Instant Camera Comparison

I've been asked lots of questions on instagram and in person about instax cameras, instax film and on occasion my Polaroids. So I thought I’d compile my thoughts into a blog post and you can all decide your favourites.

I’m in no way a professional photographer or an expert in film, however these are cameras I use often so I hope my little insight is helpful..

First up is my Polaroid! I picked it up at my local recycle centre for about $20 and was overjoyed to find it was still functional. The main downside of Polaroids is the high cost of film.

Each picture is 9cm wide by 10.5cm high. They have a definite ‘vintage’ feel - think unpredictable light spots, faded colours and a slight soft focus. I only pull my Polaroid out at special occasions like my engagement photo shoot or wreath making workshop because although it's amazing, it is expensive to use.

I actually don’t have a picture of an instax wide camera because I sold mine last year. You see the full specs on the fuji website. I loved the size of the prints (11cm wide by 8.5cm high) but it was BIG. It didn’t really fit in my handbag and it was very hard to selfie on (#firstworldproblems right there!). I also found that it was hard to frame a picture as the viewfinder was far away from the actual lens, this ended up in off centre photos. Also it was hard to figure out the exposure settings, so many of my photos were blurry, off centred and too dark.Out of all my cameras, this is probably the one I wouldn’t straight up recommend. I sold it to buy my instax mini and haven’t missed it at all.

This is my most used instant camera, it’s small, SO easy to use and relatively cheap to refill. Mine is a happy yellow (held together with washi tape after it fell off my bookshelf..) but they come in a rainbow of colours including white and black.

The photos are about the size of a credit card (5.5cm wide by 8.5cm high) and capture colours beautifully. Once the camera is switched on, the exposure dial lights up to the suggested setting, so it’s relatively fool-proof. I buy film on eBay and it ends up being about 80-90 cents a photo.

This is my newest friend! It’s not actually a camera but a smartphone printer which uses instax mini film.  It holds a standard 10 pack of film and connects to iPhone/android/iPad via wi-fi and through a free instax share app.

I LOVE it because you can take a million photos, edit them, crop them, add text and then print it out on the instant film. So it eliminates the risk element of instant film.

As much as I love my share printer, it will never fully replace my collection of instant and film cameras, there's special kind of magic only found in the unpredictable polaroid and happily snapped instax.

The big bonus is that the instax mini and smartphone printer use the same, cheap film. Since I buy film in bulk it saves a lot of money and fuss to fill them up at the same time.

I hope this has answered some questions about instant film. I’m always happy to answer questions or hear your thoughts/advice on instant film so please feel free to comment or email me at hello@rebeccaleecreative.com