Lomo'Instant - a FilmNeverDie review - updated!

After successfully raising over 1 million dollars for their Kickstarter Lomo'instant campaign in late June 2014, Lomography has since hit their target and delivered their Lomo'Instant's to all the early backers by December 2014.
I must applaud them for that.
I mean, being able to run a Kickstarter campaign and predicting when you can solve all the engineering and manufacturing issues is not an easy task. The fact that they have achieved that goal is really something.

Fast forward 6 months later to December 2014 and now in my hands is the final product. Upon unboxing the package, Lomography has maintained their consistency in the packaging and jam packed it with all the info you need on how to use the camera and as always provided sample photos to go with it.  

Having said that, like most Lomography cameras they also maintained their consistency in creating an extremely plastic-y camera that honestly does not feel very good in your hands. But I must say the fact that they opted to use a synthetic leather like material on the front panel is a plus. But if you have owned a Lomography camera before , you will know what I mean!
The feeling of needing to handle it with the utmost care, just because everything feels flimsy is something I just can’t stop myself from doing. It literally feels like I would just need to press the shutter too hard or maybe slightly pull the ON button too hard the whole camera will fall into pieces. 
Typical Lomo product!

If you are like me and consistently use Polaroid brand cameras, you might ask yourself 'If I already own a Polaroid 600 or Fuji instax mini 7 or 8 camera, why would I want a Lomo’Instant?'

So quickly these are the benefits of using the Lomo’Instant compared to a normal Polaroid / Fuji instax cameras. 

Stand out features:

• MX  - Multiple Exposures - Just remember to adjust the exposure correctly
• Exposure dial compensation from -2 to +2 EV, with the ability to leave it on Auto mode too
• 3 extra lenses to play with - Macro, Portrait and FishEye

'Nice to have' features:

• Tripod mount
• Multi colour flash gels 
• Option to turn off the flash (Which a lot of Fuji Instax mini 7/8 cameras don't have)
• 2 Focusing options; 1m - infinity or 0.4m- 0.9m for close up (Like a lot of lomo cameras)
• Bulb shutter option for light painting

Being a Polaroid freak like myself, of course the first thing to do is to push the limit! I asked myself what can this camera do that other ones can’t?
So one thing that came to mind is the Fisheye multiple exposure, we tried to do that.....but with not much success!
I guess with the fisheye lens it's hard to know how to frame the shot, so we tried a few different angles, but they all came out....well, not great, but its certainly possible to get some nice snaps. see some sample photos here.

Besides that we also experienced another problem and since then, another photographer friend (Huy) also confirmed that the flash is quite weak. Meaning that you often need to bump up the exposure compensation to +2 when using the flash, see this sample photo where we took with flash and exposure dial on Auto.

Huy also mentioned that sometimes the camera might bump itself into the mX mode without the mX tab on, so it's another thing to look out for.

 Which means that shooting indoor with flash is almost impossible unless the subject is fair up close. 

But besides those few small things, it's definitely a good type of Instant camera that you can be really creative with, especially if you do get it with the 3 lenses!

At the moment there is no way to buy the lens set separately, but I believe in the future you should be able to.....maybe, lomography is usually pretty slow with updates. 

So we have the two camera set here for sale , they are all in stock so you can get them by Christmas, to buy the Lomo’Instant, click here.

If you already owned one, show us some of the pictures you shot on the FilmNeverDie Facebook page!

Also if you found a neat trick or something to look out for with the camera, please comment below or share it on our Facebook page too!

Thanks for reading, enjoy Polaroid!

EDIT
(Stop calling Instax, Polaroid Gary!....-Sebastian)