What is the perfect Lo-Fi camera.? Is one man’s Holy grail another’s very naughty boy ? By 2025 the market was getting pretty crowded. So what does Echolens a Kickstarter launched camera Bring to the game. It promised a to be“the Digital Camera That Feels Like Film“ wrapped up in a more premium faux Leica body. But is this the Holy hand grenade of Antioch of Lo-Fi or is it time to Run Away ! Run Away !

“The Digital Camera That Feels Like Film”
Echolens Kickstarter 2025

Oh if I had a dollar for each such promise…..

And now for something completely different (or not)

Launch back in June 2025 this promised a premium feel camera with a film like feel. Like many current Lo-Fi cameras it came screenless. And it offered a film like experience shooting with you winding between shots, a limited total shoot number and switchable film filters via an app

So a bit like the Flashback ONE35 wrapped up in Faux Leica body then ?

But it does offer something as we’ll see that makes it for now stand apart from it’s rivals

Echolens ? Never Heard of Him ?

According to the KS fluff, the brains behind the company are 3 friend based in Southern California. That’s the most populated part of the State with L.A and San Diego – my learning for the day. And that’s about all we get.

It’s a new company and no obvious ties to camera production. And it goes for the strapline that I feel could have launched any of its rival.

It did okay on KS getting well over $150,000USD and over 1,200 backer but it worth noting that Flashback achieved 5 times as many backers . You migh think fatigue is getting in but Rewindpix which is quite similar in some respects to the Echolens has over 4,000 backers and over $500,000USD equivalent of backing with over 29 days to go.

Both Flashback and Rewindpix have had a much better PR campaign

So what did the Echolens ever do for us ?

So as is common in the class we have a screen less simple to use fixed focus digital. In many way it parallel the established Flashback ONE35 as the camera need to be manually advanced like a film camera, there’s a limited number of photos before you need to upload to an App on your phone via a local wifi connection. You need to select a film type (aka film style filter) each time you reload the camera

It differs in that it offers 54 rather than 27 shots before needing to upload and there is a bypass allowing you upload via USB-C direct to your PC.

So far so Flashback but,,,

But apart from that, what did the Echolens ever do for us ?

Like the Flashback you select a filter style on each reload. It also comes with 4 pre-set film filters and importantly you can also set your own custom filter.

And that is pretty impressive

You have over a dozen presets ranging from cheeky film type sound-a-likes that run the risk of film company lawyers eyebrows twitching (CineSpill T anyone ?) to thematic palettes like “90’s Grunge”

Then you have an effect menu allowing you to make your custom filter B&W, Sepia , Cyanotype or duotone plus about another dozen choices

For fine tuning you have options 3 sub menus. Light lets you set exposure, contrast, Highlights and shadows and allows you to adjust fade. Colour lets you pick temperature, Tint, Saturation and Vibrance. and finally advanced lets you pick settings for whites, blacks, gamma and Hue.

There oddly is no vignette or soft focus options meaning you’re really only altering colour, contrast, tone gamma etc not the image quality per se.

It isn’t quite alone in this but arguably the best system I’ve used. Camp Snap has recent introduced online filter customisation. It’s not as advanced but has an established community.

And of course the old boy Paper Shoot has long allowed you to insert filter cards switching your filter set. There’s no user definable options but they sell over 12 different sets some contain 4 filters to swap the preloaded ones other give effects like double exposure

But nothing has the level that Echolens has. However Rewindpix customisation looks to be a real challenge to Echolens. Both systems as they stand seem to have their pluses. Echolens offer a good thematic range although and has more core adjustments. But Rewindpix appears to offer the chance to tweak any of hie several film stocks and importantly add film like features like grain, light leaks and vignetting.

Echolens – The Rest of Spec

We only know the following from the KS and their site. It has a the equivalent of a 35mm full frame lens, Zenon flash and a CMOS sensor. Output images are 8MP 4:3 ratio and the camera has a USB-C slot for charge.

