The Best Instant Cameras, According to Photographers

There are two popular formats in instant photography today — Instax and Polaroid — and the first step is deciding which is right for you. Both companies make film in a variety of sizes, color and black-and-white options, and specialty stocks if you want round prints or prints with decorative borders.

Our experts generally agree that Instax is the better format for beginners. Instax cameras tend to expose photos more consistently, produce brighter and sharper images with more accurate color, and require less experimentation. “For someone just starting out, Instax is probably the way to go if they want something, right out of the gate, that just simply works,” says Michael Behlen, a Polaroid photographer and publisher ofAnalog Forever Magazine. “Instax is way more cost-effective, easier to use, anyone can pick it up, hit the button, go through the images, hit print. It’s way easier.”

But ease of use comes at the expense of user control. “The sacrifice with Instax is that the camera options are exceedingly simple, not intended for manual control or much in the way of creative opportunities,” says Fraternale.

So if you’re looking for more tools for creative expression, you’ll want to look at a camera that uses Polaroid film, which produces images that are more like the instant prints you might remember. They’re more muted and atmospheric, with lots of quirks that make the final product more unique and artistic. Polaroid, says Fraternale, “has geared their efforts more toward people looking to shape an image and put more of themselves into the picture.”

Behlen says it’s a matter of choosing the right format for the situation. He asks himself, “Do I want what we call happy accidents in Polaroid film, or do I want to shoot Instax at the club or at a party and have that be a consistent experience?”

The Instax and Polaroid film formats are proprietary, by the way, so you can’t mix and match cameras and film. You don’t necessarily need to buy a Fujifilm-branded camera to use Instax film, however. Moses notes, “Lomography’s Instant cameras and the Leica Sofort are both compatible with the Instax format too — so if you are using Instax film, you do have a wider variety of modern camera brands that you can work with.”

Instax offers three sizes: mini (1.8” x 2.4”), square (2.4” x 2.4”), and wide (3.9” x 2.4”). The cameras that are available work specifically with these three film sizes; you can’t shoot mini film on a wide camera model, for instance. Film is available with decorative borders in a huge range of colors (the borders of the prints are larger than the image size, so there’s plenty of extra space). You can find all of the film formats onthe Instax site.

Polaroid offers two sizes — standard 600 film, which produces a 3.1” x 3.0” image and Go, which measures 1.8” x 1.8”, roughly equalvent to Instax’s mini — for its current cameras. You can also get specialty types like round-frame film for dramatic portraits, eight-by-ten sheets for professional cameras, film for your old SX-70, and decorative and colored bordersdirectly from Polaroid.

Adam recommends vintage cameras to beginners who don’t want to spend a lot or prefer the look of the classic cameras and film. “I like to be able to manually focus,” she says. “My whole thing is depth of field and manual focus, and so I shoot a lot with just an SX70 camera.”

One advantage of Polaroid is that the new company produces film in the old factory, and still makes stock for older Polaroid cameras.600 filmworks with cameras from the 1980s and 90s, and you can even getfilm designed especially for the SX-70, Polaroid’s classic folding camera from the 1970s. Several of the Polaroid photographers we spoke to still use the SX-70, sometimes in modified form.

Modern Polaroid cameras use i-Type film, which doesn’t have a built-in battery pack (it’s made for modern cameras that contain their own rechargeable batteries). Traditional Polaroid film cartridges (like the version made for the SX-70) includes a built-in battery pack because vintage Polaroid cameras relied on the film itself for power. i-Type film still delivers the classic Polaroid look — soft detail, rich textures, and vintage color — but with updated chemistry.

If don’t have an old Polaroid in the closet, used SX-70s are still widely available. If you end up using one and want some more modern conveniences, Behlen recommends anaccessorythat brings some smarts to the classic design. “It adds Bluetooth, so you can meter with your phone and hit a picture if your camera’s on a tripod. The exposure is way better,” he notes.