The original Pocket Dispo ($59.99) is one of my favorite low-fi lenses for mirrorless cameras due to its low cost, high fun factor, and ease of use. Its follow-up, the Pocket Dispo Pro ($99.99), has a similar vibe, putting a lens from a disposable film camera into a 3D-printed housing that works with full-frame mirrorless cameras, but adds one big feature: adjustable focus. If you like to lean in for photos and dig the soft rendering and glowing flare you get from a disposable camera, the Pocket Dispo Pro is a good, inexpensive addition to your camera kit, and just as charming and fun as the original.

Design: A Glass Fiber Pancake, Hold the Syrup

The Pocket Dispo Pro matches the original in basic design and concept, featuring the lens from a disposable 35mm camera in a 3D-printed housing that works with popular mirrorless camera systems. The Pro edition uses the same optics but is printed on a glass fiber composite, a stronger material than the ASA plastic used for the standard Dispo.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

It also adds the ability to adjust focus. The original Dispo offers a focus range from 4.5 feet to infinity, but the Pro includes manual focus adjustment with a minimum distance of around 18 inches, so you can get much closer to a subject and even soften backgrounds. Its 28mm F10 optics won't blur backgrounds into nothing, but you can still get some softening if you focus close and put distance between the subject and backdrop.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

The lens is tiny at just 0.5 by 2.4 inches (HD), which is slim enough to qualify as a pancake lens. It's also incredibly light, just 0.74 ounces. It has scalloped edges around its focus ring, and the manual focus action is nice and smooth. There's enough depth of field that it's hard to miss focus, and if you're more than a foot away from your subject, you can just leave the lens set to infinity and snap away. You really only have to worry about focus when leaning in for a close-up.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

The Dispo Pro is available exclusively for mirrorless camera systems. There's no SLR version available, so you'll want to grab the standard Pocket Dispo if you're using a Canon EF or Nikon F DSLR. The Pro is made for Canon's discontinued EOS M (EF-M) system and its current R (RF) cameras, as well as Fujifilm X, L-Mount, Micro Four Thirds, Nikon Z, and Sony E systems. I tested a version for Sony cameras and paired it exclusively with the full-frame a7R IV.

Image Quality: Get the 35mm Disposable Look From Digital

The Pocket Dispo Pro is made to replicate the soft, dreamy look that's synonymous with disposable 35mm film cameras. But instead of dropping off the lens at the drug store to get prints made, photos are captured digitally onto a memory card. It's easy for cynics to say the lens is just a nostalgia play, but I'll counter that it's no fun to be cynical. The Dispo Pro is a window into a simpler time and a great way for photogs to forget about the technical aspects of photography and focus on capturing the moment.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

I like to think of lenses like the Dispo Pro as character optics. Its pictures are rife with chromatic aberrations, details soften quickly as you look away from the center, and there's a noticeable vignette at the edges and corners. You can get some pretty intense lens flare when pointing the lens at the sun, too. If you use the lens with a full-frame camera, its angle of view is distinctly wide, about the same as you get from the main lens on a smartphone. It offers a tighter view with APS-C and Micro Four Thirds sensors, and shows less vignetting as a result.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

The Pro's close-up focus is a big change from disposable cameras and from the original. Its 18-inch focus distance isn't macro by any means, but it lets you get noticeably tighter shots and make more interesting portraits than the original's 4.5-foot focus. It makes the Pro a more versatile optic, opening up photo opportunities you don't get with a fixed-focus lens.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

The Pocket Dispo Pro is far from the only artsy lens that you can use with a mirrorless camera. Photographers can opt for vintage glass, and it's a simple matter to adapt old lenses to modern digital cameras, or pick up an off-kilter option made today. Lensbaby made its name with selective-focus tilt lenses that work with its Composer Pro II housing, and it makes other vintage-look lenses like the soft-focus Velvet 85. Lomography also has a line of optics with 19th-century Petzval-inspired designs with swirly bokeh, and goes lo-fi with its LC-A Minitar. Polar has entered the game with its LightLeak series, and brands like Thypoch and Light Lens Lab focus entirely on vintage-look optics. It's really up to you which one vibes best with your photographic style, so if the Pocket Dispo Pro isn't your cup of tea, try others and see what clicks.