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A decade ago, I stumbled upon a page where someone detailed their process for crafting their own instant film, something similar to Polaroid Type55 or the New55. At that time, the instructions seemed too complex for me to tackle, and I never ventured into the world of instant film creation.
Fast forward ten years, and I’m now prepared to give it a shot. The reason? There’s now a lot more information and instructions shared by others who have explored this fascinating process.
Fujifilm has introduced Instax Pal, its latest instant-digital camera hybrid. It’s as tiny as a keychain, it looks adorable and offers tons of options to play with. However, it’s separated it from the printer, making everything unnecessarily complicated. You need your phone and a dedicated Instax printer to get a tangible batch of your favorite snaps.
The limited edition Taylor Swift Instax camera has reached astronomical prices on the online marketplace eBay. Originally launched at the last ever Photokina trade show in 2018, the Fujifilm Instax SQ6 Taylor Swift Edition quickly became a sensation among photography enthusiasts and fans of the pop icon alike.
With its unique design, featuring a gold-coloured newspaper pattern on a sleek black base and an autograph reproduction of Taylor Swift’s, the camera captured the hearts of Swifties worldwide.
The Fujifilm Instax Mini 40 (buy here) has grown up. Fujifilm has announced the new Fujifilm Instax SQ40 square format camera. Fuji says the release of the new SQ40 will provide Mini 40 fans with its “classic look” in a larger square format. Along with the new camera, the company releases a new “Sunset” film variety, and the Instax Mini Evo Hybrid camera (buy here) is also now available in a new brown colour option.
The Instax SQ40 features an automatic exposure function that automatically senses the light. When the shutters pushed, the camera optimises the shutter speed and flash output (when required) to provide a good exposure in all conditions. This makes it an ideal instant film camera for beginners who don’t fully understand exposure yet.
Jollylook’s journey has been quite interesting. From its initial cardboard origins in 2017, we’ve now arrived at its latest release. This time, it’s a square format pinhole camera DIY kit. It appears to be based on the previous Jollylook Pinhole released last year but utilising the Instax square format instant film.
The company says that the Jollylook Pinhole SQUARE is an innovative, eco-friendly DIY kit that lets photography enthusiasts create their own instant film camera from scratch. As with their past releases, Jollylook has taken to Kickstarter to launch the new Jollylook Pinhole SQUARE.
Fujifilm has just announced Instax Mini 12, the latest addition to its family of instant cameras. It comes as a successor to the Mini 11, launched in 2020. While they don’t differ too much, the Mini 12 brings a new look, as well as new and more intuitive zooming. It lets you twist the lens to zoom, bringing you a bit closer to the feel of using your DSLR or mirrorless camera.
Released in 1971, the Polaroid Big Shot was a funky, green plastic camera that was built for one thing: portraits. The plastic behemoth is simply designed, using a fixed focus 200mm, single element plastic meniscus lens. The grip has a stereoscopic rangefinder integrated in it, which makes framing and achieving focus easy. Focal length is fixed at approximately three feet, emphasizing the portrait centrality of this camera. The shutter speed is a static 1/52 second, combined with an adjustable aperture of f56, f36 or f24. A small aperture and rather slow shutter speed meant most “normally” lit photos would be underexposed, especially indoors, so most photos would require the use of a flash.
For the flash the Big Shot uses Magicubes, which are an explosive, four use, disposable flash cube. There is a large Fresnel diffuser for the flash that is built into the front of the camera, which softens shadows and makes the flash much less harsh. A favorite of Warhol, he used the camera to shoot dozens of portraits, often using the resulting Polaroids as basis for his screen-printing art.
It’s the 50th anniversary of the Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera and to celebrate, Retrospekt has released a 50th Anniversary Edition Gold SX-70 Instant Film Camera. It’s an extravagant collector’s item that’s fully functional, built from original components from vintage Polaroid SX-70 cameras. The original chrome plating, however, has been stripped and replaced with 24-karat gold plating.
This is a very short run of only 50 cameras total – makes sense – and each camera features fully refurbished internals. New genuine leather coverings have also been applied and embossed with the anniversary emblem and individual unit numbers. As all of the parts are genuine components straight from vintage cameras, some of them may even be as old as the original release in 1972.
Perhaps you’re already familiar with NONS and their interesting SLR cameras that use Instax film. The company has just announced the SL645: a camera that lets you shoot Instax Mini film. Like NONS’s other products, it lets you change lenses, so it seems like a perfect match for those who love instant film photography and vintage lenses with equal passion. Alright then, let’s check it out and see what it has to offer.
With the discontinuation of Type 100 film by pretty much everybody, with the final nail in the coffin coming from Fuji in 2016, finding film for your old Polaroid 100-400 Land Camera became pretty impossible unless you wanted to spend an absolute fortune on eBay. There has been at least one attempt to revive the format, in the form of One Instant, but it’s also pretty expensive and appears to have been sold out for quite a while now.
A newly developed product by Clément Grosjean and his team, however, takes a different approach to keeping these older Polaroid cameras alive. Instead of releasing Type 100 film, they’ve designed an adapter that lets you use your Land camera with either SX-70 film cartridges or i-Type film without a battery. It’s called Newland and it’s launching through Kickstarter.
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe
Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.
John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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