Instax Square Link

I just bought a Fujifilm Instax Square Link. It is a device that print Instax Square picture. Send from your smartphone a picture, obtain a hard copy on Instax Square instant film. If you have an Instax Mini Link, this is the same for Instax Square.

What’s in the box?

The box contains the printer, a light manual and a USB-C to A cable for charging.

The printer is battery powered (hence the cable). There is no film. I got a pack of white border and a pack of black borders.

The printer is like a big bar of soap. It is still slightly larger than my Instax Mini 90 Neo camera, but that’s to factor in the difference in size of the film pack.

I has two buttons, large one having a LED to show the status, a large door at the back for the film cartridge and a small trap door hiding the USB charging port and a reset hole. The latter is for cases where the troubleshooting involve turning it off and on. There is no display, like for the number of frames left.

The Instax Square Link compared for size to an Instax Mini 90. Both are roughly the same size.
The Instax Square Link compared for size to an Instax Mini 90

The initial setup consist of charging the printer using the provided USB cable (or any USB-C cable for that matter) and a charger (not included); and loading the instax square cartridge. That step is exactly the same as loading you favourite Instax camera.

To turn the printer on, press the big button for a solid second, it will light up white. The colour will change to flashing purple when printing

Print job

Screenshot of the Instax Square Link app

To use it you need a compatible smart phone (Android or iOS), install the Instax app and connect to the printer with Bluetooth. Within the app you can select images to print, and it’s fairly easy. There are other features within the app but beside the collage or frame print, I really don’t get it.

From my phone I printed a picture I posted a while ago on Instagram, works great. I also printed a picture I took recently directly with my phone. As long that the image is on your phone, you can print it.

Once you printed a picture, you can press the smaller button to reprint it, until the printer turns off. Otherwise you can use the application history to re-print later on. In some circumstance it doesn’t recollect the picture printed on the iOS app. This seems to happen if you use “share” to the Instax Link Square instead of selecting the picture from the application.

The Instax Square Link printer is ejecting the print with the picture face down.
The Instax Square Link ejecting the print.

Fujifilm manual state that the print takes 90 seconds to develop, but in my tests after 2 minutes it wasn’t developed.

The print facing is leaning against the printer. The image is not completely developed.
The print developing after 2 minutes.

In the end you obtain a colourful print.

The colourful print is flat on top of the printer, fully developed.
Print from the Instax Square Printer

The output ressemble a lot to the scan.

Instax Camera

One of the feature in the app is the “Instax Camera”. It is basically the camera app to take the picture before printing it. It put the live view inside a small Instax frame. It allow adding the date time superimposed, printed as a 9 segments led display, another bout of nostalgia that the demographics of that device have no recollection of.

Cost

The printer cost CAD$180 (I got mine on sale at CAD$160). On regular price, it’s priced between the SQ1, the cheapest Instax Square and the SQ40 the more comprehensive model. It’s not gonna break the bank.

The 2x 10-pack of film with white borders was CAD$28, and the single 10-pack of black border was CAD$17. That make a cost per print to CAD$1.40 for the white border and CAD$1.70 for the black border. There are other colours a bit more fancy if you like. You can buy the white border film in bigger pack which bring down the price per unit. A 100 pack bring the cost down to CAD1.20 a print. Also while I can find Instax Mini at my local pharmacy, Instax Square is less common. This is to be considered if you need resupplies in a hurry.

The tinfoiled pack of film leaning against the cardboard packaging that contain 2.
Instax Sqaure film pack in its protective packaging as coming out of the box

Specs

The image size is a 62mm square (2.4in). The image printed is 800×800 pixels, which boils to 318 dpi. That’s a resolution similar to any print you got from a minilab. According to the manufacturer you can print around 100 pictures (that’s 10 packs) with a single recharge.

Verdict

Pros:

– Simple to use.
– Device reasonably priced.
– Battery powered.
– Output quality.

Cons:

– Requires a phone app, very limited interoperability.
– Unlike older models can’t be used from a Fuji-X camera.
– What will die first? The printing mechanism or its battery that can’t be replaced.

After thoughts

I enjoy using my Instax Mini but I’m often left off guard with the quality, and it seem all related to the optics on the camera and the exposure, with a limited dynamic range. It’s possibly part of the challenge. The printer demonstrate that the film rendition is good and that an hybrid like the Instax Mini Evo would probably offer similar results. Sadly the hybrid Instax Square SQ10 and SQ20 cameras that were in the earlier Instax Square lineup are no more so the search for a better image quality will probably need to be sought out of the other camare makers like Lomography, MINT or NONS.

Previously: NONS instant cameras

News: Fujifilm X-M5

After a week of rumors, Monday 14 October 2024 set as the date by Fujifilm for the X-Summit, and an announcement about some firmware updates, we now know about the Fujifilm X-M5.

The X-M5 is the smallest Fujifilm X body. Without viewfinder, but a tilt screen, it is geared towards “creators” — think of it as a video camera. It presents as the inexpensive video body in the Fujifilm X lineup, a market cornered mostly by Sony, Panasonic and Canon. The Panasonic S9 is a prime example albeit at a much higher price point.

The X-M5 doesn’t have IBIS (In Body Image Stabilizer), however it has electronic stabilization for video, a system which dampen the camera motion shake at the price of a 1.33 crop. With 26.1 megapixels, it uses the older X-Trans 4 image sensor, albeit with the 5th generation X-processor. It uses the NP-W126S batteries (that’s the smaller ones as found on the X-Pro and earlier X-T), has a mic and headphone jacks, and HDMI Micro.

