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After additional testing, we’ve made the new Fujifilm Instax Square SQ40 our top pick. Our former top pick, the Fujifilm Instax Mini 12, is now our budget pick. High Transparency Film
Instant cameras embody the magic of photography: With the press of a shutter button, you can capture the world around you and see tangible results in seconds. For high-quality, retro-cool prints at a reasonable price, we think the Fujifilm Instax Square SQ40 is a great choice.
An instant camera should be simple to use, so we looked for cameras that let you start snapping pictures with minimal instruction.
If the film is too expensive, you’re probably not going to want to use the camera all the time, so we prioritized film that costs less than $1 a print.
We picked cameras with refill packs that are easy to find just about anywhere.
Cameras that die quickly are no fun, so we looked for those that can shoot at least 100 images per battery set.
Fun, simple to use, and good-looking, this instant camera makes beautiful photos on square prints.
Buying Square film in twin packs helps you get the best price.
The Fujifilm Instax Square SQ40 is a good-looking camera with leatherette details and minimal controls that make it easy for anyone to use. It makes square images set in 3.4-by-2.8-inch borders that cost about $1 each. Its photos aren’t perfectly sharp, but they are pleasingly colorful and creamy, with a classic look that we love.
This camera comes in more color options and makes beautiful wallet-sized photos for 60¢ per print.
Buying Mini film in twin packs helps you get the best price.
Unlike the SQ40, the Fujifilm Instax Mini 12 has a toylike aesthetic and makes rectangular images (3.4 by 2.1 inches, including the frame) that are significantly cheaper, at about 60¢ apiece. Like our top pick, its controls are simple, and it’s easy to use. While its photos aren’t perfectly sharp, they’re dreamy and make for fun wallet-sized gifts. It’s a perfect gift for someone younger in your life.
This small instant-and-digital hybrid camera delivers instant prints and a digital review screen, but at a premium cost.
May be out of stock
Buying Mini film in twin packs helps you get the best price.
The Instax Mini Evo is the best attempt at a hybrid instant-and-digital camera we’ve seen so far. It offers all the analog charm of an instant camera but lets you choose which images to print onto Instax Mini film using a small LCD screen—something our other picks lack. A smartphone app unlocks features that the tech savvy will have fun fiddling with, including remote shooting and the ability to print images from a smartphone library.
Just like our budget pick, prints cost 60¢ apiece. But the camera itself is more than double the cost of our top pick.
Fun, simple to use, and good-looking, this instant camera makes beautiful photos on square prints.
Buying Square film in twin packs helps you get the best price.
This camera comes in more color options and makes beautiful wallet-sized photos for 60¢ per print.
Buying Mini film in twin packs helps you get the best price.
This small instant-and-digital hybrid camera delivers instant prints and a digital review screen, but at a premium cost.
May be out of stock
Buying Mini film in twin packs helps you get the best price.
Arriana Vasquez is a senior updates writer for Wirecutter and a professional photographer. Her photography ranges from studio portraits to influencer, product, and street photography. She has worked on several camera-related guides for Wirecutter, including the best instant photo printer, the best tripod, and the best cell-phone tripod.
Instant cameras are for everybody because they’re fun and easy to use, and they create a unique aesthetic that can’t be perfectly reproduced by a smartphone camera. Most models don’t have any built-in memory or accept memory cards, so the images you take and the prints they make are truly once in a lifetime. They’re durable enough to accompany you on random outings, simple enough for anyone to pick up and use, and cheap enough to hand to friends to use during big life moments like weddings.
The prints you get from Instax cameras are the right combination of soft and saturated to give you an instant sense of nostalgia. They don’t have the crisp, color-accurate look of inkjet prints made from fancy digital cameras, and that’s why we love them. You can keep the prints in a photo book, string them up somewhere visible, or (in the case of our budget and upgrade picks) stow them away in your wallet.
If you’d prefer to snap photos with your phone and print them later, you might want an instant printer.
