An Instax Update

Posted by ciaran on August 31, 2012 in Blog, Equipment, Model, Polaroid | 1 comment

Every shoot I’ve done this year (and there really hasn’t been many), I’ve fired off a few shots on my Fuji Instax 210. And my recent shoot with Kelly in Los Angeles wasn’t any different. It’s a fun camera, completely unpredictable and a completely different experience to shooting digital.

These shots (colour cast and all) are direct scans of the polaroids with no retouching, toning, sharpening or contrast control. They were scanned using an Epson V750 pro that I borrowed for a week in an attempt to try and scan all my polaroids, which until that point were sitting on various shelves and desks around the house picking up thumb prints and dust. It seems that scanning is an artwork in itself and after about an hour of playing around with the first scan, I decided that it was a skill I’m happy to ignore

There’s no real point trying to perfect the art of scanning, when the original image is so far from perfect anyway. I’ve said it before, but one of the fun and indeed liberating aspects of the Instax, is the fact that it produces imperfect images. They’re not sharp; you have no real way of knowing or controlling exposure; framing accurately is nigh on impossible… it’s just point, click and hope

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… every photographer should have one of these cameras. At just a little over $60 from B&H photo it costs marginally more than a disposable camera. OK, so the film can work out expensive, particularly if you’re trigger happy, but it’s worth that expense IMO.