I’m an analog photography nut, and this cheap compact is as close as a digital camera has come to capturing the feel of shooting film
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RewindPix: two-minute review
It’s 2026, and retro is in. To be fair, retro is never not in — the definition of what’s currently ‘retro’ just changes. Right now, in photography, the current retro hotness is the idea of a digital camera that ‘takes pictures like film’. This is a very popular idea at the moment, and many cameras have tried to deliver it, from Fujifilm’s expensive analog love letter the X half, to cheaper offerings like the screen-free Camp Snap.
At first blush, it might not be obvious what’s different about the RewindPix. It’s a plastic-bodied digital compact, equipped with a 13MP Sony-made sensor, a fixed 35mm equivalent lens, a flash and a viewfinder. So far, so standard, besides a cutesy wheel that you have to wind on between photos.
The real trick comes in the RewindPix companion app. Through this app, you have access to a huge number of film-like filters to imbue your images with specific look. Color-rich looks simulating slide stocks like Fujifilm Velvia; crunchy black & white looks; smooth-toned color looks that put one in mind of Kodak Portra; intense pink- and purple-hued looks that resemble specialist Lomography films – there’s a lot in there.
From the selection, you can pick three of these looks, ‘load’ them into your camera as a ‘roll’ of 36 shots, and switch between them as you shoot. Once you’ve hit your 36, you reconnect to the app to ‘unload’ your shots and see what they look like (remember, the camera has no screen). From there, you can reload with three new film stocks, and repeat.
It sounds a bit nuts. And it kind of is. But honestly – it works.
Having spent a considerable amount of time with the RewindPix, I’m not completely without my reservations, but I am quite charmed. One aspect of shooting film that none of the film-like digital compacts have managed to recreate for me is the excitement – that nervous anticipation of loading a new stock, and seeing what the results will be. Not even a beautiful piece of premium kit like the Fujifilm X100VI can give you that.
The RewindPix is as close as I’ve ever come to that feeling with a digital camera. That film-look selection screen is incredibly addictive; I genuinely felt like a kid in a candy store, and was carefully considering my choices every time I went back to reload. The shots certainly aren’t perfect, and I came away with a share of duds as well as images I liked – but that’s what happens when I shoot film, too.
Lightweight and well-designed, with a considerable fun factor, the RewindPix is a winner for the price. And with the potential for more film looks to be added to its repertoire via app updates, I can see it having long-term appeal, too.
RewindPix: price and availability
The RewindPix is still in pre-release, following a mind-blowingly successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter where it incinerated its initial $15,000 (£11,214) funding goal to the tune of more than $1.1 million (more than £800,000) at time of writing. You can still pledge a minimum of $119 (about £89) to secure yourself a camera, though shipping timelines are still to be confirmed.
I think this is a good price, pretty much exactly where a retro-styled digital compact should be pitched. It’s a little more expensive than the Camp Snap, though offers considerably more functionality, and is much cheaper than the overpriced Fujifilm X half.
RewindPix: design
- All-plastic build, but has a satisfying weight to it
- Beautiful big optical viewfinder
- Operates like a real film camera, complete with wind-on wheel
Those who aren’t immune to a bit of retro kitsch (guilty) will likely be very charmed by the look of the RewindPix. It physically resembles the old-school analog compacts it’s aping, with a simple rectangular body design that’s centered around a big, round fixed lens in the versatile 35mm focal length. The lens also has a 43mm filter thread.
On the top plate of the camera is a big, honking, unmistakeable red shutter-release button (swappable to other colors), next to a shoe mount for attaching flash units if desired. The RewindPix does have its own built-in flash, and it’s a proper Xenon flash, not an LED, meaning it fires with the proper level of intensity. You activate it via the sliding switch on the front of the camera body. On the bottom there’s also a standard screw thread for use with a tripod.
