Best current instax camera and film

George Mann · Jul 20, 2020

What are the best current instax products available.

Film size, quality, resolution? Camera quality and ease of use?

Analog or digital process?

cjbecker · Jul 20, 2020

The wife and i use a mini 90. The camera is down right terrible, the lens is plastic, sharpness is like a butterknife. The viewfinder is not great, eye has to be positioned perfect or it blacks out. If there was a way to adapt a instax back onto a medium format or graflok back. I would spend the money.

But it goes on every trip with us.

we shoot the standard instax mini. We buy it by the 60 or 100 exposures.

Mackinaw · Jul 20, 2020

Best Instax are probably the specialized cameras made by Mint, out of Hong Kong. Like the InstantKron RF70. See their webpage.

Jim B.

George Mann · Jul 20, 2020

Mackinaw said:
Best Instax are probably the specialized cameras made by Mint, out of Hong Kong. Like the InstantKron RF70. See their webpage.

Jim B.

Probably. The Fuji (exposure problems) and Polaroid (unreliable film) offerings appear to be overpriced junk.

ic-racer · Jul 20, 2020

I use Instax film in a Horseman technical camera and in my 35mm camera's Polaroid back. The I use either the B&W or the Color. Both work very well and give good prints that are very easy and quick to process.

cjbecker · Jul 20, 2020

ic-racer said:
I use Instax film in a Horseman technical camera and in my 35mm camera's Polaroid back. The I use either the B&W or the Color. Both work very well and give good prints that are very easy and quick to process.

Can you quickly run down your process to handling the film?

ic-racer · Jul 20, 2020

cjbecker said:
Can you quickly run down your process to handling the film?

The first 'exposure' of an Instax film pack spits out the light trap. Then, in the dark, remove the cartridge from the plastic instax camera and with your finger push all the film out the slot one at a time. To avoid focus errors and rangefinder calibration, I put the free pieces of film in a 6x9cm sheet film holder and expose them in a technical camera that takes sheet film. The Horseman is a hand-held rangefinder camera. After exposure, the film is removed from the sheet film holders in the dark fed into a spent Instax cartridge. There is a little plastic flap I remove to make this easier. You can load 1 or ten sheets into the cartridge. Then put the cartridge back in the plastic Instax camera and fire off the exposures with a lens cap on. Development is nothing more than a smooth run through two rollers in the camera.
You could do this with a film tent in the field.

ic-racer · Jul 20, 2020

I also expose it in a Polaroid back on a 35mm camera. That back has a dark slide which is nice, so I can pre-load the film before I put the film back on the camera. Only one picture per load, however. But I believe the Impossible film only gives one exposure also.
It is a little bit of a novelty, but a lot of film photography is novelty.

gdavis · Jul 20, 2020

cjbecker said:
If there was a way to adapt a instax back onto a medium format or graflok back. I would spend the money.

Some people in Mexico were selling a back, sold out in a matter of hours. I've been watching but so far have seen no indication that they'll ever be available again. And their website is currently "down for maintenance", though you can find them on facebook and instagram.

Where there's a will, there's a way, but it's not as simple as just spending money.

peter k. · Jul 20, 2020

Like Ic-racer we use our old Anniversary 3x4 speed, with Instak wide in film holders. Works great.

ic-racer · Jul 20, 2020

I'm on the verge of getting this Mercury back for my Horsemen. The Horseman rangefinder is easily re-calibrated (with a spacer on the infinity stops) for the film back. Thing is the film holders work so well.

mshchem · Jul 20, 2020

I have a Instax mini and Instax square printer. I can print directly from My Fuji X Pro 3, or transfer any digital image to my Android phone. The prints are beautiful, I have the SP2 and SP3 printers. The exposure is with RGB LEDs resolution is better than 300 dpi has rechargeable battery, printers are purse sized, a little bit bigger than a pack of cigarettes. Any place where you have WI fi, or Bluetooth with a Fuji camera.

Donald Qualls · Jul 21, 2020

I think I'd have to agree that the Instax color films are very good, but all the Fuji Instax cameras have varying levels of suck (and so far I'm not terribly impressed with the monochrome film, but that might just be my camera -- see below).

The Lomography ones don't appear to be a step up, and no one makes a really accessible/affordable Instax back to fit, say, a Graflok (there might be film positioning issues there; all the hacked setups I've seen for the RB67 bypassed the rotating back and went straight to the body, or built onto a P adapter that does the same).

B&H had the Mint-built Rolleiflex Instax on sale last week for under $500; it's normally $700-ish. For my money, if I had it to spend, I'd get the Mint folder -- but it's $700+ and fully automatic -- though at least it has a decent lens.

Apparently it's not too difficult to hack a lens and shutter off an old folder onto an Instax body, and in that case you can use the cheapest body you can find for the film size you want (since all you actually need is the film holder and processor, plus the light tight chamber). I've got a Mini 9 that I bought with this more or less in mind (that, or hacking it to attach to my RB67).