The app is available for android and iOS

EXIF data shows an actual 6mm focal length which suggest a sensor around 1/2.4″ (yup mobile phone size). The camera sensor is labelled X92 in EXIF but I can’t find a X92 camera sensor online.

On test it became apparent the aperture is fixed at f/2.8. This isn’t surprising by the class standard. As we” see that kind of like using a 35mm full frame lens at f/16 so lots of depth of field.

Both Shutter speed and ISO adjusts. ISO ranged from 100 to 1462 ISO. Even taking a shot with the lens covered maxes out at 1462 ISO. Shutter speeds went from 1/13 to 1/8000. 1/8000 was achieved only taking a shot of a bright bulb at close quarters. Spring sun in Scotland could only take me up to ~1/1800 in real world testing. Image resolution has a 180² DPI and uses 2×1 subsampling (that’s good)

That’s broadly similar to the Camp Snap 1.03B. However compression quality is lower 87% (v 97% on the Camp Snap). This obviously affects image quality and the images I got were around 1.8MB on direct transfer about half the size of Camp Snap images.

Force the camera to connect to PC shows a drive of 238MB in size giving us a maximal file size for our 54 shots of ~4MB

He’s Not A Leica. He’s a very naughty Faux ?

This is quite a well made lo-Fi Digital. Like the Camp Snap Pro (CS Pro), they went with a Leica style look. It’s mainly metallicized plastic but there is a choice of the black or brown Leatherette. Both are still out gunned by the Flashback ONE35 which feels much more solidly built but they are much better built than any other lo-fi digitals

The lens bezel is machined aluminium. This does add a quality feel but they miss a trick with the absence of a filter thread. The shutter button triggers an impressive mechanical cluck. Although as we’ll see this doesn’t mean the shot is being taken.

Also If I’m being picky for the price I’d have hoped for a cover for the USB-C port on the base intended for charging and emergency photo transfer. But only Camp snap and a few minorrivals bother. Weirdly the frame count is on the base. This small monochrome LCD just shows the remain shots out of 54. There is also a Wi-Fi connection button and reset pinhole. There is no tripod mount which again not that important but would have been nice.

Like most other Lo-Fis there is no accessory shoe. I can’t fault Echolens in isolation as pretty much every Lo-Fi I’ve handled bar the Yashica Y35 don’t have one. This prevents you from using things like waist level finders.

There are decent lugs for straps on either end which is nice. And there is a realistic thumb winder to turn the camera on advance (see in use).

-Finder View

The simple finder isn’t too bad in terms of accuracy v actual frame. I’d say about 85% coverage with a slight upward shift.

How does it… um… how does it work?

– The Camera

Whilst using the camera Echolens encourages you to set with the App first but you don’t have to. The camera is preloaded with the Kodagrain filter (more on that later). So you can just turn on and use.

The camera is turned on by winding the winder forward. Irritatingly this is mechanically controlled so if you are in the habit as I am of winding on by muscle memory after every shot you’ll need to depress the shutter until it clicks as if taking a shot and then wind on. However this is common with other manual wind lo-fi’s.

This camera has a mechanical mechanism creating a mechanical clunk when you take a shot. It’s a refreshing detail versus rivals which rely on a sound effect. However the Flashback has a slightly more realistic click and that weirdly accurate but pointless winding noise.

But the click doesn’t mean the shot is taken….

– Laggy McLagface

Unlike the flashback, the lag between that clunk and actual photo is something else. It is about 1 second on field testing (and literally if you use the flash it tellingly is about a second after the clunk)

Take these 3 shots where I moved the camera after the clunk. I get my neurons will have a delay.

There isn’t much else to control. You have the option of turning on and off the flash but beyond the shutter button that’s it. a small LED on the back lights up Red when flash charged and blue when WiFi has been triggered (it doesn’t however delinate between being available and connected)

Holding down the WiFI button with the camera connected via USB-C for around 10 secs does allow the internal drive to be visible on PC. However transfer via the app is the recommended route. Although there is an issue….