Sitting at the top left is one of my favorite features: the big, beautiful optical viewfinder. So many new compacts — digital and analog — come equipped with tiny, boxy, fiddly viewfinders that are awkward and unsatisfying to compose an image with. Not so with the the RewindPix. You get a beautifully clear view of your scene, marked with framing lines. Of course, the fact that it’s offset from the lens means that it only semi-accurately represents what your image is going to look like — but that’s the case with all compacts in this mode.
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Elsewhere, there’s a genuine wind-on wheel, just as you’d find in a real film compact, and you do actually need to wind it on between frames. The RewindPix isn’t the first digital camera to tap this well — the X half did the same thing with its wind-on lever, but personally I find this level of kitsch a lot more endearing in a $119 camera than I do in an $849 one.
In the center of the rear of the camera is a small LCD screen that tells you which film filter you’re using and how many shots you’ve taken, and next to it is the sliding ‘C’ switch that lets you toggle between your three loaded filters. On the bottom left is the Wi-Fi button for connecting the camera to your phone, and on the bottom right is the ‘M’ button that switches to ‘In-camera’ mode if you don’t want to fuss with the filters (more on that later).
Despite its all-plastic build, the RewindPix has a surprising amount of heft to it. There’s a reason for this: two metal weights have been placed inside the body. According to RewindPix, this is for stabilizing the camera and balancing its weight, and is not an attempt to make the camera feel more premium than it is — but doing the former does still accomplish the latter.
The design is charming, and meets the brief of what it needs to be almost perfectly. If someone described the RewindPix to you then asked you to sketch what you thought it looked like, you’d probably end up drawing something that looks almost exactly like the real thing. It’s what it needs to be! Nothing wrong with that.
I do have a gripe. I’ve listed all the buttons and controls on the RewindPix’s body, and the observant among you may have noticed that I didn’t mention a power button. That’s because it doesn’t have one. You turn the RewindPix on by winding the shot-advance wheel, and it turns itself off after a period of inactivity.
Now, one of the reasons I enjoy shooting with analog compacts like the Olympus XA2 is that I can always be ready. I can walk around with the camera in one hand, my finger on the shutter button, and the second I see something to capture, I can raise the camera, shoot, then wind on to be ready for the next. Many, many times, I raised the RewindPix and fired the shutter button to capture a moment, only to discover it had turned itself off.
Sure, most digital cameras have an auto power-off feature – but most offer a quicker startup solution than winding a geared wheel (and will also let you turn that feature off if desired). If the RewindPix is going to pretend to be a film compact, I’m going to use it like one, and the ability to be ‘always-ready’ is one of an analog compact camera’s chief advantages, in my opinion. If RewindPix are taking update requests, a way to disable the auto power-off is top of my wishlist.
RewindPix: performance
- App-based selection of films is brilliantly addictive
- Image quality is decent, if unspectacular – film-based filters do much to punch up images
- Settings are fixed, which is great for ease of use, but can be creatively limiting
The RewindPix is unavoidably a bit fiddly, the way all phone-interacting cameras are. You have to connect to the camera’s independent Wi-Fi network to load your film selections, then disconnect to shoot, then connect again to unload. I was using a beta of the Android version of the app (the full version has since been released), and it was mostly stable – though I did experience a connection drop that caused an image to disappear during the unloading process.
The app is the only way to fully engage with the film-simulation process. The camera has 4GB of pre-installed memory, and you can access your shots by plugging it in via the USB-C cable; however, the majority of film looks are stored in the app and applied there, so you need to use the app to get the full experience.
Image quality is firmly in the realm of good enough. The 13MP sensor is a tiny 1/3.06-inch type, and the lens has a fixed f/2.2 aperture with four glass elements and two plastic ones. The level of detail is good enough for Instagram and other forms of online sharing, but isn’t at the level where you’ll be making prints from your images. Dynamic range is okay but not the best — blown-out highlights and murky shadows are a common sight. A well-chosen film look can help this look like artful choice rather than a technical limitation.
A stroke of design genius was the decision to allow you to load three films at a time, rather than just one. Having to complete the unloading and reloading process every time I wanted to try a new filter would have been a tedious chore; but having three at once is thrilling. It makes you much more flexible, with options for different lighting conditions, versus when shooting actual film where you must pick one roll of film at a time — I’ve been out with B&W film loaded while the light is rich and golden, or out with expensive color film on a muted day of drab, nothing-y light.
