BONZART ZIEGEL: a 'toy' camera designed for adults

The word ‘toy’ will certainly bring to mind children playing. Yet the phrase ‘toy’ camera seems to be at odds. You don’t play with a camera, a serious-looking piece of equipment you usually buy as an investment. Or do you? BONZART, a Japanese digital camera company that makes these so-called ‘toy’ cameras begs to differ. One of their most recent ‘toy’ cameras, the ZIEGEL, is designed based on the concept of “playing with the camera”.

This sounds like good news as we near World Mental Health Day on October 10. The joy that comes with playing with a camera can brighten up the darkest of days. When compiling case studies for an article, photographers told us that photography helped boost their mental health, as well as helping with Long Covid, and chronic back pain.

The BONZART ZIEGEL was released in December 2021 and along with another of BONZART’s other ‘toy’ cameras, the tiny palm-sized LIT+ camera, which caught the eye of the New York Times, can be found these days on eBay. At the moment, the ZIEGEL is available at a price of £224.12 and the LIT+ is available at a price of £104.59.