Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Most people I talk to think Instax Mini is a great party format, but generally inferior to digital otherwise. They are really missing out. This camera's strengths really shine through with (1) the right composition, and (2) the right lighting. When I stick to the rules below, it does an amazing job of capturing mood and feel, in a way few people can snag with a DSLR, much less a cell phone. The instant photo format also makes "involuntary" photo subjects willing participants in the process. Many people may not like it when a street photographer raises the camera and fires, but when the instant photo pops out, they get curious, even happy. If I try to use it for photos other than the ones I describe below, it's rubbish. I'm better off getting out a smart phone (ughh), really. The camera's automatic shutter speed system with a single f-stop offers far less exposure flexibility than people have become accustomed to in the digital photo era. When you're shooting film, you need light, period. And, Instax is pretty much a daylight balanced film, so in anything but a fair amount of sunlight, you're liable to get color shifts. Again, digital has gotten pretty good at automatic "white balance," so people aren't used to dealing with this aspect of film. Even with the ability the camera offers to lighten the exposure two clicks, darken it one, and turn off the flash, the most likely outcome for large field use or scenes with wide ranges of shadow to light is blown out highlights and fuzzy images. For composition, it's best for people when I'm around 4 to 6 feet away, and not trying to capture anything more than the upper half of the model, or even better the upper third. For street and interior scene work, the entire composition of interest needs to be something I could fit into a semi trailer, shooting from the door end, with at least 60% of the interest elements in the 60% of space that's closest to me. Any scenes bigger than that, with models or in the street, gets lost in the small image size and relatively low detail of the film. For interior lighting, it is best when the subject is already well-lit with window light and the camera is not straight-on at the subject, but off at an angle by at least 45 degrees so the flash fills in from the darker side. Straight-on interior flash shots of people will usually give bluish skin, and interior shots lit mostly with normal incandescent/LED bulbs will be orange. I have gotten away with exposures of ceiling-lit rooms (think a small diner) by turning off the flash and lightening two clicks, but the shutter slows down to the point where I have to factor in quite a bit of motion blur. Low light work, inside our out, really stretches the shutter speed, and the colors go in weird directions as a result. Instax film color-shifts more like color slide film than color print film. It's weird, considering how high the ISO is. For exterior work, it's really happiest after sunrise, before sunset, with no or very limited haze or cloud cover, and a scene that's pretty uniformly lit. Not a lot of shadow detail available. The flash is not up to the job of daylight fill work, so I always just turn it off; otherwise it will often over-light the closest object in the scene. A light-colored subject that's brightly lit with direct sun will almost always over-expose, so I use the 1-click dark option there. If I just follow those rules, I get photos people will linger over and absorb. I'm glad I bought the camera, and lately I throw it in my briefcase or carry-on wherever I go. I run across a couple good scenes a week, just in my day-to-day life, without even trying. Can't beat it.