– the App

The app is slick and works generally okay although I did have some issues as I’ll discuss

The landing page takes you straight to camera connectivity. You can swap to filter selection/editing or photo view by selecting the icons at the bottom.

So you’d think this app is localised to your phone but nope it has cloud based component.

I didn’t realise this straight away. But when I had shot the camera out to the max 54 I downloaded my images when walking the dog over the bridge near my house. It’s important to be aware central Dumfries has a weird situation going on with mobile data

Now another weird thing is my photos when i selected to download would be sometimes be saved as .jpeg and other .png. This seems to an issue when shooting on your own filters

-The filters/films

The 4 Presets offer the usual monchrome and 3 slightly different supposed vintage effects

The preloaded default is Kodagrain. The app this is defined as “Warm & Textured like a roll of 70s Kodak Film – Organic and timeless colour” Weirdly I’d argue this a cooler- more Fujifilm experience before the 4th layer with a stronger blue-green tone. It isn’t a million miles from the slightly blue tones of the standard filter on the old Camp Snap 1.01

Is the sensor related ? I dunno – the 8MP Camp Snap matched the ISO and shutter speed range but… due to the lower quality settings as we’ll see they don’t look the same.

Next up B&W which pretty much does what it says on the tin. The app says “Timeless monochrome with high contrast and emotional clarity”. I’d agree with the high contrast but WTF is “emotional clarity”. I smell marketing BS.

Rosebyte is interesting and to me should be the default The app calls this “Soft Pastels and Faded Cools. Like a Memory from Early 2000’s”. Weirdly this feels more what the Kodgrain is described as and vice versa.

And finally Dreamroll. Its app description of “Golden warmth, Wrapped in haze like a a dream or expired film” is actually on the mark bar the non existent haze

But of course there is custom. I set up a filter with no effects and sliders at defaults.

I think this is between Kodagrain & Rosebyte as a setting. It’s very slightly blue leaning (that sky is South West Scotland in March ?) but is acceptable.

-You mentioned some App issues ?

Yeah, there are a few.

So the app does seem to require some genuine internet connectivity. Although I live in a town centre and my mobile seem to show good 4G and even 5G there are times mines and loads of other peoples mobile internet just doesn’t work (gee thanks O₂ and Tesco mobile both whom deny the issue although it is legendary in Dumfries)

And the app stumbles here. At best the download time shoots up for images, at worse I’ve actually lost images by attempting to download. The latter really sucks and I would be fine if the app said you need a better connection try later but nope it just insists you retry a few times until it gives up and your images are just gone.

And why does it need to do that ?

And using the App causes your image files to be labelled at the upload time not when taken. That info is in the EXIF but you need to dig around.

But there is worse

-The PNG thang and more lost photos

Worse still is the .png thing. Only happens on custom filter setting but all images transfered to my app get stored as .png not .jpeg files in custom mode alone . For those of you who don’t know the PNG format ain’t awful but isn’t as good a JPEG for photographic images as it struggles with complex subtle shading and colour. You can avoid by manually downloading your image to a PC but that 54 image limit is a problem if you’re using this camera out and about all day and have to rely on the app.

I contacted customer support and I’m still waiting 1 2 3 weeks later for any response.

There’s another problem if you’re hot swapping filters via the app as if you pre wind and the camera isn’t turned off after you upload and set a new filter via the app the first image can be blanked off

Oh and then there’s the fact sometimes the App tells me I’ve saved an image to my phone’s gallery but it hasn’t. In fairness this could be one of those unique phone issues. But my phone is a pixel 7 with stock google android. I can work round this by sharing the image in a another app like PS express and saving from there. But it might just be my phone.

However my phone is a Google Pixel 7 which has stock android. Ironically I can use the share feature to reach photos and save via there as well.

What do you mean Results ? When I was a lad…

-Colour balance

Sticking with colour balance, it’s really hard to call this as you have so many options but on my no filter setting there is a slight blue edge. This was more evident using indoor LED lighting (warm).

