Analog and Digital Booths in One Room
How to spend an hour in a photo booth club, with Amsterdam as the example
Most photo booths live alone, wedged between a cigarette machine and the toilets. A few places gather several together. Walk into one of those rooms and the first question is simple, and surprisingly hard to answer from the doorway: which of these machines actually develops film?
The Amsterdam example
Amsterdam has a small operator that built its rooms around exactly this mix. Boothclub Amsterdam sits at Raamsteeg 2, a short lane in the centre off the Singel, and its sister room, Boothclub Garage, is on the Prinsengracht at number 673. Both put chemical booths and digital ones side by side on purpose.
The Garage is where the old hardware is. It keeps a Model 12, from a production run that went from 1958 to 1964, and a Model 17 built in 1967. Those cabinets are older than most of the people who queue for them. If vintage machines are the reason you came, go to the Garage, and treat Raamsteeg as a separate stop rather than the same place under another name.
Hours and prices change, so we keep them on the Boothclub Amsterdam listing rather than here.
Telling the machines apart
Look for your own face
Pull the curtain back and look at the wall in front of the stool. A screen showing you a live preview of yourself means digital, every time. A chemical booth exposes straight onto paper through a lens, so there is no picture to show you until the strip drops. You get a mirror, or a dark pane of glass, and maybe a little light that counts down.
Watch someone else finish
The cheapest test costs nothing. Stand near a machine while the person ahead of you finishes. If their strip falls out within a minute, dry and flat, that booth printed it. If they hover by the slot for three or four minutes and then pick up something damp by its edges, that booth developed it.
Size gives it away
A chemical booth carries its own darkroom: tanks of developer, fixer and wash water, with an arm that dips the paper through them. That takes up room. The analog cabinets are usually the heavy steel ones with a service door at the back, and the digital units, which only need a camera and a printer, tend to be slimmer.
Or just ask
In a room run by people who chose these machines, the staff will tell you.
An order that works
Feed the chemical booth first. Its strip needs a few minutes in the tanks (longer when the chemistry is cold), and you can spend that time in a digital booth instead of staring at a slot.
Use the digital strip as a rehearsal if you want to. It costs you nothing to find out that your friend blinks on every flash, or that the stool sits lower than you thought and you all end up as foreheads. Then go back to the analog machine knowing your poses, because there is no retake there and no second copy.
When the chemical strip drops, hold it by the white border. It will be wet.
A cabinet from 1967 does not care that you have a train to catch.
Shooting the vintage cabinets
Old booths have fixed focus, a fixed lens and lighting that was set up for one seated adult looking straight ahead. Lean in toward the glass and your nose goes soft. Sit back.
Two people fit if you put your cheeks together and keep your shoulders square to the camera; three is possible only if somebody sits on a lap and accepts that they will be cropped at the chin. Pale clothing helps in a black-and-white strip, since a dark jumper against a dark curtain turns into one shape and leaves your face floating.
Bring coins, and check the listing for how each room takes payment, since old coin mechanisms and modern card readers often sit a metre apart in the same club.
Making a day of it in Amsterdam
Raamsteeg and the Prinsengracht are close enough to walk between in well under half an hour, through the canal ring. Our Amsterdam photo booth guide lists the other machines in town, including the booth at The Hoxton on Herengracht, and the Amsterdam photo booth tour strings them into a route. For the full set of physical tests (smell, strip temperature, the sound of the dip arm) see how to spot a real analog photo booth.
Frequently asked questions
Where in Amsterdam can I find analog and digital photo booths in the same room?
Boothclub runs two rooms in the city. Boothclub Amsterdam is at Raamsteeg 2, in the centre, and Boothclub Garage is at Prinsengracht 673. Both put chemical booths and digital units under one roof, and the Garage is the one with the vintage Model 12 and Model 17 machines.
Which booth should I use first in a mixed room?
The analog one, if there is no queue for it. A chemical strip takes a few minutes to develop, so feeding that machine first lets you wander over to the digital booths while you wait. Do it the other way round and you stand around at the end with nothing to do.
Do the vintage booths at Boothclub Garage take colour photos?
Assume black and white unless the listing or a sign on the machine says otherwise. Many old booths have been rebuilt over the decades, so the chemistry inside a given cabinet is up to whoever restored it. Ask the staff. They know.
Is a digital strip worse than an analog one?
It is a different object. A digital print is a copy of a file, so you can have it again. The chemical strip is the only one that will ever exist, which is why people queue for it, and also why it is easier to ruin with a wet thumb.
Find a booth room near you
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