In searching for the best instant cameras, we compared models based on the following criteria:
Since 2013, we’ve compared instant-camera usability, image quality, and features by shooting in a variety of indoor and outdoor conditions. We’ve also put the cameras through the most appropriate real-world examination we could think of: the party test. What happens when a novice shooter picks this thing up at a gathering? Is it fun to pass around and shoot with at a company holiday party or a family dinner?
While capturing hundreds of instant photos, we took note of whether our friends and family could easily figure out how to use the camera. We also got their opinions on the image quality to supplement our own (and perhaps more critical) assessment.
While that past research continues to influence our top picks, most of the newest cameras have pared-down features compared to their predecessors, so we’ve shifted our focus away from lots of exposure control and more toward ease of use and film-replacement availability.
Fun, simple to use, and good-looking, this instant camera makes beautiful photos on square prints.
Buying Square film in twin packs helps you get the best price.
If you’re looking for a fun, good-looking camera that’s easy to use, the Fujifilm Instax Square SQ40 is the one we recommend. With its minimalist design and controls, we found that this camera works great for on-the-go photography and capturing spontaneous moments.
It’s incredibly easy to use. The Square SQ40 has just three settings: on, off, and close-up (for selfies). To turn it on, you rotate the ring around the lens clockwise, and that’s it. Setting it to “close-up” is just a matter of rotating the same ring a little further. There’s a built-in flash that fires automatically, so you can capture moments even in low-light situations.
The SQ40 makes pictures measuring 2.5 inches square, which are set inside 3.4-by-2.8-inch white borders. The cost of prints is a little more expensive than those of our other picks, at about $1 each.
The prints have that classic instant-photo look. Photos printed from the SQ40 are just as creamy and filmlike as you would expect from a classic instant camera, with rich, saturated colors. But they’re not as sharp as what you can get from our upgrade pick. We like the sharp, modern look of the camera body, too. When I pulled it out to test during an event, several friends asked about it.
While the SQ40 doesn’t offer as many creative options as the Instax Mini Evo (like adding vignette, fish-eye, and double-exposure effects), its simplicity is part of the charm. When you’re snapping family barbecue pics, being able to just turn it on and snap away—or hand it off to a kid relative without much explanation—makes it a no-brainer.
It’s perfect for selfies. You won’t find much in the way of controls beyond on and off, but the SQ40 does have a selfie mirror, making it easy to frame your photos from in front of the camera.
The camera feels well built. The SQ40 feels solid enough to withstand the occasional drop. It’s also slightly larger than the rest of our picks—similar in height but about an inch wider than our budget pick, and an inch and a half wider than our upgrade pick.
The battery life is decent. The SQ40 runs on two CR2 batteries that last about 100 shots—likely long enough for a few outings, if you’re not too eager with the shutter button.
This camera comes in more color options and makes beautiful wallet-sized photos for 60¢ per print.
Buying Mini film in twin packs helps you get the best price.
The Fujifilm Instax Mini 12 is similar to our main pick in nearly every way, but in a smaller, cuter body, and it prints rectangular images instead of square ones. It’s also $60 cheaper than our top pick, and prints cost 40¢ less apiece (at the time of writing).
The controls could not be much simpler. Like our top pick, the Mini 12 has just three controls: on, off, and close-up (for selfies). It also fires the flash with every shot, and there’s a small mirror for framing and capturing yourself (and your friends).
The film is easy to find. Film refills for the Mini 12 are sold just about everywhere. And at 3.4 by 2.1 inches (including borders, which surround a 2-by-2.5-inch image area), the photos you get from this camera are just a tad smaller than a credit card, making them perfect for toting around in your wallet. Prints from the Mini 12 are just as creamy and filmlike as those from our top pick, though not as sharp as those from our upgrade pick.
Batteries are readily available, too. The Mini 12 runs on two AA batteries for around 100 shots before they need to be replaced. The SQ40, our top pick, requires CR2 batteries, which aren’t as easy to find—especially if you need replacements quickly.
It’s not a sleek, modern-looking device, but it’s very cute. The Mini 12 is smaller than our top pick and comes in fun colors, but with its rounded features, it can feel a little more childish than our top or upgrade picks.
