Godox C100 Has No Screen, is a Camera You Look Straight Through

Godox spent years building lights that help photographers shape what they see. The company’s first camera flips the usual relationship between photographer and device. Instead of a bright rear screen that pulls attention away from the scene, the C100 gives you a clear window you compose through while key information floats on the glass itself.

The C100 camera’s body is 104 x 72 x 19 millimeters and weighs 65 grams, making it light enough to fit easily into a shirt pocket or be attached to a strap like a tiny accessory. The front panel is dominated by a sleek 60.8 x 47.8 millimeter transparent window that allows more than 50% of light to pass through, allowing you to see the real world directly in front of the lens. At the same time, the panel displays some extremely helpful information, like frame lines, exposure data, and battery level, without having to resort to a video feed and muck up the scene.

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Changing the aspect ratio brings the frame lines on the panel up to speed in real time, and you can select from a variety of settings such as 16:9, 4:3, 3:2, and 1:1. The center-weighted meter performs an excellent job of reading the scene and provides a wealth of helpful information, including ISO, aperture, and shutter settings ranging from 100 to 800 in manual steps. Aperture and shutter are linked in ranges from f/1.0 to f/64 and 1/8000 second to 1 second, so as you change one, the other is suggested in the background, which is quite useful if you’re trying to get everything just right before putting up any real film elsewhere.

The controls are as simple as you’d imagine, with only a few of arrow keys and a select button on the back for menu navigation and settings, and the shutter is ready to go with a quick click. There is no standard screen to see the photos you’ve just taken; the image is saved directly to the microSD card as soon as you press the shutter. Once it’s there, you may use USB-C to transfer content to your phone or computer, or you can just remove the card.

Godox claims that the C100 was created to be an all-day camera that allows you to get to the core of the moment with no worry or hassle, as it’s all about seeing and feeling first, then clicking the shutter, and, of course, analyzing your images afterward, when you’re feeling more relaxed. They believe that the wait between snapping the shot and viewing the outcome will make each snapshot feel like a small surprise when you open the files. The actual resolution of the images appears to be on the low side, ranging from 320 to 570 kilobytes, so don’t expect to be making any large prints very soon. Oh, and the camera also shoots video, though the exact specifications are not yet available.

At 199 yuan (or roughly 29 USD), the C100 is clearly in the same category as some of the other recent basic cameras that are all about providing an experience rather than just a set of specifications. It’s a step up from some earlier transparent-window cameras because it has live data overlays rather than static printed graphics, and its creators see it as an ideal companion for film photographers looking for a lightweight metering and framing tool that will fit nicely in their bag alongside their medium-format body.
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