(Credit: Jim Fisher)
The Godox C100, released earlier this summer, immediately piqued my interest when I saw it. It's the first digital camera from a company that I know can make a high-quality product. I use Godox flashes and their Flashpoint monolights for all of the product photography I do for PCMag, and they've proven reliable, and far more affordable than first-party flashes and lights from upmarket brands like Profoto. I had reason to be hopeful that Godox would bring something to the toy camera space. But what I actually got was one of the most frustrating, bizarre gadgets I've ever tested.
'Forbidden Planet' on the Front, Random Doodles on the Back
The C100 ($44.90) is unlike any other digital camera I've used. It has a large, transparent optical viewfinder, a shutter button to take photos, and a pair of arrows that cycle through different aspect ratios.
It would look good on a bookshelf as an office tchotchke. The C100 could be mistaken for a prop from an old sci-fi movie. Its rounded edges, minimalist controls, and big transparent viewfinder are like something out of "Forbidden Planet." And following a trend started by Camp Snap, it omits a digital display screen—there's no temptation to peek at your photos after you snap, so you can stay in the moment while capturing memories, just like we did in the pre-digital era.
I love the idea of the big, transparent viewfinder. Just turn the camera on, and it shows a central reticle and frame markers to help you set up shots, plus icons showing battery life and the capture mode (stills, movies), which you can swap between with a simple toggle switch. There's also a light meter mode, which you can use to calculate an exposure for a film camera.
But when you flip it over and look at the rear, that aesthetic is severely undercut by some questionable line art. The back side is decorated with a hodgepodge of doodles. Some make sense for a camera—a landscape photo, a camera, a clapper board, a lightning bolt, and even a lens aperture. They're joined by line art of things you might snap pictures of—a dancing figure, a smiley face, a loaf of bread, a flower, a couple of hamburgers, and...an eggplant. Look, I'm not going to go there; I'll just leave it at that.
My Favorite Toy Cameras
Since it works as both a camera and a handheld light meter and only costs $45, I said to myself, "How bad can it be?" It turns out, the answer to my question is "really, really bad."
Ergonomic Nightmare, Dashcam Photo Quality
As much as I like the way the C100 looks (at least from the front), using it is just...not enjoyable. It starts with ergonomics. It doesn't feel like a device that's meant to fit human hands. Holding it is just awkward. And then there's using the viewfinder. I had to hold the viewfinder uncomfortably close to my face to gauge what the lens was actually seeing.
I can't speak to how twenty-year-old eyes will handle this, but for me in my 40s, I couldn't really see the frame lines or reticle with the screen that close to my eye, and it's really hard to keep my eye centered and avoid parallax. I thought I had some photos centered and level when I snapped them, but when I looked at them later, the images were just off-kilter. I get it, the C100 isn't built to get perfect compositions, it's meant for off-the-cuff candids, but its viewfinder gets in the way more than it stays out of it.
And the photos. The camera snaps 2MP shots at 16:9 widescreen with a dashcam-quality lens. Colors are washed out, and the sensor has so little dynamic range that the images are often way overexposed. I'll also note that you need to be at least four feet away from a subject to get things in focus. Despite including food, flowers, and eggplants on its arty exterior, it's not great for taking photos of them. The 1080p video looks about the same as the pictures, but with jerky motion and bad sound.
There aren't any fun filters either. Recent toy digital cameras like the Kodak Charmera ($29.99), Camp Snap Pro ($99), and Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo Cinema ($409.95) get a lot of extra mileage out of filtered looks, and even serious digitals like the Canon EOS R50 V ($699.99) and Insta360 Luna Ultra ($769.99) lean into delivering out-of-camera photos and videos with color shifts and other analog effects. You get one color profile with the C100, and it's bad. Good toy cameras like the Charmera take me back to Christmas mornings where I opened up the coolest toy robot imaginable. The C100 is more like getting a pair of socks.
A Decent $45 Light Meter (That Your Phone Already Does Better)
The C100 has one thing going for it—its light meter works pretty well, and is pretty easy to use. It shows an ISO, f-stop, and shutter speed. You can use the circle button to switch between those, the arrows to set your desired exposure, and the shutter button to take a reading. It draws rectangles around the two legs of the exposure triangle that you want to set manually and calculates the third—basically you can set a desired aperture and shutter speed to get the C100 to calculate the proper ISO, ISO and shutter speed to calculate the proper aperture, or ISO and aperture to calculate the shutter speed.
My Favorite Godox Lights
That said, I don't see any reason to use it instead of a smartphone app—the C100's metering matches up with the results I get from the Pocket Light Meter iOS app. Both use reflective metering, the same type that's built into some film and every digital camera. It gets good results for most scenes, but can give a bad reading if you're photographing a subject that's reflective, mostly white or black, or backlit. Handheld incident meters do a better job there—those are the old school meters with a white plastic dome. Incident meters work best when you get up to the subject you want to photograph and point the white plastic dome toward the camera position—they measure the light falling onto a subject, not the light it reflects, for spot-on exposure.
Since new digital cameras show an actual exposure in the EVF, incident meters aren't really needed in most cases these days. They're still used by photographers who use film cameras, or work in a studio with strobes, and while they're relatively expensive—the Sekonic L-398A is a favorite among shutterbugs and costs $269—they're something you buy once and use for decades. To be fair, I don't think anyone who relies on an incident meter will be wooed by the C100, and I don't think anyone who thinks I'm dead wrong about the C100 will want a Sekonic instead.
Points for Originality, But None for Fun
I'd be more willing to forgive the C100's shortcomings if it were fun or enjoyable to use. I've already tried some weird point-and-shoots this year and had a blast with lo-fi results from basic cams like the Camp Snap 2. I'll also point out how much fun my colleague Zackery Cuevas had using the Kodak Charmera toy camera. The Charmera also captures photos that are a hot mess on a technical level, but it's been a hit thanks to its blind-box sales strategy, nostalgic design, retro filters, and low cost. The Camp Snap 2 hits similar notes with its filters and screen-free, analog design.
Godox didn't manage to catch lightning in a bottle with the C100, but I hope it keeps trying to break the mold.
About Our Expert
Images, and the devices that capture them, are my focus. I've covered cameras at PCMag for the past 15 years, which has given me a front row seat for the changeover from DSLRs to mirrorless cameras, the smartphone camera revolution, and the emergence of drones for aerial imaging. I have extensive experience with every major mirrorless and SLR system, and am also comfortable using point-and-shoot and action cameras. As a Part 107 Certified drone pilot, I’m licensed to fly unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for commercial and editorial purposes, and am knowledgeable about federal rules and regulations regarding drones.
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