Fuji Instax
08-17-09Fuji Instax
If you recall Polaroid’s One Step cameras, Fuji's Instax will be familiar. It's the only game in town for consumer instant undigital photography now that Polaroid is defunct. There is Zink, which is digital, and which I haven't yet tried. If you have, let us know.
If you like instant pictures, you’ll like the Instax. The format is a pleasing 3 7/8” wide, 2 3/8” high image, a more horizontal configuration than the SX70 (or Polaroid’s 600, for that matter) was. The Fuji Instax film’s dynamic range is broader than what I recall of Polaroid’s comparable offerings. Super-simple Lighter-Normal-Darker settings allow for fine-tuning the exposure, though unless the scene is backlit or very contrasty, the auto exposure is right on. Avoid dark situations for best results, as flash coverage is limited, and ambient light will always look better. Daylight photos look great.
I embraced digital photography more than a decade ago, but that doesn’t diminish the appeal of this kind of camera. The opposite is true. It’s great for bringing to a party and leaving pictures as a gift. At about $1 per image for the film, it’s not cheap to use, but the handful of family photos I take with it are more likely to be kept and enjoyed -- seen -- than are the thousands I have taking up space on hard drives. Those of us used to the scale of compact digital cameras or iPhones will find the Instax bulky. I haven't found its size to be a bother, but it's not small enough to carry around without noticing. Convenince isn't the thing with this camera. To me taking, and giving, instant photos has been worth the trouble.
-- Elon Schoenholz
Fuji Instax 200
$47Available from Amazon
Manufactured by Fuji
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Camera is nearly $50 + $1/photo. Doesn't seem like a good option, especially if you already have a digital camera. You can buy one of those portable digital printers fairly cheap nowadays, and some of them have batteries. I usually bring mine to special occasions and at the end, print out the good photos for the guests. Furthermore, I can print out duplicates for those that want it. It isn't cost-effective compared to just printing out the 4x6s at CVS for 20 cents a piece when I factor in the cost of the printer, but it is far less than $1/photo at this point
Haha! You bring a camera like this to any party I've been at and you're bound to get slapped silly at least once!!
@ Kevin:
You're correct in that it's not the most cost-effective way to make pictures quickly. To me it's worth every cent to watch an image develop before my eyes, and to my taste picture quality is far more pleasing than anything even high-end digital capture produces.@ Moon:
I'm awaiting an invite. ; )
-esDiscussions about economics tend to ignore the aesthetics of the experience, and the pleasure of use. I don’t think anyone would stand around anymore to watch a printer print, but I’ve never seen a developing Polaroid that didn’t attract a small crowd. As much as I love new technology, I often prefer analog technologies because they’re accessible, and they’re varied. They’re accessible in the sense that you can often deduce how they work through observation, unlike digital processes, which are essentially invisible. And they’re varied in the sense that they rely on assorted electrical, chemical and mechanical principles that are inherently more diverse than their binary counterpart.
I often think of these digital/analog debates in the context of Ray Harryhausen’s effects in the old Sinbad movies that I watched as a kid. They were full of stop-motion special effects that seem laughable now, but I loved them, and still do. They were accessible to me, even as a little boy: my dad’s explanation of how stop-motion worked only made the effects more fascinating. Now, most fathers would be very hard pressed to explain CGI effects beyond a cursory, “It’s all computers.” I tend to think that mysteries are only compelling if they aren’t too mysterious.
Getting back to this example: the cheapest photo printers are around $150, with a cost-per-print somewhere between 30 cents and a buck. So this isn’t such a silly option: you’d spend less with this camera until you had printed several hundred photos – by which point a lot of people would have felt compelled to purchase a newer, shinier digital printer for even more money.
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Mark My Words - this little fella is going to be big.
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