Fujifilm has announced the launch of its latest Instax Mini 99 hybrid instant camera and I'm absolutely in love with it. I may have only had this camera in my hands for an hour at the time of writing (and the excitement is for sure taking over), but everything about this new Instax screams professionalism to me.
So far, I think the new Instax blends the best aspects of instant cameras with digital photography, allowing for much better control over the exposure and the colour of your printed images – while retaining the fun novelty of blindly shooting without a care in the world.
These new features make the Instax Mini 99 a solid contender as one of the best cameras for beginners learning the ropes of photography, but also a fun alternative for professional and casual photographers alike.
If you're interested in the Instax Mini 99, you can preorder it now via Amazon or directly from Fujifilm, as well as retailers including Adorama (US), and Jessops (UK) with orders expected to ship from April 04.
Design
I was never a fan of the bubblegum pastel vibes with the Instax Mini 11 and Instax 12 designs, which have an obvious market of teens and the selfie culture. The Instax Mini 99 on the other hand is gorgeous.
A total improvement on the design of the Instax Mini 90 model, the Mini 99 has a sleek all-black design incorporating fancy dials and control rings without drawing too much attention to itself (making it great for wedding photographers). If Batman had an instant camera, then this would be it.
Features
My Instax of choice has always been the subtle Instax Mini 40, but the lack of control over the images with this instant camera made for overexposed shots no matter the shooting conditions. With the Instax Mini 99, you're in the driver's seat.
It has a manual vignette switch for bordered shots, five levels of exposure control using the dial, the option to control flash settings, has button dedicated to the self-timer, a double exposure mode, there's a bulb mode, an indoor mode – even a sport mode – and you can use it for selfies, too, by switching to macro mode.
Another nice touch is the LCD display letting you know which mode you're in and how much battery is left, as well as the rechargeable lithium-ion 680mAh battery included with the camera, which is more reliable than using alkaline batteries and easy to charge on the go with an included USB-C cable.
But the most impressive feature of the Mini 99, in my opinion, is the colour effect control dial. This is situated on the opposite side of the exposure dial and allows you to choose between six analog colour effects powered by colour-changing LEDs. You have Light Leak (LL), Sepia (SP), Soft Magenta (SM), Light Blue (LB), Warm Tone (WT), and Faded Green (FG) to choose from.
Instax seems to be embracing hybrid digital elements into its instant range lately, with the first digital-only Instax Pal camera (which admittedly I still think is a bit ugly) based on smartphone app integration and Fujifilm Link printers to produce your prints. And then there's also the Instax Mini Evo that we reviewed previously, a hybrid instant-digital camera and one of the most popular yet most expensive cameras in the Fujifilm Instax range (until today).
Speaking of price, the new Instax Mini 99 is available for £174.99 / $199.95, with shipping starting April 04. And there's a new film pack too, the new Instax Mini 'Photo Slide' film, which costs £8.99 for a pack of 10 prints. See the best Instax film designs for our favourite film packs.
I'm really excited to get creative with this new Instax, and can't wait to try out the double exposure and vignette modes to see how they look on printed film.
Take a look at some other Instant cameras that are super aesthetically pleasing! From the likes of Kodak, Polaroid, Lomography and Instax.
