Film photography is a measured, timely process. We take our time shooting the film we chose in our preferred location or with folks to sit for portraits. We develop it ourselves or send our film to a lab who diligently develop it for us and make prints before posting them back to us. The invention of the Minilab enabled us to have our film developed, scanned and printed in one hour, some high street Photo Stores can provide this quick service to this day. However, the quickest format before the Digital Revolution was undoubtedly Instant film.
Earlier in 2022 Papa Shitty Cams at the #ShittyCameraChallenge on Twitter announced #InstantRegret, two months of instant film fun throughout August and September 2022. The idea was to buy an Instant Camera and some film and share the photos we took during that time. This was gleefully set into motion by several people, including yours truly, who bought cheap instant cameras and film and had fun with them. I had never used Instant Film before, even when it was at the height of its popularity in the 1970's and 80's. I decided to take part and pop that cherry.
My first purchase was a Fuji Instax Mini that uses small format instax film. I have to thank my pal Dave on twitter who loaned me the camera first, then sold it to me for a reasonable price once I had amazed my grandchildren with the Magic Camera! Fuji Instax film is excellent, it takes a few minutes for the image to appear and once fully developed gives a nicely focused image with excellent colour saturation. It really is "Point, Shoot, Print!" I was really enjoying this camera and had to buy it so I could entertain my grandchildren even more as they visited us over the summer.
My thoughts soon turned to the Polaroid Instant Camera, and I purchased a Polaroid 636 Auto Focus from the bay of evil for not a lot of cash and some Polaroid film. The original Polaroid corporation went bankrupt in 2001 and was arguably the first casualty of the Digital Revolution. I can see why as Instant film is not the cheapest way of enjoying photography. Cameras are cheap, but for the limited number of exposures per pack, the film is pricey. I bought one pack of colour and one pack of black & white to see how I liked them.
I have to say I like the B&W Polaroid film better than the Colour offering. With colour I was left with a line at the top which wasn't quite developed properly on every shot. I don't know if it's a quirk of the process or there isn't quite enough chemicals to develop a whole frame. This is also noticeable with the B&W instant film, but it isn't as glaring as on the colour version. B&W photography yet again hides our sins much better and I am pleased with how the B&W turned out.
The next problem was digitizing my instant photos and Digital Reproduction Photography was the way to go. That's "camera scanning" to you youngsters. I had done some quick scans using my home all in one printer and scanner, but wasn't totally happy with how they turned out. I set up my Nikon D700 on my tripod and using natural light from my window to illuminate them soon had all my instant photos photographed and ready to edit using Affinity Photo. I kept my editing to a minimum and here are a few of my efforts for you to enjoy. I have also put them in an album on Flickr you can view in full resolution using the link below.
I think Instant film is now a regular part of my photography and it only took a lifetime for me to try it out. Do I have #InstantRegret ? Yes and No. I don't regret taking part in the challenge as it was a fun way to introduce myself to Instant Film. I do regret the challenge comes to an end at the end of September 2022. I'm going to continue, but not with the Polaroid. I'm going to stick with the Fuji Instax Mini. It's better quality makes it stand out as the one to have and it's a little cheaper than Polaroid's offerings.
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