History Main / MagicalCamera

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* ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}'' had a gadget called the Voodoo Camera, which doesn't create photos, but instead creates {{Voodoo Doll}}s of anyone it flashes at.
* The main character in ''Anime/SpeedGrapher'' has a power that lets him blow up anything he shoots with his camera, although the magic is in himself rather than the object.
* In ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'', when Joseph Joestar smashes a camera with Hermit Purple, he can capture an image from anywhere he can envision.

* In ''Manga/UltraManiac'', there was a camera that would show who the subject of the picture liked.
* ''Anime/SailorMoon'' had one villain who captured people [[PhantomZonePicture within the pictures she took of them]].
** And in the [[Series/PrettyGuardianSailorMoon live-action adaption]], the magical pens in the original that the heroines used were updated to magic cellphones. One function was the ability to create a disguise based on a photo taken with it.

-->'''Neville Bell:''' "Oh no, you can't take my photograph."\\
'''Sue Charlton:''' "Oh, I'm sorry, you believe it will take your spirit away."\\
'''Neville Bell:''' "[[BaitAndSwitch No,]] [[CameraObscurer you got lens-cap on it]]."

* The Russian horror film ''Film/DeadlyStill'' has a similar plot to ''Polaroid'', revolving around an old instant camera that kills any person or animal photographed with it.
* A Hong Kong horror film titled ''Film/ThePark'' have the protagonist's mother being an expert ghost-buster, armed with a "special" camera that captures spirits in the films. Said protagonist steals her mother's camera to investigate the local AmusementParkOfDoom (allegedly haunted, where her brother went missing in it years prior) and uses the camera to suppress the spirits haunting the place.
* In the film ''Film/TimeLapse'', the Finn, Callie, and Jasper discover a machine with such a camera embedded in it, within the apartment of their deceased neighbor. The camera and machine are pointed through the window of their living room and is revealed to be able to take pictures of the living room one day in the future.

* ''Literature/BrideOfTheRatGod'' has another borderline example: turns out that though the camera is ''not'' harmful to a human's soul (thanks to the body protecting it) for an all-spiritual-matter Rat Demon-God, with the right equipment and ingredients, it's ''perfect'' in regards to sealing it away.

* Creator/StephenKing's story ''The Sun Dog'', one of the novellas of ''Literature/FourPastMidnight''. The protagonist receives a Polaroid camera for his birthday, but every picture it takes, regardless of what it's pointed at, is of a "dog" that gets closer and closer to the camera (and looks less and less like a dog) with each successive shot.
* The ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' book ''Literature/SayCheeseAndDie'' is about a camera that causes tragedy to befall any person shot with it. In the sequel, its pictures curse the protagonists instead. They begin to respectively [[WeightLossHorror lose weight]] and [[InvertedTrope gain weight]], presumably until it kills them. They manage to save themselves at the last moment by having the photos color-inverted at a picture-developing shop.

* The ''Literature/{{Eisenhorn}}'' short story ''Backcloth for a Crown Additional'' has Eisenhorn investigate the death of a nobleman who had had his picture taken at a traveling fair two days before. He discovers that the photographer's camera is tainted by Chaos, killing anyone whose picture it takes.

* In ''Series/FridayThe13thTheSeries'', the episode "Scarlet Cinema" features a cursed film camera where the characters from within the created film can come to life in the real world, yet the owner can later also ''become'' that same creature. Owner Darius Pogue had an obsession with Creator/LonChaneyJr's ''Film/TheWolfMan1941'', and thus became the same Wolf Man he had imagined in his "film."

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': The episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S2E10AMostUnusualCamera A Most Unusual Camera]]" features a camera that shows the future.

* ''Film/BlackScorpion'' villain Flashpoint has a Magical Camera that lets him take {{Phantom Zone Picture}}s.
* An episode of ''Series/UltraSeven'' had an alien named Wild who used a camera to steal the life forces of other beings, trapping their souls inside the film.
* Similar to the ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' story above, ''Series/AreYouAfraidOfTheDark'' had ''The Tale of the Curious Camera'', where a camera would predict misfortune in its photos and make them happen. Worse is that it gains its power by being inhabited by a gremlin that can jump from the camera into other electronics, like a camcorder, VCR, and computer...
** Another episode, "The Tale of the Photo Finish," crossed over with PhantomZonePicture. Two boys at a prep school try to join the Lions' Society, a group of [[UpperClassTwit rich, smug]] [[JerkJock Jerk Jocks]]. As a hazing prank, one of the boys is forced to steal the current headmaster's portrait and unknowingly frees the [[SealedEvilInACan imprisoned spirit]] of Jasper Davis, a victim of the Lions' bullying from decades ago. To punish the Lions, Jasper starts using his old camera to seal them away in photographs, where they're frozen in time permanently.
* An episode of ''Series/MyBabysittersAVampire'' involves an antique camera brought into school on picture day that makes evil clones of whoever gets their picture taken. The first clone is of the student body representative, who schemes to have everyone doubled so they can begin taking over the world.

* In the music video for Amy Grant's "Takes a Little Time," an instant camera reveals snapshots of the subjects' future. For example, a man who steals the camera and snaps himself is horrified to see a photo of himself [[{{Anvilicious}} dead]].

