Finally!! The instant camera we want!

[Skiff]

Bumping this as I finally received an email from MINT stating that my RF70 is on its way.
Has anyone received theirs? How long did the shipping take, I'm hoping to receive mine by end of the week but most likely not until next week.

Very excited, I bought 5 packages of Instax Wide in preparation.

Good to hear!
After the camera has arrived at you, and you have used it for quite some time:
Please give us a review and tell about your experiences.
Many thanks in advance!

 

[lcpr]

I received mine on Monday, I got the dispatch email the Wednesday before. I’m in London.

Initial impressions are that it takes a day or so to get used to the ergonomics, but so far I’m liking the camera. The prints appear to be sharper in person than on the screen, not as sharp as FP100c but they look great at normal viewing distances.

 

[Skiff]

I received mine on Monday, I got the dispatch email the Wednesday before. I’m in London.

Initial impressions are that it takes a day or so to get used to the ergonomics, but so far I’m liking the camera. The prints appear to be sharper in person than on the screen, not as sharp as FP100c but they look great at normal viewing distances.

Do you also have an Instax Wide 210 or 300 camera?
If yes, do you get sharper images with the new MINT InstantKon RF70?
Is the exposure more precise compared to the Fujifilm Instax Wide camera?

 

[lcpr]

Do you also have an Instax Wide 210 or 300 camera?
If yes, do you get sharper images with the new MINT InstantKon RF70?
Is the exposure more precise compared to the Fujifilm Instax Wide camera?

Haven’t used either of those, but the autoexposure on the RF70 works pretty well. I’m having a bit more trouble with the monochrome film compared to the colour in terms of exposure but I was shooting that pack under fluorescent lighting, outdoors worked a bit better.

The lens is quite soft wide open, very glowy, but sharpens up quickly above that. It does exhibit some rather heavy pincushion distortion but I’m not sure if that’s a side effect of the warped bokeh you get wide open.

 

[Skiff]

Haven’t used either of those, but the autoexposure on the RF70 works pretty well. I’m having a bit more trouble with the monochrome film compared to the colour in terms of exposure but I was shooting that pack under fluorescent lighting, outdoors worked a bit better.

The lens is quite soft wide open, very glowy, but sharpens up quickly above that. It does exhibit some rather heavy pincushion distortion but I’m not sure if that’s a side effect of the warped bokeh you get wide open.

Thank you very much for your reply!

 

[taemo]

Received mine yesterday but unfortunately havent had much time shooting with it, weather is not nice today either but hopefully I can get some street shots with it.
Untitled by e Dieta, on Flickr

I've owned the Instax Wide 210 and GF670 in the past so I'm fairly used with the RF70 ergonomic and Instax Wide IQ.
Very happy with the quality and build of the camera although it is fairly heavy and slightly bulkier than the GF670 from what I remember.
I got used to having a viewfinder and rangefinder windows right away however parallax may need a couple of tries to familiarize with.

I ordered the kit with 3 ND filters (ND2, 4 and 8), these are not screw-in but rather a proprietary bayonet mount specific for the the camera, I think I will be using the ND4 or ND8 the most so that I can shoot in daylight. If you want to do long-exposure with a 6 or 10 stop filter, I would recommend a 67mm or greater filter to hold in front of the lens.

 

[FPjohn]

Handsome looking. How heavy relative to the 210? yours FPJ

 

[taemo]

According to online specs w/o batteries
Instax 210 - 610g
RF70 - 806g
GF670 - 1.0kg

so I guess the GF670 is heavier

 

[Filter Factor]

Thank you, taemo, for the updates, especially in comparison to the GF670. I have a GF670 - one of my favorite cameras by the way - and had wondered how the new camera would compare. I do believe I can make room in my bag for one!

 

[taemo]

finally had time to shoot with a pack and very happy with this camera.

I owned a GF670 in the past, miss it but didn't want to deal with shooting film, the RF70 is a good compromise as it shoots instax wide, it might not be as sharp but it is fun and convenient to shoot with, plus instax wide and 2x AA batteries are easily obtainable.

Few things I've noticed is that frame lines takes some time getting used to, basically from my test shots I've noticed that at close distance (3-5ft) the whole finder is your frameline, as your subject and focus gets farther you'll need to used the marked frame lines and/or compensate (I'll double check the manual again to see if this is mentioned)

I took some shots at f/5.6 and at the closest distance, it is fairly soft but at half body portrait distance it is fairly sharp.

You need to set the lens to infinity before you can fully safely close the front, after 3-5 times I got used doing so.
Also the camera is only powered on when the front is open.
If you have the ND filter set, know that you can safely close the lens with 1 ND filter attached.

Here are some pictures I took earlier today.
RF70 by Earl Dieta, on Flickr
soft at f/5.6 but also shutter speed was 1/15 or 1/30 from what I remember

RF70 by Earl Dieta, on Flickr
I framed this so that the lower framelines were on the tires, but clearly the floor was also captured. Also this was at f/5.6 with focus on the crank

RF70 by Earl Dieta, on Flickr
1/500 and f/5.6 with focus to the socks.
I knew this was atleast 2 stops over-exposed but was curious to see if the sky would be captured.

RF70 by Earl Dieta, on Flickr

Grabbed a pack of Instax Wide Monochrome to try next and hoping for some long-exposure shots later this weekend

 

[Skiff]

Thanks a lot for your first impressions!

finally had time to shoot with a pack and very happy with this camera.

I owned a GF670 in the past, miss it but didn't want to deal with shooting film, the RF70 is a good compromise as it shoots instax wide, it might not be as sharp but it is fun and convenient to shoot with, plus instax wide and 2x AA batteries are easily obtainable.

