Fujifilm’s New Instax Mini 99 Is the Best Instant Camera for Taking Vintage-Looking Photos
And you won’t look like a child pulling it out in public.
Fujifilm is riding really high right now. Hot on the heels of the X100VI release — reportedly the most pre-ordered camera ever — the camera maker has announced the new Instax Mini 99 instant camera coming out in mid-April.
Unlike the vibrant and soft rounded edges of Fujifilm’s other toy-like Instax cameras like the Instax Mini 12, the Instax Mini 99 leans into the company’s rich film heritage. Just look at it — the camera’s matte black and faux leather aesthetic is a clear throwback to old film cameras. It’s an instant camera, but it doesn’t look like a toy.
Instax Mini 99 New Features
The Instax Mini prints photos on standard Instax Mini film.
For the most part, an Instax instant camera is an Instax instant camera. It takes less digital-looking photos with a flash or soft focus, and then prints them out on cute film. But the Mini 99 is more than just a basic Instax camera, Fujifilm included a few more “pro” features that might justify its higher $199.95 price.
The first is a prominent “Color Effect Dial” that can expose a shot in six different colors (faded green, warm tone, light blue, soft magenta, sepia, and light leak) using LED lights. They’re basically filters to give your photos a little more of a vintage look.
The Color Effect Dial lets you change the look of a shot to the desired color.
There’s also a “Vignette” Switch” on the lens. Flick it and you darken the corners of a photo. Again, all the better to make your photos look old school.
Other advanced features that you won’t find on the Fujifilm’s basic Mini 12: a dial for changing a photo’s brightness to five different levels; several shooting modes including one for shooting sports, one for taking better low-light shots indoors, one for double exposure, and a “bulb” mode for a long-exposed pic; a self-timer; three main shooting modes (landscape, normal/portrait, and macro); and a milled grip mount that can be used to attach the camera to a tripod.
For More Serious Instant Photographers
The backside of the Instax Mini 99.
As I said, the Mini 99 is for more advanced shooters who want more manual creative control for their shots. It’s not for taking casual selfies (there isn’t even a mirror on the lens like there is on the Mini 12). In case you need more proof: There are two shutter buttons.
At $199.95, the Mini 99 is on the pricier side compared to the $79.95 Mini 12. It’s really an upgraded version of the Mini 90, which came out in 2013. It’s not quite as feature-packed as the Mini Evo (this one has a built-in printer function to print photos from a phone or tablet and a microSD card for storing digital photos), but it looks pretty sleek on its own. If you want to look cool while taking instant photos, the Mini 99 will do that without fail.