* ''VideoGame/CryOfFear'' features one, which Simon can use after completing the game in 2 hours and 30 minutes. The camera by itself doesn't deal any damage, but it has the effect of freezing any enemy in place that gets "shot" by the camera. This effect does not work on bosses[[note]]Though it was discovered that using it on the Doctor during his fight will blind him, causing him to miss his shots[[/note]], won't affect enemies that are in their spawn animation and, due to a bug, killing a Suicider frozen by the camera will also kill Simon as well.
* In ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'', a fairy gives Tiny (and by extension, all other Kongs) a camera whose main purpose is taking pictures of lost Banana Fairies. A successful shot returns them to the main Banana Fairy, who, in return, increases your film, orange, and Crystal Coconut capacities, and refilling all of those plus your ammo.

** The Picto Box in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' functions more or less like a normal camera, except that it develops instantly and can only keep three pictures at once. In order to upgrade it to the Deluxe Picto Box, which takes colour pictures, you need to capture and use a special kind of firefly that emits prismatic light. In the HD remake, the Picto Box can now hold 12 images at once, and the firefly is no longer needed to upgrade it ([[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall if you give Lenzo the firefly anyways]]). Furthermore, you can take a picture of a character or enemy and take it to Carlov, he can make a figurine of it. If this were a normal photograph, he may or may not have to guess what a character looks like from the other angles, but apparently, he gets it right, so...
** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', it's one of the capabilities of the [[DataPad Sheikah Slate]], which allows it to not only take pictures, but logs the ones of things like weapons and enemies into a compendium providing useful information about them, and a means to use the Slate's sensor to hone in on them. It also plays a role in many side quests where characters ask to be shown pictures of things; given the generally Medieval tech level, they'll often assume that they're hand-drawn, and comment on how remarkable Link's artistic skills are. The camera function also serves as a major plot point, since [[spoiler: the fact that Zelda was the previous owner means that several of her own photos are still logged in its memory, providing vital clues to sites where Link can regain his lost memories.]]
* The first-person horror game, ''VideoGame/{{Madison}}'', have your teenage protagonist receiving a cursed camera capable of connecting the world of living with the dead, where taking pictures allows you to see spirits and sense the supernatural. As it turns out, said camera actually belongs to a SerialKiller three decades ago and still houses it's owner's spirit.

* ''VideoGame/DoubleSpoilerTouhouBunkachou'' has Hatate's camera, which has some sort of magical Google image search function that allows her to get pictures without actually taking them. [[GameplayAndStorySegregation In-game, the only difference between Aya's and Hatate's cameras are the zoom distance and charge speed.]]
** On ''VideoGame/DanmakuAmanojakuImpossibleSpellCard'', Seija can equip a toy camera as one of her cheat items. It functions similarly to Aya's camera when equipped as main, and increases Seija's speed when used as sub.
** On ''VideoGame/HifuuNightmareDiaryVioletDetector'', Suireko's main ESP ability is her spirit cellphone camera, which works pretty much like Aya's camera, and is required to obtain photographs for her nightmare diary. Unlike Aya, she doesn't have a photo requirement and can just curbstomp the nightmares, but each is only considered "cleared" once she has managed to take at least two photographs before beating the boss. Which is sometimes harder than it sounds, since some patterns require liberal usage of her other ESP abilities, and specially short-range teleportation, but none really necessitate the camera unless you make it a point to incorporate it.
* In ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'', Joshua's cell phone camera can take pictures of the past, and Neku's is later upgraded to be able to do the same.

* About that camera capturing soul business: ''Webcomic/{{Minus}}'' did it. Then again [[AWizardDidIt Minus Did It]].

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Website/SCPFoundation''

** At one point an admin [[AppliedPhlebotinum applied]] various [=SCPs=] to create an [[MundaneUtility incredibly high definition camera]].
* "[[{{Creepypasta}} Minor Corrections]]", by Creator/{{Slimebeast}}, is about a mail-in photo lab that corrects any "mistakes" they notice in the photos they develop before sending them back to the customer. Namely, if the photo depicts somebody who died between the time the photo was taken and the time it was developed, they will alter it to reflect the person's current deceased state, with all the BodyHorror that implies. [[spoiler:They can also predict imminent future deaths. Unfortunately, the protagonist looked at the photo showing [[DrivenToSuicide his dad hanging from a noose]] just a few seconds too late to prevent it from actually happening]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/AngelsFriends'', Urie has a camera that can capture people's dreams. [[spoiler: Turns out to be very handy when Raf's friends need to prove her innocence by going through Raf's memories.]]

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/RekkitRabbit'', Jay uses a magic camera from Chakabrak to take some headshots of his mom and step-dad, Henrietta and Lorne before they audition for a music agent. Unfortunately, when Jay takes their picture with the camera on "Rock Star" setting, [[spoiler: it turns Henrietta and Lorne into a pair of [[ForcedTransformation grotesque monsters]] (according to Rekkit, all rock stars in Chakabrak look like monsters, making them literal monsters of rock).]]

* Iconographs, as they are called on the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', are little more than boxes containing a very tiny imp with a sketchpad and set of paints. Because the imps have no imagination whatsoever, the images they create are accepted as objective. The flash works by frightening a captive Salamander, a magical lizard that absorbs light and can release it suddenly. In ''Literature/MovingPictures'', movies were created using six imps triggered in succession, suggesting an imp can paint an image in only 1/4 of a second.
** Also in the Discworld universe, [[ConMan Moist Von Lipwig]] uses the "steals your soul" argument, but he really has [[DarkAndTroubledPast other reasons]] [[BoxedCrook to avoid]] being photographed. His avoidance naturally makes authority figures suspicious.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': The episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E46AMostUnusualCamera A Most Unusual Camera]]" features a camera that shows the future.