Few things I've noticed is that frame lines takes some time getting used to, basically from my test shots I've noticed that at close distance (3-5ft) the whole finder is your frameline, as your subject and focus gets farther you'll need to used the marked frame lines and/or compensate (I'll double check the manual again to see if this is mentioned)

I took some shots at f/5.6 and at the closest distance, it is fairly soft but at half body portrait distance it is fairly sharp.

You need to set the lens to infinity before you can fully safely close the front, after 3-5 times I got used doing so.
Also the camera is only powered on when the front is open.
If you have the ND filter set, know that you can safely close the lens with 1 ND filter attached.

Grabbed a pack of Instax Wide Monochrome to try next and hoping for some long-exposure shots later this weekend

 

[Rotarysmp]

The MINT Rf70 looks great, except for that lens. Wonder if the shutter is a standard size with screw threads to mount the lens elements? It would be cool to replace the lens elements with something of higher quality, as the the reviews seem to show that the performance wide open doesn't do the film justice.

What 90mm compact lenes have the coverage for Instax wide? The schneider Angulon 90/6.8 must be a candidate, maybe the Ektar 100/3.5 or 101/4.5. The early Mamiya 105/3.5 for the TLR also has sufficent coverage, if the rangfinder would offer enough adjustment.
Mark

 

[taemo]

here are 2 shots I took with the instax monochrome this morning
light meter rated exposure to be 1/20 at f/5.6 and ISO800

Below are iphone scans, the previous post scans were from my V700.

I set the camera to 1/15 and highlights were cleary overexposed
RF70 Instax Wide Monochrome by Earl Dieta, on Flickr

and 1/30 came out well exposed
RF70 Instax Wide Monochrome by Earl Dieta, on Flickr

 

[taemo]

The MINT Rf70 looks great, except for that lens. Wonder if the shutter is a standard size with screw threads to mount the lens elements? It would be cool to replace the lens elements with something of higher quality, as the the reviews seem to show that the performance wide open doesn't do the film justice.

What 90mm compact lenes have the coverage for Instax wide? The schneider Angulon 90/6.8 must be a candidate, maybe the Ektar 100/3.5 or 101/4.5. The early Mamiya 105/3.5 for the TLR also has sufficent coverage, if the rangfinder would offer enough adjustment.
Mark

the lens is definitely the weakest link on this camera but hasnt bothered me much, but I still need to do more testing with the camera

you can get an old instax wide 300 and have it modified with a LF lens (90mm or 100mm) that will provide sharper images but the build of the camera obviously will be inferior to the RF70
here's an example of a modified instax wide with LF lens and scans of images taken with it (may be NSFW)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Polaroid/comments/86gqlr/first_sample_shots_from_custom_instax_wide_camera/

if you go with the Instax Option, it might also be cheaper than the RF70
https://www.instantoptions.com/shop/instaxoption/

 

[RLG]

Some information about the RF70 I found: http://www.instantphoto.eu/other/mint_instantkon_rf70.htm. Pics of the camera and some early photos.

 

[lcpr]

After a week of use I'm really happy with it now. The two shots below were metered with my Sekonic L308s.

 

[Huss]

I'm really disappointed with the Mint, judging by all the results I've seen so far. Full focus and exposure control for almost $1000? Awesome, and for that price that means that it would be super high quality. But the lens is frankly terrible. So 'glowy' at wide apoertures it looks like it is out of focus. Not great stopped down.
Not for me.

 

[benlees]

I've being playing with my Fuji 300, while perusing info about the Mint and can't help but think the weak link is the film, which seems by design. I admire the Mint; though it goes against the original intent: cheap cameras, and expensive, but flawed, film.

 

[Oren Grad]

I've being playing with my Fuji 300, while perusing info about the Mint and can't help but think the weak link is the film, which seems by design. I admire the Mint; though it goes against the original intent: cheap cameras, and expensive, but flawed, film.

Per Fuji, the Instax film is specified as having a resolving power of 10 lines/mm. This is probably about as good as one is going to get from an integral film because of the way the chemistry works.

I can't speak for the MiNT camera, but I have a pair of 300's - one as sold by Fuji, the other with a 100mm Rodenstock Sironar-N transplanted in place of the stock plastic lens. Although Instax obviously can't record anywhere near the information that standard roll film or sheet film can, the Rodenstock lens does deliver distinctly better image quality on Instax than the standard Fuji plastic lens does, so in that sense the film is not the limiting factor when evaluating the stock Fuji cameras. Part of that is the ability to focus more precisely compared to the Fuji's crude zone focus, part of it is the inherently better quality of the lens.

I am disappointed that the lens on the MiNT camera isn't better. Compared to the hacked Fuji 300 it does offer the advantage of a coupled rangefinder, which should make it easier to get reliably accurate focus at larger apertures. My camera with the Rodenstock lens is scale-focus; I need to estimate distances, or use a separate rangefinder or a tape measure. At least the high speed of the film helps - in daylight ISO 800 allows a lot of stopping down while maintaining hand-holdable shutter speeds.

As for "expensive" and "flawed", that's a judgment call. Instax Wide costs about 80 cents a sheet. It's inherently very contrasty, so it is definitely finicky stuff. (The monochrome Instax is even more difficult to use than the color, and it's more expensive, too. 🙁) OTOH, when the shooting conditions are just right, the prints are beautiful. FWIW, it's cheaper, more consistent and more stable than any of the Impossible/Polaroid Originals films.

Anyway, thanks to those who have a MiNT camera for sharing your impressions and results - I'll be interested to see more!

 

[Huss]

I've just been looking at samples from the Fuji 500AF - an Instax Wide with auto focus.
They blow the Mint away. For a fraction of the price.
I wonder why Fuji :
1/ did not import it to the US
and
b/ discontinued it after only a few years?