This small instant-and-digital hybrid camera delivers instant prints and a digital review screen, but at a premium cost.
May be out of stock
Buying Mini film in twin packs helps you get the best price.
If you want more control over your photos, if you want to be able to save them to a microSD card, or if you want to be able to choose which images you print and which you don’t, the Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo probably has your name on it. It uses the same film as our budget pick but offers some of the advantages of a digital camera—things like a screen to review your shots, filters, and discretionary printing—in a smaller, more portable package that’s still easy to use.
The Mini Evo prints better photos than other Instax cameras, too. In our side-by-side tests, images from the Mini Evo were sharper and more vibrant than those from our top and budget picks.
It gives you more control over your images. Compared to the SQ40 or Instax Mini 12, the Mini Evo lets you change a lot more about the look of your photos. A rotating dial around the lens lets you apply effects like vignetting, fish-eye distortion, and double exposure. Best of all, these adjustments are nondestructive—anything you add to the image before printing won’t alter the original shot.
On the top of the camera, another dial adds film effects that alter the colors of the image. For example, the Vivid setting makes colors more punchy, while Sepia gives photos a warm tint. The back screen previews these effects as you add them.
A half-press of the shutter button employs AE/AF lock (meaning the camera locks in the exposure and focal point, so they won’t change even if your subject does). On the LCD screen, a green square indicates your focus point. You can also play with exposure compensation before snapping a shot, and the autofocus illuminator light helps the camera find focus in low-light settings.
You can choose which images to print. Unlike most other instant cameras, you can choose which images to print or print a favorite image over and over again. Our top and budget picks are true instant cameras, meaning they print just one fleeting moment at a time.
You don’t need to look at the manual to start shooting. Even with its added controls, the Mini Evo makes it easy enough to start shooting, reviewing, and printing images without ever peeking at the instruction manual. Even a total novice should be able to produce shots immediately.
With a sleek, solid build and a size roughly that of a standard point-and-shoot camera, the Evo also looks like it could withstand a drop or two. And though we wouldn’t hesitate to toss it into a bag, it’s also small enough to fit into most coat pockets.
You can save images to a microSD card. Unlike our main and budget picks, which don’t have any storage, the Evo can store about 45 images in its internal memory, and its additional microSD allows for far more storage—and also means you can offload your images onto a computer.
The Instax Mini Evo app has lots of features. You can transfer photos from the camera onto your phone via the free app (Android, iOS), and from there, post them to all your social media platforms. The app also lets you print images stored on your smartphone, use your phone as a remote control, and customize three physical shortcut buttons on the camera.
It has a built-in rechargeable battery. The battery is rated to last about 100 shots per charge. Compared to the AA or CR2 batteries required in our other picks, it’s nice not having to worry about replacing the batteries every so often. But if the battery dies while you’re out, you can’t just swap it out for a new pair.
It’s awkward to use for landscape photos. We found the ergonomics of the camera a bit unwieldy. Like some other Instax cameras, the Mini Evo is easier to use in portrait orientation than in landscape mode. In landscape, you’re forced to use your left forefinger to trigger the shutter button, which feels more unnatural than it might sound.
If you want square images but a colorful camera: The Fujifilm Instax Square SQ1 is just as easy to use as our pick, but it comes in a few different colors. The camera is about the same size as the SQ40, but with a slightly different body design that feels more plasticky, which we didn’t like as much as our pick.
If you prefer wide, landscape-oriented images: The Fujifilm Instax Wide 300’s 2.4-by-3.9-inch image area with classic white borders is ideal for landscape and group shots. Like the SQ40, the cost per image is about $1. The Wide 300 offers a button for exposure compensation and another for flash output, so you get a little more control over your image than you do with our top pick, but it’s considerably heavier and bulkier, too.
This is not a comprehensive list of all instant cameras we’ve tested. We have removed any cameras that have been discontinued or that do not meet our current requirements.
