Tiny no-screen digital camera gives us near-instant nostalgia by making us wait to see our pics

Kenko Tokina makes us think about our shots and feel extra emotion when we finally see how they turned out .

Recently, our Japanese-language reporter Go Hatori has gotten really into taking pictures, so much so that instead of using his phone for them, he wanted a dedicated device.

After looking over his camera options, he decided to treat himself to the Pieni II from Kenko Tokina , a Japanese manufacturer primarily known as a lens maker.

There are a couple of reasons why Go chose this model, one of which is easy to see, and one of which, in a sense, is not easy to see.

Let’s start with the easy one, though.

The Pieni II is incredibly compact .

Though it’s a legitimate, functional photo-taking device, the packaging describes it as a “toy camera” because of how tiny it is.

Included with the camera is a strap so wear it around your neck, but the camera is so compact that you could even attach it to your key ring or use a clip, like the one Go picked up at a 100 yen store, to attach it to your bag or beltloop.

And as for the “not easy to see” reason Go chose this camera? Well, although this is a digital camera, with a slot to insert a microSD card on which to save your images… … there’s no screen .

That means you don’t get a preview image, constantly being updated in real time, showing you the exact composition and lighting your image will have.

Instead, you have a little clear viewfinder to help you see where the lens is pointed, and that’s it .

What’s more, the Pieni II doesn’t have an app or any other sort of wireless connectivity that automatically uploads your photos to cloud storage or your other devices.

In order to see how your photos turned out, you have to pop the SD card itself out of the camera and into your PC or phone.

In other words, the Pieni II’s design eliminates the instant results that are usually part of digital photography and replaces it with a gap in time between when you take a photo and when you see it, bringing back the exciting sense of anticipation from when film cameras were the norm .