If I was forced to pick just one camera to take to America next year then I would have a hard time choosing between these two cameras. Forget my 5d mkii, forget my new L lens, I love my instax more than any digital camera I have ever used, and I really love my digital camera. After wanting one for long, long time, I finally got my Instax mini 8 for Christmas last year. It is the colour and shape of a child's toy and I absolutely love it.
I knew the film would be expensive, but from the moment I opened it I decided to make it a priority, I refused to let it be a novelty present that I ignored once I ran out of the initially included film. In the last 18 months, I have taken around 150 pictures on it, photos that were ceremonial stuck and captioned on our fridge last year, and which now plaster my bedroom walls, and they are my most treasured possessions, the only thing I would really care about if my house burnt down. It is the perfect little camera to capture nights out and uni life, the flash is so unbelievably flattering, and the easy settings mean that almost every picture is perfect. Every picture except photos outside. And for next year, this is a bit of a downer, so I thought I'd get an instant camera where I have greater control over the settings. I looked at getting a fancier mini, like the mini 90, but then decided to go for the 210 as I loved the idea of wide photos and figured that the two cameras would compliment each other instead of the mini 90 which would have made my mini 8 redundant. So for my birthday Adam got me this beauty.
Now, as my birthday was just over a week ago, I clearly have very little experience with this camera. But I thought I'd write a post now on my initial reaction and then hopefully an update later with how I have (hopefully) mastered the settings.
Firstly, I was glad to see that the flash was still as flattering and easy to use on the 210 as on the mini. Unlike the mini that always uses flash whether you want it to or not, you can choose whether to use it or not, though in low light levels, it automatically flashes which I think is a good thing as otherwise a lot of photos would be lost in trial and error. The photo on the left is not actually as bright as it appears in this picture, the exposure is pretty much the same in both photos.
In addition to the choice of 0.9-3m and 3m-infinity focus ranges on the 210, it comes with a close up lens and mirror for the perfect selfie action. Which is a fun if slightly terrifying addition. I'm not sure whether I like knowing what my face is going to look like! This lens clips onto the camera really easily and provides a great focal length. The depth of field, however, is pretty shallow, and whilst the effect looks nice, it does mean that everyone must be completely inline with each other or people end up blurry.
As mentioned previously, the mini 8 does not perform especially well outside. The settings on the mini 8 are so basic that you choose from pictures of the weather with no real control over the result which makes even exposure really hard.
So here are two examples of photos taken on gloriously sunny days. The one on the right was taken on the brightest setting with the flash covered, and the one on the right was on sunny. The results are completely varied and neither especially desirable.
Whilst the 210 doesn't have a huge range of settings, there is a greater ability to manipulate the exposure.
Yesterday when I went into Canterbury, I took this photo on the wide. I chose the darken setting to try and capture the completely blue sky, though I probably should have chosen normal instead. I only had two shots left on the film pack and therefore couldn't reattempt it. However, despite the slightly under exposed shops, the picture came out nicely and picked up all the detail from the old slightly perplexed man to the shops near the river. The outdoor settings are the ones that require the most thought, and I hope that through lots of practice I will get to the stage where I can get perfectly exposed photos every time.
On a general night out, the photos from the mini 8 and the 210 are pretty similar, the only difference being the size of the frame. I didn't know how the size would affect the quality, but the big photos are just as clear as the little ones. I have never been a massive fan of shooting horizontally on the mini (for no reason whatsoever I am just weird), so it's nice to be able to fit in whole groups of people without everyone having to majorly squish together.
I really love both cameras and despite the money I am so glad that I invested in film all this time. I absolutely adore the size of the wide photos and I think the mini ones are fun and cute. I want to alternate between the two, using the mini for nights out and drinking sessions, and the wide for capturing my travels. I really want to be able to take gorgeous pictures of cities and landscapes on the wide, I want to really take time to understand the settings and the different ways to capture places and people. I don't want to reject the 8 and focus wholly on the 210, I want to use them both!
People often wrongly assume that the wide is more expensive, that the film is going to cost more and that the body is a more expensive piece of kit. This, however, is not the case at all as film is pretty much the same, only a pound or two in it depending on what film Amazon currently has an offer on, and the body costs around the same as well. So it really is just personal preference.
I think the best way to describe the mini 8 is fun. You can get it in loads of different quirky colours (I personally love raspberry and grape) and you can get different patterned film packs such as polka dot and dalmation print. You can also get sticker borders to apply post-printing, but I believe they are pretty fiddly so you might as well just buy the patterned film. The pictures are pocket sized and can be glued into scrapbooks, kept in wallets or splattered haphazardly across your wall.
I don't really know how to best describe the 210 quite yet, I'll get back to you in a couple of months when I have fully explored all it can offer. At the moment I love it, but I really want to push what I can do with it instead of just using it comfortably like the mini. I've seen some amazing instagram accounts of instax wide landscapes, and I would love to use it to take beautiful pictures over on my year abroad.
I could literally go on about how much I love these lumps of plastic for forever, but I promise I'll stop here! They are just the most adorable and fun way to hoard memories! There are a million moments that I now have tangibly in front of me, no blurry phone selfies that stay on the cloud until a technological blip that loses them all. I know it is an expensive hobby, but it is more than worth it.