Whereas with the RewindPix, you can swap from one to the other with a simple switch of the ‘C’ slider. I found my preferred load out was generally to set C1 as a standard colour film look, C2 as a crazy or dramatic color look such as infrared or purple tint, and C3 as a B&W look. This made me feel well-equipped for all shooting situations – good and poor weather, indoors and outdoors.
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The RewindPix does have the option of the ‘In Camera’ mode, activated by pressing the ‘M’ button on the rear of the camera. This allows it to function more like a conventional compact – there’s no requirement for a phone connection or a limited ‘roll’ of 36. It just shoots indefinitely, with three filter options: Sunny Warm, Breezy Cool and Simply Mono. (Pro tip: if the app-based functions aren’t working and you can’t figure out why, it is possible you have activated In Camera mode by mistake. I learn these things so you don’t have to).
Shots taken using In Camera mode can be accessed directly from the card, and will have the filters applied, meaning the camera can function without a phone. Though honestly, this mode is a lot less fun, and removes most of the RewindPix’s key USPs.
As this is a point-and-shoot compact, settings are not user-controllable. The shutter speed is variable — the specs say it can go as slow as 1sec, though RewindPix’s promotional material says it’s fixed at a sensible minimum of 1/60sec. This is slower than normal for point-and-shoots (a fixed setting of 1/125sec is more common), and is perfectly fine for handheld shooting, but does mean you have to take a little more care that you’re holding the camera steady; a few of my more optimistic one-handed grab shots came out blurry and useless. I think the trade-off is worth it, as 1/60sec gives the camera a bit more latitude in low light, but it’s worth being aware of. Like any tool, you have to get used to its quirks.
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Ultimately, the RewindPix is unadulterated fun. It really is. The anticipation that builds up between loading the film looks and seeing how they come out, for me, is as close as digital photography has ever come to the excitement of waiting for film scans to come back from the darkroom. I shot more images than I needed to for this review, purely because I was enjoying myself, and because I wanted to see what the different film filters looked like. (What the hell is ‘The Hotel’? Only one way to find out!)
Can I see myself using it long-term, or does it feel like the novelty will wear off? I’m not sure, though I am still enjoying the camera after a couple of weeks’ of heavy use. The fact that RewindPix will be able to add new film looks via firmware updates to the app promises to extend the camera’s lease on life, as will the option to create your own filters. This requires upgrading to ‘Pro’, though you’ll be relieved to learn that this requires only a one-time cost of $9.90, not a subscription.
The small sensor, fixed-focus prime lens and lack of a settings control all place limits on the quality of images you can create with the RewindPix, as well as the types of images (you won’t be able to shoot portrait-style images with a shallow depth of field, for instance). However, I think the camera is sensibly priced for its type, and the huge groundswell of support for RewindPix on Kickstarter demonstrates that there is clearly an appetite for the idea.
Only time will tell whether the RewindPix sees mass adoption, and whether the many people who have been charmed by the concept are still using the camera years down the line. But I’d say if you like the sound of what I’ve described here, you have very little to lose by heading to RewindPix’s Kickstarter and securing a camera to try out for yourself.
Should I buy the RewindPix?
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
How I tested the RewindPix
- I received a loan unit of the RewindPix for testing, and used a beta version of the app, which has since released officially.
- I’ve run three ‘rolls’ of film through the camera, as well as taking a number of images using the ‘In Camera’ mode.
- I’ve shot in variable light conditions and have taken the camera to several locations around London.
I’ve used the RewindPix to capture more than 200 images over a period of two weeks. I’ve used a beta version of the RewindPix app to apply several choices from the selection of film looks available, and have also spent some time shooting in the simpler ‘In Camera’ mode. I used the camera in various areas of London, predominantly focused on Hackney and the City, during which time the weather changed frequently between bright sunshine and overcast with showers.
First reviewed May 2026
