Fuji Instax 210 - A great way to get started in instant photography!

What's instax? Ok, well I'll cover a review of the camera and the differences between Polaroid & Instax film! 

Polaroid film, as most of us know now, is being made by The Impossible Project. The photos come out with some whack colours, and take about 40 minutes to develop for the colour photos. 

Instax on the other hand, is made by Fujifilm in Japan. The photo develops in about 3 minutes, and has more neutral, albeit slightly washed out colours. It is also a hell of a lot cheaper, and great fun to get started in taking instant photos! 

This is where the Fuji Instax 210 comes into the picture! 

Most people, when they say shoot polaroid, usually mean Instax Mini. 

Instax mini, is small wallet sized instant pictures and are great to take to parties for fun snaps! But they are TOO small, I believe! 
Plus the cameras are pretty basic, and almost always fire off the flash in any situation! 



The instax 210 on the other hand, uses the WIIIDDEEE format! 

What's so great about this camera? The photos are just larger, so what? 

Build design & quality: 


Although made of plastic, it does seem quite durable. Able to take a few knocks and bumps without breaking anything. Although when the lens sticks out, I wouldn't want it to get a big knock by someones elbow. Holding it feels quite secure in your hands, with the shutter button on the front button, your right hand thumb naturally falls into place on the corner with the small nodules designed for that extra grip. 

The camera uses AA batteries in the side compartment. Be careful of the alignment though, the way the + & - terminals are arranged is retarded as. I put so many in the wrong way, making me think the camera was broken. 
You would also be better using rechargeable Ni-MH batteries, which last for ages. Normal ones flatten way too quickly when the camera is not in use. 



Viewfinder: 
With it on the left hand side, it feels a bit unnatural trying to compose a photo. Considering the lens is in the middle, it would have been far better to have the viewfinder also in the middle to compose your picture.  
Apart from that though, it is quite large and bright making it easy to see your chosen subject. 



Lens:
The lens is a 95mm (35mm equivalent on a 35mm camera) f/14. With a focal length of 0.9m - ∞ it offers quite a large range for your chosen subject. Although you do have to use the button on the side to choose between shooting at 0.9m - 3m & 3m - ∞. So the camera itself doesn't autofocus, but rather uses an estimate to shoot subjects within those ranges. Don't get it? 

Your mate is 2m away, you set the lens to 0.9m - 3m. 
You wanna shoot a landscape, set the lens to 3m - ∞.

Pretty easy really! 



The camera also comes with a close up lens, so you can shoot (somewhat) macro images at ~45cm. So it makes shooting close up subjects a breeze! 



Yeah it's a Hello Kitty one, so what! Plus it comes with a selfie mirror!

The one downside to the lens is that it ALWAYS automatically sets itself to 0.9m - 3m. So if you plan on taking a landscape, make sure to adjust the lens via the button. 

Flash:
The flash itself isn't really all that powerful. It's best suited to close up subjects like portraits. If you wanna get a decent group photo from a fair distance away, forget it. It is only a small one, so you can't expect the greatest power at all.



Buttons:
The camera offers a lot more control over how you want your photo via the side buttons. 
Such as: 

LCD Screen: - Shows you how many photos you have in the film cartridge, as well as little triangles to indicate what setting the lens is at. 

Power - Well, I think that doesn't even need to be explained. 

0.9 - 3m/3m - ∞ - This is what you press to change the lens setting for your subject. 

L/N/D - This is an exposure control. If your photo is too bright or dark, you can press this button to correct. 

*flash symbol* - Unlike a lot of instax cameras, the 210 allows you to turn off the flash if you need too. Or force it on, like in a backlit situation! 



Film: 
The camera uses the instax wide film (You should know that by now!), so is easier to get an image that doesn't require squinting to make anything out. Scanned at high resolution, you can also make quite big enlargements out of it!
Loading the film is easy!
Just align the yellow strip on the cartridge, with the one inside your camera! 
Once you put the new cartridge in, you'll need to shoot a photo to eject the darkslide. After this, you're all good to go!







We are selling them here for $130! For everything you get, it's a quite reasonable price!