Flashback’s One75 borrows film’s look—and leaves room to change it

The Flashback One75 is a digital compact inspired by half-frame film cameras, with vertical photographs and a finish that brings brass and aluminium into the picture. But the detail worth a film photographer’s attention is tucked inside Abby Ferguson’s announcement report at DPReview: it can record DNG raw files. Those give you a route to interpreting the photograph after exposure, beyond accepting a ready-made look. For a camera trading on the experience of film, that is an interesting connection to the printing bench.

What half-frame brings along

A half-frame film camera makes two smaller photographs in the space occupied by one conventional 35mm frame. The usual image area is 18×24mm, giving roughly twice as many exposures from a roll. Hold most such cameras normally and the photograph is vertical. That combination makes half-frame both an economy of material and a particular way of composing.

Ferguson reports that Flashback drew on that tradition for the One75’s vertical pictures. The orientation carries over; the saving in film does not, because this camera records digital files. What remains is the invitation to start a composition upright. That can be useful even if you have spent years turning a horizontal camera on its side: the first frame you see tends to become the first problem you solve.

In Digital Camera World’s report, Hillary K. Grigonis describes eight film-inspired presets and a double-exposure option, which combines two exposures in one picture. She also mentions a small OLED on top for choosing presets and adjusting settings. So "screen-free" needs a footnote: there is a display, but its job is settings, not looking at your pictures.

Those choices borrow different parts of film photography. The frame shape affects composition; the preset affects rendering; doing without picture review changes when you judge the result. It is worth weighing them one at a time. You might value one without wanting the whole nostalgic package.

A photograph can have another interpretation

The sharpest point in Ferguson’s report is that the One75 records DNG raw files while its vertical-format rival, the Fujifilm X half, does not. There is a practical catch: you must connect the One75 to a computer to retrieve those files. The Flashback app gives you the JPEGs instead.

For a newcomer, the useful distinction is between receiving the camera’s rendered picture and having a raw file available for your own processing. You need not want that extra work every time. Its value is having another starting point when a photograph deserves more attention than the chosen preset gives it.

That has a familiar counterpart in the darkroom. One negative can lead to several prints, with different contrast, brightness and emphasis. The exposure establishes the material you have to work with; it does not settle every decision about the finished photograph.

The analogy has limits. A DNG is not a negative, and its availability alone cannot establish how much useful adjustment these particular files will tolerate. Still, it makes the One75 more interesting to me than a compact whose appeal ends with selecting a film-like finish. It offers a reason to return to a picture after the pleasure of taking it has passed.

The computer requirement matters here. Anyone attracted by a simple camera-and-phone routine should notice that the raw-file route adds another step. Whether that feels like welcome involvement or an abandoned folder will depend on how you already work.

What the announcement cannot settle

DPReview reported a price of $179 on 19 October 2026. Ferguson also notes that Flashback advertises 13MP photographs without giving the sensor size or sensor resolution. The lens focal length was unspecified too. That leaves too much unknown to judge image quality from the headline figure.

There is a wider appetite for small digital cameras with a strong physical identity. In a separate Digital Camera World report, Grigonis places the viral Kodak Charmera keychain camera among Japan’s Good Design Award top 100. She also reports that Fujifilm collected the most awards for the eighth consecutive year. That is useful context for the attention around these objects, though a design accolade cannot answer questions about another camera’s files.

The One75’s most persuasive idea is the combination of a deliberate framing choice and room for later interpretation. The metal finish may invite you to pick it up; the photographs must supply the reason to keep using it. Read Ferguson’s report for the DNG access detail, then try the sidebar’s vertical-first exercise with the camera you already own.