Yet Another New Camera

I've added yet another camera to my collection. This one is by far the cutest, and the most fun:

It's a Fuji Instax Mini, bought in Japan on our way back from the States. It takes these little Polaroid photos that are the size of a credit card.

In Japan, there is quite an industry built up around these cameras. There are special film packs with decorated borders (Disney, Hello Kitty, famous artists, etc.), and albums just for these photos. The more advanced models will take a close-up lens and have features like a self-timer.

The pictures have that slightly washed-out, 1970s quality that is suddenly in fashion again.


The only downside to these photos is having to scan them so that I can post them online. It's a real instant camera, so no digital file. Also, it took quite a bit of trial and error -- and wasted film -- before I could get the exposures correct. Hard to believe that this is what photography was like before the digital age.