March 1st, 2010
Polaroid’s 600 series film termination & the resultant steep price tag of both deadstock and newstock Polaroid Films, sent a lot of photogs looking for other alternatives in instant films.
Honestly, it really only leaves you with slim pickins:
You have the digital hacks like the 2,067 iPhone Apps (I use Lo-Mob and Shake It Photo), as well as little desktop gems like Poladroid. But there really isn’t anything like the real thing is there? So, Fuji has its Instax Wide and Instax Mini films, which are viable alternatives to polaroid if you’re willing to buy film for a fairly cheap price off ebay and just have it shipped from vendors in Hong Kong (Instax Film isn’t really readily available in the U.S. to any great degree I’d consider reliable)
Instax films are in a lot of ways superior to Polaroid. The film has great grain, better color response as well as tonal range… but the Fuji Instax Cameras have limited control for exposure & most of them are just too cutesy for me…
Enter the Lomo LC-A Instant Back, marrying two of my favorite things: The Lomo LC-A (with its creamy exposures and some measure of control) and the Fuji Instax Mini Film that I already stock in our house for my wife’s Fuji Instax 7s.
The LC-A was of course designed for standard 135 type film (24mm x 36mm), which obviously is smaller than the intended projected surface of the FUji Instax Mini (46mm x 62mm). This means every picture taken with the back attached to LC-A will yield major vignetting, as seen in samples above from Lomography’s Product Page ; not really a problem, but it is something to be aware of.
Vignetting was always seen as a bad lens defect. The Lomography movement used that camera defect as a hallmark of its aesthetic. It’s always interesting how one camp’s deal breaker is another’s holy grail. Every pola-iPhone app worth its salt has vignetting, and it has to be the most overused effect in Lightroom and Aperture.
But, I digress.
Whatever the case, I’m anxious to see more images from this system pop up on Flickr post the March 4th ship date. This definitely may be a future purchase for me, or maybe a stocking stuffer for some event or holiday.
I have two LC-A’s , so it would be cool to have different uses for each. The camera back requires some dis-assembly of the LC-A that isn’t an easy-peasy wham bam “let’s go from 135 to instax and back to 135″ – but the results may be worth the hassle if you only have one.
What do you guys think?