On the controls, I’m just skeptical of the film simulation dial. Why a dedicated dial for this? I just hope it can be reconfigured to something more useful.

The camera comes either body only or with a kit lens XC 15-45mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS PZ, the most compact zoom lens in the line. The OIS helps with the lack of IBIS. And two colours: silver or black, the latter being for April 2025.

The MSRP for the X-M5 is to be €899 / £799 body only. Add 100 in either currency for the XC 15-45 zoom in kit. Canadian price is CAD1079 body only, and CAD1199 with the 15-45.

DPReview has a review already

Other announcements today included the XF 16-55mm f/2.8 R LM WR II zoom lens, an update to the previous model, and the XF 500mm f/5.6 R LM OIS WR telephoto lens.

Link: Manufacturers Were Unprepared for the Point And Shoot Camera Revival

Petapixel, back in August: Manufacturers Were Unprepared for the Point And Shoot Camera Revival

As a result, 2019 saw the last major point-and-shoot releases from Canon, Nikon, and Panasonic. While Sony’s latest photography-first point-and-shoot, the RX100 VII, also released in 2019, newer pocket-sized models like the ZV-1 II and ZV-1F have shifted towards focusing on vlogging and content creation.

I have been complaining about the lack of availability of both the Fujifilm X100VI that is literally unobtainium and something to replace my defective G7X MkII (Canon is out of stock everywhere and whoever answers the Canon forums gaslight readers by telling them to check their retailers, while they can’t even replace camera they refuse to repair).

I really don’t enjoy smart phone as camera. In the beginning it was the quality, then at one point it ended being good enough, and I enjoyed it for a bit. But I’m over this. Don’t get me wrong the best camera is the one I have with me, and likely I have a phone, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy using it or that it inspires me. Also now with “computational photography” they add plenty of software to make them look better, sometime just turning the photo to goop like I have seen on some cheap Android smartphones.

We’ll see what the future brings.

The future of the elusive 65:24 format

Jonas Dyhr Rask talks about The future of the elusive 65:24 format.

65x24mm is the panoramic format of the Fujifilm TX-1 / Hasselblad X-Pan film camera. It is a very wide aspect ratio which can be made to work to stunning results.

But can we do that with a modern digital camera?

Also A look at/through the X-Pan which show us genuine shots with the TX-1 / X-Pan.

Here is an attempt with a casual shot with my Ricoh GR Digital II. The ground and the sky are cropped out to letterbox the 65:24 aspect ratio in post from the DNG file (Darktable has the aspect ratio in its presets).

A wide shot of a commercial parking lot. To left is an A&W, to the right a thrift store. The wide format crop is meant to illustrate the 65:24 aspect ratio.
Parking Lot, Montréal – Shot with a Ricoh Digital GR II, cropped

Previously: Fujifilm TX-1 long term review, Hasselblad X-Pan

Link: Pakon F235

Dante Stella tell us about the Kodak / Pakon F235 Plus high-speed film scanner:

First, it is designed for speed. An F235 Plus, for example, will do 800 frames an hour at 3000×2000 resolution (yes, that’s 33 rolls per hour, or a roll or 24 frames about every two minutes). With Digital ICE turned on, it still does 400 frames an hour.

Color correction. Kodak basically owns the world of color correction, and this machine nails the colors 99.5% of the time.

In sum, this is an exiting piece of equipment made accessible, sadly, by the collapse of commercial film processing.

I mentioned this previously as an alternative to the Frontier. Fujifilm vs Kodak. It’s sad nobody produce these and that the know how has disappeared, but then would they exist new at $2000 a piece? The used refurbished market from these seems to be the way to buy what cost much more initially.

The 2017 followup article: The Kodak/Pakon F235 Plus, revisited.

Previously: The magic of Fuji Frontier SP-3000

Link: The magic of Fuji Frontier SP-3000

Sebastian Schlüter wrote in 2018 about The magic of Fuji Frontier SP-3000.

Fuji Frontier is the product line moniker for minilab solutions from Fujifilm. In the early 2000 their minilab Fuji Frontier was the reference for film processing and printing, and one of its main attribute is that the printing phase was done digitally. Instead of optically enlarging the image, you put the source film transparency into the scanner, and it will print the images on photographic paper (RA-4 process). And the SP-3000 scanner, the latest model that was part of that minilab system, is still thought after as it produces high quality images out of the box. This was part of the magic (that can’t be distinguished from technology). Just to add how this was revolutionary, it allowed producing mini contact sheets, and it allowed printing slide film without intermediate negative or without inversible (positive) photographic paper. As a business, you could charge 5-10$ extra to store the scans used to print on a CD. Your 1 hour photolab likely used one of these, or its competitor like Noritsu, Agfa or Kodak.

One of the key point of the Frontier is that is does its work fast and automatically. Scanning is always a lengthy process and hard to tune to get good results. The Frontier integrates all of that. Other alternatives are Noritsu who offers a higher resolution, and Kodak Pakon, that requires 20+ years old Microsoft Windows XP to drive it, but is much smaller. Acquisition costs for a Frontier SP-3000 starts at CAD6,000 on the used market and the device takes a huge amount space, so does the Noritsu, and have the same requirement for maintaining the same operating system.

The film to digital workflow is either expensive, slow or poor quality. DSLR scanning provides a good DIY alternative that is reasonably priced if you already have the camera and a proper setup rival dedicated film scanner on many aspects.

Previously: How film commercial processing and scanning is done