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How to Give Your Fujifilm Instax Wide 300 Camera Manual Exposure

Chris Gampat
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03/28/2017
2 Mins read
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Last Updated on 03/28/2017 by Chris Gampat

Maybe for a really long time, we’ve been going about trying to get manual control over Instax Film totally wrong. Instead of trying to hack medium format cameras and camera backs to accommodate the film, why haven’t we tried hacking the cameras to start with? Well actually, the folks over at Camera Film Photo have been for a while. Indeed, a Fujifilm Instax Wide 300 camera can be hacked to take a Schneider 65mm f5.6 lens and apparently even other lenses. The lens has both the shutter speed and aperture control on it just like some of the higher end medium format cameras and pretty much all large format cameras.

This isn’t new, per se. Many photographers have known about this for a while, but not all of us. Perhaps we can attribute it to marketing–with Fujifilm, Lomography, Polaroid, and Impossible project being the juggernauts they are, it’s easy for a company like Camera Film Photo to get caught up in the mix. But indeed, this is the camera of many photographers’ dreams.

It’s been the ambition of so many photographers to find a way to use the larger format film with some sort of manual control. But the closest thing you can get in a readily available camera is the Lomo’Instant Wide. Sadly, it also seems like Fujifilm may be discontinuing Instax Wide sooner or later according to rumors on the horizon. But according to the Camera Film Photo website, the camera can be modified and you’ll even get manual focusing abilities depending on which lens you’re using. You’ll probably want to use something maybe 6×7 or 6×9 sized as the 6×7 format almost fully covers the same size as Fujifilm peel apart film in 3×4.

So what do you lose? Well, the slightly more compact nature for one. Plus you also lose the ability to use the flash–which is a big bummer for studio shooters like me unless you’ve got super duper bright LED panels. Luckily the lens has a PC Sync port though.

Unfortunately, the pair already hacked together isn’t available anymore. But if you’ve got the camera and the lens, Camera Film Photo can do it for you.

 

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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.