- Although best known for its photographic lighting equipment, Godox has announced a small “clear viewfinder camera” that weighs just 65g.
- It features a transparent(ish) window for composition that doubles as a settings screen and can also function as a light meter.
- We still don’t have information on key internal specifications, such as sensor size and resolution (but you can expect them to be low).
Very cheap cameras are back in fashion these days, so I wasn’t necessarily surprised to see another one released, but I was surprised to see it coming from Godox.
The Godox C100 is a “clear viewfinder camera”, advertised by the Chinese firm, which until now was best known for producing the kind of high-end lighting equipment found in professional photographers’ studios, as well as more affordable flashes. However, with an advertised price of just ¥199 (equivalent to about $29 / £22 / AU$42), the C100 is considerably more affordable than anything else on Godox’s books.
As you can see, the C100 is built around a rather unusual form factor. A palm-sized rectangle, it doesn’t exactly feature a screen, but rather a transparent window that you use to compose your images. This window can also display key information such as exposure settings and battery life.
Now, I said “unusual” form factor, not “unique.” This is because, as some people have already noted, the Godox C100 looks a lot like a camera that debuted on CP+ in 2025, the Escura InstantSnap. The Godox version seems a little more advanced and offers some interesting features that the Dark version does not. But we can make some inferences: the Escura camera produces images with a resolution of 1.3 MP and I would be surprised if the Godox offered much more than that.
The Godox C100 features a USB-C connection for charging and file transfer, and accepts 128GB micro SD cards for storage. It also records video and can do so continuously for up to 1.5 hours, and offers recording in several different aspect ratios: 16:9, 4:3, 3:2 and 1:1. There are a couple of physical buttons for shooting and changing settings, and it weighs just 65g.
A handheld photometer
At first glance, the Godox C100 seems like another cheap, new camera in a market that is beginning to be saturated with them. However, one feature was announced that really caught my attention, as I am an avid film photographer: the C100 can also act as a light meter.
Like any good handheld light meter, the Godox C100 can read brightness levels in the central area of a scene and provide the optimal exposure settings to capture a balanced image. Photometers, once invaluable tools, have become almost entirely redundant in the digital age. However, anyone who regularly purchases many vintage film SLR cameras will tell you that the metering system is always one of the first things to break. I have several beautiful Pentax SLR cameras in the drawer next to me that still shoot and shoot beautifully, but they can’t meter a scene because the electronics are filmed.
So the idea of a neat little pocket device, that costs only $29, that I can take with me everywhere and use it to quickly meter a scene, and maybe even use it to take a couple of comparison shots to review along with my developed and scanned frames, that interests me.
Image 1 of 3
Of course, the measurement functionality will only be of interest to a small percentage of users. But still, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Godox C100 was a big hit, as long as it reaches international retailers (it’s currently only advertised in China). Small cameras have been a big hit lately, most notably the keychain-sized Kodak Charmera, and screenless cameras that offer a purer, more immersive shooting experience have also been successful, with the poster child for the movement being the Camp Snap.
People like pretty cameras. People like cheap cameras. And the Godox C100 is both! I’m sure once we get it to review we’ll find that the image quality isn’t much, but has that stopped the Kodak Charmera? No, it wasn’t like that.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to receive news, reviews and opinions from our experts in your feeds.
