Instax film is fun but image quality suffers from
1) Bad lenses in Instax cameras, and
2) Poor dynamic range in the film itself.
To address the first liability, I have over the years pieced together a Franken-Instax Wide camera from an Alpa SWA, an SWA shoulder release cable, a Rodenstock 90 HR lens with Copal shutter (so no more lens quality issues... though a bit like killing a mosquito with an orbital laser), a Mercury Instax Wide back with Graflok 2x3 front mount custom made to my flange distance specifications, a Horseman-to-Alpa adapter that mates the Graflok 2x3 mount to the Alpa, exactly 6 mm of Alpa spacer, a viewfinder from an old Polaroid 600se lens kit, and an old Leica FONOR rangefinder that covers 0.5 m to infinity. Components from Alpa, Rodenstock, Leica, Mercury, Polaroid, and Fuji—a photography nerd's dream. I'll post a photo of the camera itself in the next post.
The workflow is: guess (or measure) exposure, set aperture and shutter speed on the 90 HR, measure focusing distance using the rangefinder, set this distance on the Rodenstock lens, cock lens, pull dark slide, frame in viewfinder, release shutter, eject film. Cumbersome, but fun. The Rodenstock 90 HR lens has a huge image circle of 120 mm+, so it can cover the entire 99x62 mm Instax Wide film (117 mm diagonal). The angle of view is equivalent to a 33 mm focal length on a 35-mm camera. As one might expect, the lens greatly out resolves Instax film, which has a resolving power of only 12 lines per mm (3.5 MP per image).
I wanted to turn the second liability into a creative project by shooting silhouettes against a blown-out background (it's very easy to blow out Instax film!), then double-exposing the silhouette shadows against natural backgrounds.
Here are the results.
1) Bad lenses in Instax cameras, and
2) Poor dynamic range in the film itself.
To address the first liability, I have over the years pieced together a Franken-Instax Wide camera from an Alpa SWA, an SWA shoulder release cable, a Rodenstock 90 HR lens with Copal shutter (so no more lens quality issues... though a bit like killing a mosquito with an orbital laser), a Mercury Instax Wide back with Graflok 2x3 front mount custom made to my flange distance specifications, a Horseman-to-Alpa adapter that mates the Graflok 2x3 mount to the Alpa, exactly 6 mm of Alpa spacer, a viewfinder from an old Polaroid 600se lens kit, and an old Leica FONOR rangefinder that covers 0.5 m to infinity. Components from Alpa, Rodenstock, Leica, Mercury, Polaroid, and Fuji—a photography nerd's dream. I'll post a photo of the camera itself in the next post.
The workflow is: guess (or measure) exposure, set aperture and shutter speed on the 90 HR, measure focusing distance using the rangefinder, set this distance on the Rodenstock lens, cock lens, pull dark slide, frame in viewfinder, release shutter, eject film. Cumbersome, but fun. The Rodenstock 90 HR lens has a huge image circle of 120 mm+, so it can cover the entire 99x62 mm Instax Wide film (117 mm diagonal). The angle of view is equivalent to a 33 mm focal length on a 35-mm camera. As one might expect, the lens greatly out resolves Instax film, which has a resolving power of only 12 lines per mm (3.5 MP per image).
I wanted to turn the second liability into a creative project by shooting silhouettes against a blown-out background (it's very easy to blow out Instax film!), then double-exposing the silhouette shadows against natural backgrounds.
Here are the results.
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