Fujifilm has honed its instant camera skills with the ever-expanding Instax range. There are the standard instant cameras that point, shoot and print, the hybrid cameras that bring digital into the mix so you can review before you print, the wide format, the mini format, the cameras that use square film and so on.
So where does Fujifilm go from here? To the past, apparently.
The Instax Mini Evo Cinema is not your standard Instax camera. It has the ability to shoot digital photographs and comes with the usual built-in printer, but it looks and feels like an old video camera – Super 8 era – and gives you lots of options for shooting footage.
The camera itself looks different from anything Instax has produced recently. You hold the camera vertically, with an included grip accessory to ease that, and press or hold the trigger button to take a photo or record video.
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On the front, you have a mirror to help you take selfies – a bit of a challenge, given the format of the camera – and the flash and continuous LED light for your video footage when needed. Under the shutter button, there is the USB-C charging port and a slot for a removable memory card. On the back, you have a small screen that doubles as a viewfinder and the menu and playback controls.
The Mini Evo Cinema has more buttons and dials than I ever remember seeing on an Instax camera. There is one to flip between still and video, another to zoom in and out, yet another to turn frame effects on and off, and a twist control to print your photos.
But the most interesting is the dial marked with the decades. This is Fujifilm’s Eras Dial, a sort of digital time travel mode. With a turn or two, you can make your footage look like it comes from the 1930s, complete with flicker and grain, or jump forward to 2020 and its clean, clinical footage. You can opt for the 1990s home video look, complete with washed-out pictures and random lines popping up in your footage, or go full 1940s sepia tones.
It is not just for video. though; the filters can be carried over into still images. The previously mentioned frame effect button will overlay the footage with an appropriate frame – date and time for the 1980s and 1990s video fans, or the frame lines for the 1940s buffs.
You can also control the intensity of the effect. Fujifilm has included a dial around the lens that will increase or decrease the vintage feel by twisting it. It is a nice touch that gives you even more control over your finished images.
[ Fujifilm Instax Mini 41 review: A fun addition to the analogue photography trendOpens in new window ]
There are sound effects, too, with the flicker of film adding to the whole vintage feel. It is not vintage, of course; it takes a lot of technology to recreate the fuzziness we desperately wanted to get rid of. Fujifilm also has an app for the camera that opens up features such as remote shooting and creating longer video clips.
The technology doesn’t always work as expected. There were a couple of bugs that hit randomly. At times, the camera’s dial didn’t change the look of the footage on the screen, and I scrolled all the way from 2020 back to 1970 before there was any response. It was usually a momentary blip that righted itself and didn’t significantly affect the camera’s use.
Printing the photos also took a bit of care, making sure that the control had been twisted enough to spur the printer into action.
Good
This camera is great fun to use, and the Eras Dial is an interesting twist on things. The footage it generates feels authentic, which should cause a bit of confusion decades from now when people try to figure out why video footage suddenly took a backwards shift.
The camera does it all, even doubling as a smartphone printer for your non-Instax photos when you connect the camera to the app.
Bad
Videos are limited to 15 seconds, although they can be stitched together into longer clips. Occasional bugs meant the camera didn’t respond as expected every time, and it sometimes took more than a few seconds for the camera to catch up with the Eras control.
Everything else
It uses the mini film format, rather than the larger square or wide options. The camera has a timer on the front so you can take selfies a bit more easily, with two-or 10-second options. Fujifilm has also included an attachment to turn the screen into an electronic viewfinder, for an extra bit of retro feel.
Verdict
An interesting take on vintage video. And as usual, the Instax take on photography is fun.
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