Last Updated on 11/09/2015 by Chris Gampat
Very recently in the history of film, Fujifilm discontinued their 3000B peel apart Instax film–which was highly loved by so many photographers. In fact, I personally was shocked when the discontinuance was announced as I always found it much more appealing than 100-C color peel apart film. In contrast to the peel apart film, Fujifilm told us that Instax sales are very strong. However, Instax Mini and Instax Wide film is currently only available in color.
Why?
Despite the significant prevalence of digital cameras over film cameras, the target audience that loves Instax film would greatly appreciate a black and white rendering.
What the market is really missing as of the publication of this post is an affordable black and white instant film that actually renders images in black and white–not sepia the way that Impossible Project film does. There is New55 film, but that’s mostly for large format, it’s expensive and hard to come by. As the market and sales show, Instax is the biggest player and cameras that allow for manual shutter speed and lens aperture control are bound to hit to that market eventually. Combine this with the black and white film rendering and you’ve got a whole new way that artists and photographers can creatively express themselves.
Indeed, the only marketing that Fujifilm would need to do is through their users: who are bound to share the images on social media and with their friends.
From a very personal standpoint, I would have loved a Black and White Instax film earlier this year when I loaded Instax into a Diana F+ camera and set the camera to pinhole mode. Within a couple of minutes, I would have been given a beautiful black and white Instant pinhole print.
But beyond this, the Instax market is dominated by younger folks, and Instagram shows us that these people love to shoot and render images in black and white if they can. Further, black and white goes such a far way with artists, who will then produce great work that everyone else thinks that they will be able to create too. The same effect can be shown with DSLRs and that’s why everyone and their mother has one but many folks buy one to shoot in Auto and only Auto mode.
It just makes so much sense. Black and White Instax (particularly in the wide format) would be so great.