Ignore the soft image here. I had to shoot close to make the chart readable (about 1m) and the image is heavily cropped. Compared to my Pixel 7 which does pretty well here (the background throw is a golden yellow maybe not quite as deep as my mobile records it)

The blue tint is evident markedly here but less so in daylight. What is interesting is the greyscale. The Echolens overexposes here sightly but actually does better down in the black end. In daylight I didn’t find this to be the case and we’d often get poorer dynamic range than this chart would suggest

Take this shot of our Lola on the Kodagrain setting. She broadly well enough exposed as is the pavement but her fur isn’t that nuclear white (and the patch on her shoulder is age related grey). This blown highlights issue is common on many lo-fi digitals however.

-Exposure, Dynamic range & Flash

Broadly okay in daylight with simple lighting as you’d expect it can get fooled with bright skies or backlit scenarios. Although the test card suggest good dynamic range I got a lot poorer results in practice on their standard filters suggesting a contrast effect. You can see this on the filter samples above.

The No filter was much better but not perfect although about what you’d expect.

Flash performance is okay best for group shots at a couple of meters

Go under a meter and things get badly over exposed and over 3m thing hit under exposure. There is no TTL flash control hear but you wouldn’t see on a budget 35mm compact either. The flash unlike many of the lED models is pretty good at optimal ditance,

-Focus

So we’re fixed focus here. Echolens don’t publish a focal range but using what we know we can calculate an ideal range under optimal condition. If we assume a 1/2.4″ sensor (same as the Sony Cyber Shot DSC-HX1) with a 6mm 1:2.8 lens using the DOFMaster online app we get a hyperfocal distance of 2.55m with a close focus of 1.3m and broadly I’d say about right. Image get softer below that and the sharpest images are around the 3m mark.

-Image quality

A 8MP sensor doesn’t sound a lot but the most popular camera in the class the non pro Camp Snap still offers a similar resolution. That does limit blowing up the images but for web, Instagram and small 6×4 prints.

But ISO really matters

–100 ISO

So take this shot with a 600x600px crop below taken on 100 ISO (Kodagrain filter). Ignore the yellow sign to some extent (the branding has been taken down but leaves a blurry ghost)

Not wonderful but on par with other similar lo-fi digitals. as you can see some fringing is evident. Here’s a similar view captured on a Camp Snap 1.03B (vintage filter) but on a different day. It is marginally more detailed (look at the domino’s sign on both images on the building by the road). That’s probably down to the Camp Snap not having as much compression. But there is some sharpening artefacts. Both Cameras suffer from blown highlights (it’s hard to comment on which is worse due to the different light conditions)

—Compared to Camp Snap 1.03B

And just for reference here’s 2025’s 4th best selling camera in the world the budget Kodak PixPro C1 did. It’s not at the same time as the other 2 (I’d argue less light ) but shows what a auto focus budget modern digicam can do

—Compared to Kodak Pixpro C1

It’s 13MP sensor although just 1/3″ captures way more detail with less noise here helped by a reasonably decent set of focused optics. It’s not perfect & a little soft zoomed in.

Now you might be thinking I’m picking long shots but the image quality isn’t better on nearer objects. So take this candid doggo snap (Rosebyte filter)

Now the wise amongst you will point out that Lola is moving (poor lamb has some eye issues so her whites always look bloodshot BTW). But look at the grass in the 500 px sq crop

It’s not awful however and in line with many other lo-fi cameras

— ~400 ISO

Drop the ISO further and things get worse quickly. This flash image was taken with a ISO of 487 ISO. Filter setting was Rosebyte. The close up detail looks like a Monet

And the white fur is just blown out again.

It’s okay for web and small print but detail is completely lost

— ~1400 ISO

Heading up things get slightly worse. This Kodagrain night shot is at 1462 ISO. For web use it actually looks good by the 500² px crop shows it’s as bad as the 487ISO shot.

Night shots are interesting quality aside this can pull off useable shots although the absence of a tripod point is odd.

You do get some slight blooming and you don’t wanna zoom in but..

