Hello! And welcome back to my blog(: Today I’m going to give an overview and talk about my new instant camera.
Back in December, my boyfriend bought me an Instax Mini 8 camera from Fujifilm. First, I want to say that I absolutely love this little camera. I think it’s so fun to bring around and make memories with and I’m very happy that I’m a proud owner of one.
I got my Instax Mini 8 camera in black and also got two 20 packs of film with it, which gives me a total of 40 instant exposures.
It was a total of $120 for everything after shipping. He got the camera for $80 and each pack of film for $15. Both products were a little more expensive than usual because I got them in December, so Christmas was coming up. I also got everything from my favorite online photo and video store bhphotovideo.com, and I would recommend that site to everyone for all your photo and video needs.
An Instax camera is an instant camera, meaning when you press the shutter release button, it automatically shoots out a little physical copy for you to have. Which is super cute and convenient in my opinion. They’re fun to keep and save for your own memories or to give away to friends.
It’s a very VERY simple camera to use. As long as you’re not stupid, you can pretty much figure out how it works and how to use it.
But here’s a simple overview of this camera.
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Functions on the camera:
The front of the camera includes the button on the side of the lens, which shoots the lens out and turns on the camera; the shutter release button, and also a dial which will automatically light up and indicate which setting it recommends you be on based on the lighting available. The dial settings include indoors, cloudy, sunny, really sunny, and hi key. And all you do is twist the dial to the appropriate setting.
The back of the camera is where the film loads and tells you how many exposures you have left in a little bubble towards the bottom, along with a little side hatch for the batteries and a little slot on the top where the photos will come out from.
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How to load film:
The film comes in little cartridges, that you simply place in the opening in the back of the camera once you open the hatch. It has a little yellow line on the inside of the camera and also on the cartridge, and you just line it up and place the cartridge in the camera then shut the hatch. I’m unable to show a photo of this because I currently have a cartridge in my camera and opening the hatch would expose the film, thus ruining all of them. But it’s really easy to figure out how to put the film in. It’s just something you learn when you actually have the camera.
You’ll want to turn the camera on and press the shutter release button once. This won’t use any real film, but it will take the film cover off for you and it will come out from the top of the camera.
After that you can use your camera normally and have fun shooting.
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As far as quality goes, you can’t expect to get a super clear photo or the best quality since it is an instant camera. It’s the simplest form of a point and shoot camera and anyone who has owned an original instant camera, such as a Polaroid, knows what kind of quality you should be expecting.
These are some photos that I have taken with my Instax Mini 8 camera. Obviously the quality of the photos below aren’t going to be the best since they are physical copies and all I can do is take photos of them. But they look better in person, trust me.
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Even though I do own a professional DSLR camera and love going out to photograph with it, I absolutely love my instant camera just as much.
My DSLR is more for real photography, obviously. For my landscape and nature shoots, or to blow up and make prints with, while my Instax is more for little in the moment memories with friends, not so much for real quality photos. They just have different uses.
Overall, I think this camera is great! It’s really cute and fun to use and to bring to parties or on little adventures. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is wanting to get one.
Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!(:
January 16th, 2015 at 3:41 am
I have one of those, but not the mini version. It’s fun to shoot with.
January 20th, 2015 at 2:11 pm
I’ve had a few cameras in the past, including a few incarnations of Polaroids. Sadly when I finally (latecomer) discovered digital my film cameras all went to the local Op shops.
Even though I can see the advantages in some instances of instant prints (and can feel your enthusiasm~!) I’ll be staying digital …
(And I still have a Brownie 127 — boom boom!) 🙂