JOY... just JOY...

 If you have been following this blog, you know my affinity for Instant Photography now a days.

One of my colleagues has a collection of unique bags that she brings.  I make it a point to take an instant print of the bags when I see it in our breakroom at work.  I then leave the photo on top for her to have.

The wonderful thing about Instant Photos is the joy on the person's face when you and them or give them a photo.

Granted I can take a cellphone shot that will probably look a lot better or take out my serious digital stuff and turn the photo into a wall worthy shot.... but beyond the "oh it's nice" reaction you get with most photos, the Instant Print has always resulted in a reaction of.... "you gave me this photo."  It's an inexpensive gift to give.

I'm hooked.

INSTAX WIDE EVO.... closer to the concept of Dr. Land?

 When the SX70 first came out, some of comments were that it was too difficult to nail focus.  The product designers and engineers approached Dr.Land and informed him of what the people were saying and that the camera needed a split focus aid.

Dr.Land fought back and wanted nothing of the sort... the picture taking process was to eliminate as much "photography gear" stuff as possible.  He wanted the human to be able to capture the moment and not focus on making it work.

At the end, the SX70 has a small split focus dot towards the bottom of the screen.  This was a stop gap before the sonar autofocus would be out.

So what does this SX70 tid bit have to do with this Instax Wide Evo?

This camera is amazing.  Granted it's another hybrid from Fuji, but they did so much to put the analog feeling and process into the camera.  This camera looks like a miniature View Camera.  In fact it sort of acts like one with you looking at a glass LCD screen to compose.  There's little else beyond the 100 different effects you can select - but Fuji makes you decide on it before you take the photo.  Very little digital editing here please.

In just three days, I've created images that either would be extremely difficult or impossible to produce on an analog instant camera.

This leads to the conundrum.  Analog with a lot of human intervention is one thought with photographers.  The idea is to create an image and NOT just take a picture.  Yet this hybrid camera has the ability to capture moments in time right away with little fuss and a lot of capabilities.

My goal is to immediately print an image if I feel it's important, special or a need to have this film artifact made is starting to make me rethink it all.

Thinking back to the Polaroids of my youth, there wasn't much but to rudely focus the lens and shoot.  Yet those images today hold such a value that a film camera and now digital camera cannot reproduce.

After spending tens of thousands of dollars over the years to capture a feeling, a moment (Capturing Light and Life is my tag line after all) did this camera finally won me over?

One thing is for sure, all this Instant Photography has me wanting to shoot photos again.

More to come...

  

Instax Mini Evo - Love or Hate

 

Question or Debate over this Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo stems from the fact that this is a hybrid instant camera.  Hybrid meaning that it shoot not directly on film but on a sensor.  The film portion is a printer where the image is transferred to instant film

Some, and including me in the past, called this cheating.  Missing the true essence of an Instant print.  The precious 1:1 original shot there and then.

Fuji did do what they could to make it as analog as possible in that you have to make all your adjustments in terms of film effects and lens effects before pressing the shutter.  You cannot make changes after the photo is done with the exception of altering the brightness of the image and a bit of zoom.

So the die hards will still say it's not really an instant print.

I thought it over for a bit.  Dr.Land wanted to remove all distractions between you and the image.  The Polaroid (Instant photography) is a physical artifact of the moment the photo was taken.  This is indeed the major reason why Polaroids or Fujiroids are so special.

So to stay true to the art, I make it a point that if the image has some special significance or need to have it forever locked to the time and place - I PRINT right away.  That image is now my artifact and that years from now when I pick up that print, I will have this attached forever to the time I took the image.

So why not just shoot pure analog versus using this camera?

A few reasons.

It's a crappy digital camera - crappy in that any cellphone will out gun this.

The digitalness allows me to pick and choose between color and black and white.  Impossible unless I carry two cameras - 1 with color and the other with black and white.

I can get closer and snap a photo faster with this Evo.  Even if I leave the Polaroid, Mint or Fuji on it's automatic mode.

I can shoot in poor lighting without the need of a flash - most of the time.

I can also do that horrible thing and print copies to hand out.

The fun of instant photograph is sharing the image.  This is something that is hard to achieve with any other medium.  Sharing the image that is PHYSICAL and not another digital image.

So for right now.... this Fujifilm Instax Mini EVO works.

Tomorrow my new Fujifilm Instax Wide EVO arrives.... can't wait !!!!