Now these are quite brutal comparisons and for reference this is broadly similar to what I got with the older Camp Snap 1.01 and the improved version of the Retro snap.

— Aberrations and is it really film like ?

Radial distortion is pretty mild with just a touch of pincushion. There is a little soften to the edge of the images and it’s not marked and the same can be said for ghosting.

Like the camp snap cameras there is an arguement to be said images don’t look film like. In fairness to Camp Snap that’s not their goal. But what was Echolens’s goal again…

Current Cost

It’s not cheap. The Echolens sells for $149USD (about £112GBP) and I’d have to pay $25 shipping to UK. I suspect that’s the impact of recent tariffs but as we’ll see other rivals haven’t been hit as hard. As is common visiting site unlocks 10% off and if you buy an accessory to spend more than $150 you get free shipping. That’s in the range of the paper shoot and considerably more than the CS Pro cost.

Final thoughts On the Echolens

There is a lot to like here on paper. It has a nice body, good app features (when it works) and clinically whilst not outstanding the images are not bad for the class. The customable filters works really well as long as you download your images direct.

But it’s a bit of a piggy in the middle. It pushes itself as feeling like film. Whilst it does have that feel of shooting film, the winder, that very satisfying clunk and the need to swap film after certain numbers of shots. The image it makes don’t have the film like feel of the Flashback ONE 35 or the paper shoot. It also can’t quite keep up with more clinically good lo-fi like the Camp Snap Pro

And the app.
Lots of good but it is flaky and highly dependant on internet connection. I lost photos which shouldn’t happen – the app should just stop you from downloading until you can get somewhere where you get signal, not make an arbitrary decision to give up and reload and wipe your shots. If you make a custom filter you would seem to need to bypass the app and just download to your PC unless you want PNG files (ermmmm no)

And it’s not cheap (see below). Flashback have recently launched a higher spec V2 of the ONE35. And Rewindpix is yet another kickstarter that is about to arrive offering much in the way of the same features as Echolens but a higher resolution and possibly better lens. Like Flashback it’s filters look more film like.

So I’d maybe hold off until that arrived TBH or until they can improve the app.

Disclaimer

I bough this camera with my own money as part of the kickstarter. I own all of the cameras I mention which all were bought by myself (I have back the Rewindpix on KS). I’ve never been paid by Echolens or any of their rival products. I have been given the chance to Beta test Camp snap filters and have recently been asked to test the Flackback ONE35 V2. In any review I do on a product it is my own views not

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Some Screenless Lo-Fi Alternatives

The Lo-Fi market is rapidly evolving and here’s just 4 cameras worth of mention as alternatives. There are load more

The Camp Snap Pro is selling for £76GBP with £5 shipping and another £16.10 in import taxes. Spending over £80m will wipe out shipping but not the tax. This is arguably the current Rolls Royce of the class with premium body and switchable filters which you can also edit. There is no shot limit and no need for an app. It perhap is not the most film like here. The more basic Camp Snap 1.05 at £54, is a slightly lower resolution less premium model but shares similar imaging.

More film like

Paper Shoot offers a headline 20MP (although I suspect that’s interpolated). It doesn’t match the Echolens in terms of image quality but it’s 4 filters do provide a dreamy film like feel. The cheapest option is to buy the current base camera with battery and SD card and pick case deal which was just £125 at the time of typing. It lens heavily on ECO cred with it its swappable stone paper cases.

Flashback ONE35 arguably nailed the film experience a few years back. It looks and feels like a disposable camera and creates lo-fi image that truly feel they’ve been shot on cheap disposable. It’s much lower resolution and “film” choices are not user definable (yet I suspect). Like the Echolens it’s app was buggy to start but now works well. This actually does what Echolens claims to do.

Sources & other reviews

Echolens Kickstarter can be found here and their site is here. Coyote trails has you tube video where he has the Echolens, Campsanp Pro and the Flashback ONe35 (V1) head to head but he leaves it to his viewers to work out what one they prefer,