The instax mini format | unique memories

left 2 days old || right more than 5 years ago on the shoot of a horror movie

Hello Analog photo community!

I know it has been a long time since I have been active here.

There is just so many things happening these times that I find it hard to keep up with producing content and with work in real life.

I hope this is going to change soon, since I am really running low on photos I can share. I have a ton of photos that are on my hard drive and some I have not digitalized yet at all and the film rolls are just stacking up. I will have to take a few days off to be able to scan all these forgotten treasures.

Thats why I like instant photography. You release the shutter and a few minutes later you have your subject, whatever it may have been on a unique never to be repeated piece of film.


I this post I want to talk about the instax mini camera I use. It is the Instax mini 8 and there has been several newer releases with updates to this camera. Nowadays you can get a refurbished no.8 for about 70€ and thats massively overpriced.

So the reason for using this camera is obvious you can capture unique memories in a format that easily fits into your wallet or purse. You can put them behind your transparent smartphone cover individualizing the looks of your mobile device. You can hand out a few of these cameras with a bunch of film to wedding guests and let them take pictures. There is really a million use cases.

I most of the times use it when I want to do a selfie with my soon to be wife @tinty.art but I sometimes use it as a documentary camera as well.

I did a bunch of these instax photos on a movie set and we placed them next to the storyboard for all crewmembers to see. Over a period of 14 days I shot more then 120 pictures. That was a pricy shoot but all the crewmembers where really happy to take some of the pictures home with them.

And of course there was a lot of chatter about the pictures on set because we had a lot of funny photos as well there where even some serious discussions about who takes home which photo.

The three pics above are the only 3 remaining in my possession.

Of course this is not a very cheap hobby. The films for this type can be purchased for about 10€
If you buy the film in bulk you can get the costs of one shot down to about 0.80€. But you see where this is ending... Bankrupt photographer. Thats why these days I really think about a thousand times before I push the shutter.

Handling of the instax cameras by fujifilm is really easy and self explanatory. You open the lense by a single push of a button. The light meter will indicate you the correct shutter speed for the photo. That is the only adjustment you have to make.
Careful! If you close the lens again the shutter will jump back to the default setting!
(it happened quite a lot to me in the beginning but you learn fast when each shot costs real money :) )

I hope you enjoyed this small journey into the world of instant photography.

And I promise I will be here again with more content and many more photos to come.

Thank you for reading!
solymi