Fuji announces instant tintype film

 

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Those sad about the demise of Polaroid have the option to either pay quite a bit of money for Impossible film (with, often, very mixed results), or there are Fuji’s Instax cameras. I’ve long been using Fuji’s system - it works great, and it’s a lot of fun. Things just got a whole lot better. A little while ago, Fuji got in touch with me, asking me whether I wanted to be one of the ten people world-wide to test their new tintype film (lest you think that’s one of the perks of blogging, it isn’t, at least not for me; this was a first). At first, I thought it was a joke, but it was very much real. Fuji’s only condition was absolute secrecy until the date of the announcement. InstaType - that’s the name of the new film - comes very close to looking like a tintype, and from what I can tell the chemistry behind it must be at least similar to the original process. The film pack is much heavier - each photo sits on a thin metal sheet. As you can imagine, the process is a bit iffy: Once the photo is ejected from the camera, the photo still flexes. The image develops more quickly than the regular Instax ones, and at the end, the photo itself gets rather stiff. Just like in the case of the regular Instax films, there is a thin plastic sheet over the photograph - neatly preventing the emulsion to get scratched. The new film is now on sale, and there’s a discount for readers of this site (code “INSTACON” - limited to two packs per buyer). So if you want the film (trust me, if you have one of these cameras, you really do), head right over to the product page.