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Is Fujifilm Instax Real Film? Answer: Yes! Here’s Why

Chris Gampat
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04/25/2017
2 Mins read
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Believe it or not, the younger generation that loves Fujifilm Instax film doesn’t even believe that it’s film. That’s what we were told a while back from Fujifilm, but photographer Robert Mann believes otherwise. He recently put together a video as part of a series talking about Fujifilm Instax and explaining why the instaprints (yes, that’s what they’re also called) are indeed film as well as the history.

If you cannot see the video above, please head to our desktop website or mobile website to check it out.

Fujifilm Instax is a type of positive film in the same way that Polaroid film and Impossible Project film is. You see, positive film is also made in the form of Velvia, Pro 100, X Pro 200 and other emulsions. But those emulsions are shot in 35mm and larger format cameras without the emulsion being built in. With Instant film, the chemicals are built into the film and when the film is ejected, the chemicals roll through the image to develop it. Therefore, Hamm believes Instax Film to be positive film and therefore a piece of real film.

In many ways this makes sense: the film works in a different way from some other Instant films though. The now gone Fujifilm peel apart film used to give users both a negative and a positive. In order to develop the negative, you’d basically just use some bleach or toilet bowl cleaner with bleach in order to remove the back layer. The chemicals are otherwise built in–and sometimes pretty sticky to work with. Many photographers, this one included are going to miss that film and the absolute magic that it was capable of creating.

Check out the video from Robert Hamm at his YouTube Channel. Be sure to also take a look at the rest of the series which is fairly informative.

camera Development fujifilm fujifilm instax image instant film polaroid positive robert mann
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Chris Gampat

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.
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