Fujifilm Instax Mini 7s - Set It to the Right Aperture

Instant cameras have impressed many people since our grandparents/parents’ generation. When people talk about instant cameras, we mostly relate it with classic/vintage Polaroid cameras which were discontinued and are now hard to come by. Many people thought that instant cameras were eliminated in this digital era. Luckily, Fujifilm has the introduced Instax series in these recent years. Now, I would like to share my experience of Fujifilm Instax Mini 7s.

Fujifilm Instax Mini 7s sells at an affordable price and is easy to get at most of the photoshops or web-stores. The film is being produced by Fujifilm as well. Thus, we can always get fresh films easily and don’t have to worry too much about the film stability issue. The body design comes with an ergonomic hand grip design and is easy to operate.

Instax Mini 7s requires 4xAA batteries. Follow the instructions and insert the film pack as shown on the film pack’s packaging. Please remember to pull out the lens to turn on your camera before shooting. The camera is ready to shoot once the LED indicators stop blinking on the aperture setting ring. Now, adjust the aperture setting which shows four different symbols: indoor, cloudy, fine, and clear (sunny). The film counter shows the number of films that left in the camera. The counter number will be reset if the back cover is opened, even if there are still some shots left in the camera.

So now, switch to the right aperture according to light condition and snap it.

Aperture setting is very important and quite sensitive. Your image will be underexposed or overexposed if you set the aperture wrongly. Photos below were taken at an open air historical building, A-Famosa which was shaded by many trees. I used “fine” aperture setting and this caused slight underexposure. The best aperture setting for this condition should be “cloudy”

Photos below were taken under a sunny day but my sister forgot to change the aperture setting and she set it to “indoor”. Thus, the photos are overexposed and caused the image to appear totally washed out.

For the flash, it will fire all the time and there is no way to turn it off. Because of this, you might get a photo that is slightly overexposed if you take photos during a sunny day. You can refer to photos below as an example. We took it during noon time and it was a really hot and bright day in Malaysia and Thailand. Used “clear” setting while flash fire as usual.

For indoor and night shooting, you can’t really capture the background. Capture better indoor or night images when the subject is about three feet away from the camera. Otherwise, flash might hardly reach the subject.

Of course, I did try self-shoot with Instax Mini 7s. How to make sure your face is captured in the frame? It is easy, just take the lens as a mirror and look at yourself on the lens. Thus, you will know whether you are in the right position or not.

Hope you able to get a rough idea on the result of Instax photos with different apertures setting. Just have fun and enjoy shooting with it.

For spur-of-the-moment pictures that can’t wait to be seen and loved, our Instant Cameras will do its job in giving you your shots in no time! Check out our selection in our online shop or from one of our worldwide gallery stores.

written by yokekei on 2012-08-09 #gear #people #review #malaysia #instant-photography #fujifilm #instax-mini-7s #user-friendly #affordable #aperture-setting