Mint

For Christmas, I was gifted a Mint camera, most specifically the Instantkon RF70. This camera is a foldable, rangefinder, instax, wide format camera. It is fully manual and focus, it has settings for shutter speed, and there is a small pop up flash.

I would lie if I said I have fallen in love with this camera, like many people have. First of all, it’s an expensive camera (close to $1000 – gulp!) that still looks a little plasticky in my opinion, so that made me a little angry. It is also a little complicated to open and close (you have to turn it to a specific setting – infinity- and fold the delicate bellows back in to close it) and it could easily break if you don’t follow the instructions.

Second, I didn’t read the manual and jumped right in (that’s me in a nutshell) so I didn’t know this camera was a rangefinder (which is also not coupled to the viewfinder!). Therefore, my first photos came out blurry and I couldn’t for the world figure out how to focus! Needless to say, I wasted a lot of film and was extremely frustrated.

Finally, some of the photos I took did not develop at all, not sure if the film was expired or defective or I was doing something wrong (maybe overexposing?). The ones that did come out I’m not very impressed with, sadly.

With all this in mind, it has me asking myself if this camera is worth the price, to be honest. I will definitely keep trying to get better photos and become more comfortable with it, especially because of the one good perk this camera has, which is the chance to receive unlimited film for free if you post a certain number of images in your social media and tag Mint.

Until then, keep shooting,

Maite