Film Friday - May 14th, 2021. Fuji Instax Mini Color
It’s about time that the diminutive king of instant film got some Film Friday love so we are giving this week’s spotlight over to Fuji’s Instax Mini color instant film and sharing why we love these small prints (and why you should as well). To give you a sense of how popular Instax Mini is among our own staff, a month ago when we were asking staff for samples of the Instax Wide film, we had one staff member step forward with images for Film Friday. This week, while collecting Instax Mini samples we had three of our staff bring in substantial collections of Instax Mini photos… and we had only directly asked one of those three to do so, the other two volunteered themselves. Maybe this isn’t as telling for you as it is for us. Sometimes it can be a bit difficult to corral our staff into providing sample images for these Film Fridays, so the enthusiasm with which they presented their Instax Mini shots was very telling. And as many of you know, anything that our passionate staff is excited about when it comes to film photography is something worth taking note of.
But first, a bit of Instax history.
Fuji Instax Mini is pretty noteworthy film. The Mini format was the first of the Instax films and it arrived on the scene in 1998. That’s right, Instax Mini has been around for over 20 years. But that isn’t where Instax film actually started. Fuji was in the business of manufacturing instant film as far back as the 1980s. Naturally as Polaroid film gained popularity other companies looked to emulate that magical instant film. Both Kodak and Fuji pursued their own versions of instant films, which quickly led to Kodak being sued by Polaroid and losing for infringing on Polaroid’s patents. Fuji, on the other hand, reached an agreement with Polaroid to be able to produce their own instant films as long as they didn’t market them in North America. Additionally Fuji entered into a technology sharing agreement with Polaroid whereby Fuji helped Polaroid develop magnetic recording media while Polaroid shared instant film technology with Fuji. All this is to say that by the time Fuji Instax came about in 1998, Fuji had years of both experience and engineering put into the film, which explains why it is so good.
As referenced above, Fuji Instax was initially only well known in the Asia markets. It wasn’t until Polaroid announced the discontinuation of their films in 2008 that Fuji decided to start marketing Instax films in North America. This gave them a valuable head start over the Impossible Project which came along in 2010. Fuji Instax is still more popular in the Asian markets than it is in North America and Europe but that has been steadily evening out. These days it is not uncommon at all to walk into a hip coffee shop and notice the wall of Instax photos pinned up, or see the film on sale at trendy stores next to chic clothing. Instax Mini has enjoyed a long and fruitful run and it doesn’t seem to be anywhere close to ending.
At it’s technical heart, Fuji Instax Mini is an ISO 800 color film that is roughly the size and shape of your average credit card. Fuji Instax follows a couple of major innovations that were actually introduced by that doomed Kodak instant film, namely that the film is exposed through the back of the film, allowing the cameras to forego the necessary mirror that would reverse the image. This allows Instax cameras to be much more compact. Also Fuji builds the batteries and pressure plates into their cameras as opposed to the film cartridges, further helping to reduce the cost of each Instax sheet of film. What you end up with is a combination that is fun, relatively inexpensive and works quite well.
All that history and technical info is really only there to set the stage for you and give you a bit more appreciation for the Instax name. What is really going to jump out at you when you start using Instax Mini film is how good it looks. It is crisp, sharp and saturated. You get lovely images from Instax and the film performs quite consistently at that. There really isn’t much more to say in that regard. It just looks very, very good. This may help explain why so many of our staff like carrying these cameras around. Unlike the Instax Wide, which essentially uses the same film, the Instax Mini is much more portable and the resulting shots can fit in your wallet. When we started sifting through the samples our staff brought in, we quickly noticed that they use Instax Mini to record their lives. We have images from nights out, Halloween parties, poignant (or hilarious) moments from home life and the like. We got in a couple of landscapes, but really the majority of the images were about their personal lives. The Instax Mini is a really great camera for this purpose for this. Here, check these two images out.
Both of these images were brought in by our lab manager David, showing a couple memorable moments he experienced helping to raise his step-son Cash. He chose to grab his Instax Mini over all his other cameras, then added the hand-written notes after the prints ejected to provide a bit of caption to go with the image. Sure, you he could have shot negative film, waited to finish the roll, had it developed and printed and made the same notes on the back of the 4x6s he eventually received, but that would have taken days, if not weeks. He had these keepsakes within moments. And that is the largest part of the charm that this film has to offer. You can carry these cameras everywhere. They are easy to use. The prints eject right out the top of the camera and develop within a few minutes. They almost always turn out and look good. You have instant keepsakes to go along with all those fun moments.
And that is our pitch/take/review of the Fuji Instax Mini. It doesn’t get taken terribly seriously. Perhaps it should be, but maybe it shouldn’t. It is fun to shoot with, but also has the capability to make images that might end up meaning more to you than any you take with your other cameras. Even after decades of having access to various instant films, there is still something magical about watching the exposed film magically develop in front of your eyes. At the very least, it is a process quite different than you get working with your 35mm or medium format cameras.
As usual, we are offering the Fuji Instax Mini Color film at a discount in our shop and on our website today, if you are lucky enough to be reading this on March 6th, 2020. Whether you hit us on this fortuitous day, or at some point in the future, the Fuji Instax Mini is a film we keep in readily available. For those of you who already have an Instax Mini camera, you can hop directly over to our Mini film by clicking right here.
If you don’t happen to have an Instax Mini camera but you want to give it a try, start here.
And as usual, we will close you out with a few more Instax Mini images. Enjoy!