4season · Jul 21, 2020

If you want it in the form of an affordable camera and not as a film holder or printer, try one Fujifilm's hybrid models. I don't use it a lot, but Fujifilm SQ10 can be used like any inexpensive digital camera, it has TTL viewing and focuses close. Really reduces wasted film. I haven't tried the current models but would expect them to be similar.

Though SQ10 has USB port, it's only used for charging the camera. You can print your own JPEG images with SQ10, but will need to manually copy them to MicroSD card. On the other hand, it appears that SQ20 does allow USB file transfer.

I've also owned the all-analog Fujifilm Instax Mini 90 and Lomography Instant Automat Glass. Mini 90 delivers what you expect with soft, glow-y images (maybe that's why they're popular for selfies?), while the Instant Automat with glass lens delivers much crisper, wider-angle images. But if you're a stickler for precise framing and exposure, both require some trial and error.

GarageBoy · Jul 26, 2020

Why do the viewfinders so terrible on Instax cameras? The one on the wide is way off - gotta throw some Kentucky windage in every shot

Ariston · Jul 26, 2020

I have two minis, a wide, and an SQ10. The SQ10 is the best by far. It is a hybrid camera, but it works so much better in low light because of it. It also focuses closer, and is so, so much easier to frame than the models with viewfinders.

The viewfinders on Fuji Instax cameras are the worst. I mean it. I Have never used a worse viewfinder on any camera, and I have used a lot of cameras.

Alan Edward Klein · Jul 26, 2020

Is there a way to adapt one to an RB67? I have an old RB67 Polaroid adapter ( one last expired Fuji pack.). But there's no Fuji instant film available anymore for the RB67 polaroid back.

ic-racer · Jul 26, 2020

I looked into the RB67 and I don't think they made a sheet film back for it. If the polaroid back has a darkslide you can load it one-shot with an instax film attached to a spent Polaroid cartridge. That is how I made the image in post #8.

With some work you also can attach the instax film to a pull sheet and pull it through the rollers after exposure. Essentially that is how they are packaging that Impossble film. One shot per load.

Deleted member 88956 · Jul 26, 2020

George Mann said:
Probably. The Fuji (exposure problems) and Polaroid (unreliable film) offerings appear to be overpriced junk.

I can't stand this "Polaroid" company being called ... Polaroid. Too bad there are no laws preventing wannabes from being called what they are not, nor will they ever be. Worse, looking now at their website, one can't even see how they came to being called that. Those who were born after original company went kaput have no idea what this is about.

Alan Edward Klein · Jul 27, 2020

ic-racer said:
I looked into the RB67 and I don't think they made a sheet film back for it. If the polaroid back has a darkslide you can load it one-shot with an instax film attached to a spent Polaroid cartridge. That is how I made the image in post #8.

With some work you also can attach the instax film to a pull sheet and pull it through the rollers after exposure. Essentially that is how they are packaging that Impossble film. One shot per load.

This is the back I have with the P adapter. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mamiya-Pol...658386?hash=item46b0c8c512:g:uxsAAOSwtfRe~3E0 It used the Fuji FP100C instant film

Which Instax film did you use? How did you attach it in the adapter?

ic-racer · Jul 27, 2020

Alan Edward Klein said:
This is the back I have with the P adapter. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mamiya-Pol...658386?hash=item46b0c8c512:g:uxsAAOSwtfRe~3E0 It used the Fuji FP100C instant film

Which Instax film did you use? How did you attach it in the adapter?

I cut some rectangular slots in the pressureplate of a spent polaroid cartridge to hold the instax film in place. You could also use 2 sided tape. I did not pull the film through the rollers, I put the film in a spent instax cartridge and processed it in the instax camera rollers.

Next project for me is to attach the instax film and pull it through the rollers. You have to modify the spent polaroid cartridge because the original polaroid film pulls the exposed negative the opposite way and under the pressure plate. To pull the instax film straight out the rollers you have to do some trimming where the red circle is. Also, pull slow, this one was pulled too fast and not fully developed, but it shows that this will work.

ic-racer · Jul 27, 2020

Here is an image of how they make the 'one instant' single shot peel-apart film. You can do the same thing with instax film and a polaroid back with dark-slide, and the results will be much better than the re-purposed 20x24 film they are using.
Again, you get only a single shot from the loaded polaroid back. But polaroid backs are cheap, so you can get 2 or 3 of them and load them.

Alan Edward Klein · Jul 27, 2020

Thanks. It would be nice if someone replace Fujifilm 100c

4season · Jul 27, 2020

Witold said:
I can't stand this "Polaroid" company being called ... Polaroid. Too bad there are no laws preventing wannabes from being called what they are not, nor will they ever be. Worse, looking now at their website, one can't even see how they came to being called that.

I think this would be covered under international trademark laws, and you can bet that the current "Polaroid" company paid for the right to use the brand.

Alan Edward Klein · Jul 27, 2020

4season said:
I think this would be covered under international trademark laws, and you can bet that the current "Polaroid" company paid for the right to use the brand.

Honeywell does this a lot as does Trump who sells his name to be used on hotels and other property he doesn't actually own. These names have a certain amount of caché that helps sell the product.

Best current instax camera and film

Deleted member 88956

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