The Polaroid I-2 Instant Camera has a premium build and is fun to use, but our results were mixed. We liked that it was easy to adjust settings, and switching from full auto to manual is as easy as pressing one button a few times. A light meter in the viewfinder is intended to help you make sure your images are properly exposed, and it was easy to dial in the settings. But images from our testing were inconsistent, with some shots coming out overexposed even when the meter indicated proper exposure. Other shots came out oddly cropped or out of focus, despite using the built-in parallax guide (for close-up shots) or half-press focus lock.
These same complaints apply to all of Polaroid’s new cameras. And in the case of the Polaroid Now, getting blurry and over- or underexposed prints at $2 a pop feels especially frustrating. The new Polaroid film also needs to be shaded from light for 15 minutes as it develops, so forget shaking it like a Polaroid picture. The camera spits out a thin black shield of plastic over the image as it emerges from the camera, a design that makes this camera a bit nerve-racking to share. (You’re always worried that someone will tear the shield off and inadvertently waste that precious i-Type film with their impatience.) You also won’t know if you’ve got a decent shot until those 15 minutes are up, so the likelihood of recapturing that decisive moment again is slim.
Vintage Polaroid cameras, such as the beautiful SX-70, need to use old Polaroid film, and unfortunately, production of real Polaroid film ended in 2008. New versions are now being made by the new Polaroid, but photographers we’ve talked to have also found this film to be unreliable, with questionable long-term storage results.
Fujifilm dominates the instant-camera field, and we’ve looked at nearly every Instax model the company has ever released. Of the other currently available models, the Instax Mini 70 and Instax Mini 11 don’t offer the same balance of image quality, usability, and value compared with our picks.
Kodak continues to offer new instant cameras, but models like the Kodak Smile Instant Print Digital Camera and larger-film format Kodak Smile Classic Instant Print Digital Camera are hampered by their Zink print technology. The low-contrast results simply can’t compare to what you get with Instax film. Their latest camera, the Kodak Step, also uses Zink, and got jammed then broke during our testing.
Zink prints have disqualified quite a few other cameras and printers in this category in the past, and has led us to dismiss Canon’s Ivy Cliq+ and Ivy Cliq cameras, too.
Kodak has also tried its own 4Pass Photo Paper in both the Mini Shot and the Kodak Photo Printer Mini 2. While the credit-card-sized prints (which are also stickers) are sharp and vibrant, the process is slow, and the final output is missing some of the nostalgic softness of an Instax print that harkens back to Polaroids of old. The wide angle of the Mini Shot camera also distorted our images for some unflattering results.
Lomography’s Lomo’Instant Automat series cameras look cool, and they use Fujifilm’s readily available and reasonably priced Instax Mini film packs. Features such as endless multiple exposures are interesting, but controls are marked with difficult-to-decipher hieroglyphic symbols. Aimed at the advanced instant shooter, most of the cameras in this series are bundled with fish-eye, wide-angle, and close-up lens attachments, which we found more cumbersome than useful.
Lomography’s Lomo’Instant Wide cameras are designed to shoot on Fujifilm’s Instax Wide film. They have the same three shooting modes as the Lomo’Instant, plus a shutter remote in the lens cap. Our big problem with the Lomo’Instant series are its clunky controls and strange layout, and the Lomo’Instant Wide offers more of the same, making this series an easy dismissal.
While the Mint InstantFlex TL70 2.0 may be the coolest instant camera we’ve ever seen (twin-lens reflex! manual focus!), nearly $400 is too much to pay. It also makes the camera too expensive to be passed around at a party, which takes away from the instant fun.
This article was edited by Phil Ryan and Erica Ogg.
Arriana Vasquez is a senior updates writer for powering, home office, cameras, and hobbies at Wirecutter. Her hobbies include reading and photography. Her photos have won several awards in various online competitions, and she is the producer and co-host of Old Books Podcast.
Erin Roberts is a freelance writer reporting on cameras and camera accessories at Wirecutter. She started her career as a photojournalist working in newspapers—shooting film—and was the mobile-imaging editor at DPReview. She is also a professional photographer who has made her living photographing everything from rock stars to humpback whales.
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Phenolic Resin Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time).