Original subtitles

This is Fujifilm's brand new Instax Mini 12 Instant Camera.

Could this be the best budget instant analogue camera around?

Let's take a look.

Hi everyone.

Welcome to pal2tech.

Fujifilm just released their latest Instax mini camera

the Mini 12.

With each new release, they continue to refine

existing features and also to add new conveniences.

Before I go any further, let's get a disclaimer out

of the way.

Fujifilm did send this camera over to my studio here for me

to test and to provide my thoughts.

However, they had no involvement in this video,

nor did they sponsor, nor did they pay for this video.

My opinion is my own, and they were not allowed to see the

video until right now when it's been publicly released.

This is as simple of a camera as you can get.

Let's, in fact, talk about what it doesn't have.

There's no USB connections.

There's no dedicated app, you know, to control it.

There are no SD card slots, there's no detachable lenses,

there's no focus ring, there's no exposure controls.

There's no real camera settings of any kind on it.

The idea here is that you can hand off this thing to any land

mammal on planet Earth and they should immediately be able to

begin shooting photos with it.

Also, the photos are not stored anywhere.

They're simply printed out.

As soon as you press the shutter release button,

it's your one copy of the photo.

You can't come back later on to the camera and print out

another copy of your photo like you could with Fujifilm's

Mini EVO camera.

And in some ways that's kind of cool.

I mean, talk about having a camera that puts you right

in the moment.

You know, this is exactly like the old Polaroids

from the 1970s.

It's all about taking the photo, printing the

photo immediately, boom, right in the moment, and then

most likely handing it off to one of your friends

as a keepsake.

I should point out that Fujifilm also has released on

the same day as this camera, a brand new smartphone app

called Instax Up.

The idea behind this app, apparently is that it will work

with photos across all other instax apps and provide better

organization and storage.

I may review that app in a future video, but for the

purposes of today's review, just know that you don't really

connect this camera to any kind of an app.

The camera comes in five colors blossom pink, mint green,

clay white, lilac purple, and pastel blue.

This is the lilac purple version.

Inside the box you get a little wrist strap first thing right

when you open it.

And they also include two double AA batteries.

Remember, there is no USB chargeable battery

on this thing.

So you use double AA batteries for power.

And of course, there's the camera itself.

The camera is made out of plastic and it is a bit on

the bulky side.

It's meant to be held vertically, although you

can take photos horizontally with it.

I did notice that it is a bit slippery and I think adding

some kind of rubber or silicone type grip would have

been handy.

The shutter release button is on the front and it's aligned

with a bump on the back so that it fits in your hand just

like this, when you're holding it vertically, there is a

viewfinder as well as an automatic flash on the front

while the rear of the camera is where you load the film.

It takes standard Instax mini film, which is usually

sold in two packs with ten exposures each pack.

Also on the back of the camera is a little plastic numerical

counter that tells you how many photos you've taken so far.

The side of the camera has a slot right where the

photo is ejected.

As soon as you press the shutter release button and take

the picture, the camera itself weighs in at a little over a

half a pound and it's approximately four by

2.6 by 4.8in.

It contains a two element lens with a 60mm focal length.

There's a 0.37 times image finder that contains a target

spot that helps you tell the camera where to focus.

Speaking of focus, the minimum focus distance for this camera

is 11.8in, but there is a feature called Close-Up Mode

that requires a specific minimum and maximum range of

11.8in to 19.7in.

We'll talk about close up mode in just a second.

The camera shoots at ISO 800 with automatic

exposure control.

And interestingly, it uses an electronic shutter that ranges

from one half a second all the way up to 1/250 of a second.

The flash on the front of the camera constantly fires when

you take a photo and it has a seven second recycle time with

a range of anywhere from 11.8in up to 7.2ft of distance, it is

very easy to load film into this camera.

You simply line up the two yellow strips and then you drop

the film pack right in.

The camera will then eject a black protector on the very

first picture that you discard.

And that's something to keep in mind.

So when you first load a film pack into the camera,

don't then immediately go and take your incredible bucket

list shot because the very first thing that's going to

come out of the camera is that black throw away cover, right?

So what you got to do is make it a habit when you load new

film into the camera.

As soon as you close the back of your camera,

take that shot, take out that discarded cover, throw it away

and get that out of the way before you go out

shooting with it.

After that, you're good to go.

And each film pack has ten photos.

Once you actually take a photo, it takes approximately

90 seconds for the image to be fully developed and the camera

itself has an automatic feature to shut itself down.

After five minutes, you turn on the camera by twisting the

plastic lens from the off to the on position.

And there's also an option.

You see it right here for close up.

And that's part of the new features for the Instax Mini 12

that I'm going to discuss.

Now, there are two main features in the Mini 12

over prior models.

The first is an automatic flash control that optimizes image

quality in both bright and low light conditions.

Overall, I found this to be the case in my testing, and the

Flash certainly worked much better than the old Polaroids

of the 1970s.

Right?

That gave you that flash in the face sort of look here.

It's a bit more balanced as the camera is automatically sensing

how much exposure to calculate with regard to the flash.

Another new feature of the Mini 12 is what's

called Parallax Correction.

And this is all about the camera being able to take a

perfectly centered photo.

Now, as you can see right here on the front of the camera,

just above the lens opening, there is a small mirror.

This is the selfie mirror.

Of course, when taking a selfie, it's pretty much

impossible if you don't have either a flip around LCD screen

or perhaps your phone to be able to know that if you're

perfectly centered in the image or not.

Apparently Fujifilm has solved this problem with a technology

called Parallax Correction, whereby when you put the lens

in close up mode, right, rotate the dial to close

up mode, and then you go and you take a selfie, the camera

will automatically sense that and center the photo.

I tested this out in a number of situations and I found for

the most part it works pretty well.

I tried holding the camera at different angles to fool it.

There were a few misses, but for the most part it did do

a fairly good job of keeping me in the center.

Looks like a mug shot.

It seemed to do better for my wife, but of course she

looks a lot better on film than I do, that's for sure.

It's not perfect, but it's an interesting feature that I

actually would like to see advanced and implemented in

other cameras as an option.

What more can you really say about this overall?

This is a fun camera to use and you certainly don't buy this

thing for image quality or color rendering.

It doesn't even come close to what a regular camera can do in

that regard, or even a smartphone for that matter.

If you are wanting more of a hybrid camera that both prints

photos as well as allows you to keep a digital copy with all

the benefits of photo editing and online sharing, then you

may want to consider the mini Evo instead.

I have a full video on that camera, so be sure to

check it out.

I will leave a link to that video in the

description below.

This video, however, for a drop dead easy way to take photos of

your friends or just shoot selfies right immediately and

have those printed photos in the moment.

This camera does the job very well and it's

definitely worth considering.

I will leave a link down below where you can check it out.

Well, that wraps up today's video.

Thank you so much for watching.

And I really hope you found this video helpful or

at least entertaining.

And if you did, be sure to give it the like and subscribe.

I will see you again in a new video very soon.

Take care.