. It wasn’t in the card slot, and it hadn’t fallen out onto my desk. I realized that there’s a gap just big enough that if angled the wrong way, the memory card falls inside the camera body itself.

Cue panic mode. The card may have only been the little 4GB card that came with the camera, but memory cards are hardly cheap right now, and a loose piece rattling around inside the camera probably isn’t a good thing.

I dug out a tiny screwdriver and started camera surgery – which was actually a little easier than I thought. A few minutes later, including pulling off the cricut board to get to the underside of the camera, the memory card was salvaged, the crisis averted, and the camera put back together as if nothing had ever happened.

The gap that the memory card fell through has already been corrected, but it’s a funny story that illustrates all the little things that camera designers have to think about that, as a photographer, probably never would have occurred to me. Rewindpix is a charming little camera with fantastic retro presets, and I’m really eager to try it again once it’s out of the prototype stage.

Naturally, after more than a decade in the industry, a camera pulling a magician’s disappearing act on a memory card isn’t the only weird story that has come from testing gear that’s not quite on the market yet.

Just a few weeks ago, I was out testing a camera before its official launch when I had to make an emergency trip to a store to buy…a sewing needle. I was testing out the Instax Mini Evo Cinema, and the camera was frozen.

Thankfully, there’s a tiny reset button, but it’s the sort that needs a pin to press, and I was already out and about trying to take sample shots. I didn’t want to drive all the way back home, so I went to the closest store and found a portable sewing kit that did the trick. That glitch was caused by a memory card that the camera didn’t like, and, thankfully, after trying a different card formatted inside the camera, the error hasn’t repeated itself.

The most painful memory? I once drowned my laptop testing a Kickstarter bag that claimed to be fully waterproof. My laptop’s mic was never the same after that, and I learned a very important lesson about testing durability claims before stuffing a bag with expensive gear. I don’t think that bag ever did fully make it to the market.

I could probably write a memoir about all the weird, laughable, and unusual stories that come from working as a tech journalist and camera reviewer. But testing prototype cameras makes me appreciate all the unseen work that has to go into perfecting a camera design before it makes it to the market.

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