Review on Fujifilm Instax SP 3 Mobile Printer Camera & Photo by Grant Galloway

Starting with what I love about the Instax line and I have several Instax cameras (mini, wide and square) as well as the previous Instax Share SP-1 and Instax Share SP-2 prior to purchasing the Instax Share SP-3 so I will be doing some comparisons with them . Instax shared printers "print" the photo onto the actual Instax film. This means you can watch your photo develop with unique film that you just can't see on something like a Polaroid Snap printer. It also means you don't get crisp, high-quality prints, but instax "digital print on film". The Instax Share SP-3 uses Instax Square film and is currently the only device using this format (the other being the Instax SQ10 D/A hybrid camera). The Instax Square film is a throwback to the old form of Polaroid, but slightly smaller (2.8" x 3.4" as opposed to the 3.5" x 4.25" of the old Polaroid/Impossible -Movies). The Instax Square is also more expensive, about double the price of the Instax Mini and Instax Wide (it's slightly more expensive and only comes in packs of 10 instead of 20 in other sizes). The size is right between mini and wide. The design of the Instax SP-3 is good, but I felt like they made some weird choices. I liked its design, I liked that it had the previous model's rechargeable battery and that the buttons were recessed so they couldn't be pressed easily, but then they did something strange where the black model has red/purple tones. /rust/bronze contrasts with a pleasing, solid (matte or piano) black. The battery cover is not secured in any way, meaning once you open it the cover will fall off and can easily be lost. Other covers, such as the USB port, are sometimes difficult to open. As with the SP-1 and SP-2, you connect to the printer via WiFi and use the Instax Share app. You can use your smartphone or one of several new Fuji digital cameras. If you're using a smartphone app (which most people do), you'll need to download Instax Share from the App Store. This is the same app used before and is a bit disappointing as you have to go into settings to upgrade from Instax Share SP-1/2 (mini) or Instax Share SP-3 (Square) if you want to use both models . The app is relatively easy to use: choose a template (photo from your camera roll or from social media). Once you've selected a photo, you can square it, adjust brightness/contrast/saturation, and use a template in the app. Templates are pretty much useless for the most part. You can write text on your photos, show the date/time, add a hashtag or other comments. One of the greatest is the ability to add current weather/location information to a print/photo. All this is taken over by SP-2. The SP-3 also has a "Split Photo" option to split a photo into 2 prints (also transferred, but neat). There is no way to print more than 2 separate photos (so you cannot make a collage of 2x2 or 3x3 prints). SP-3 added a new template mode called "My Template" which is also ugly. It adds creative text to the image, not just at the bottom. This means you'll see large, oversized text scattered around the corners, in circles around the image, and so on. It might have been a great idea, but in the end it just ruins the cinematic look that the SP-3 gives you. So now to the problems. : As with the SP-2, exposure is still an issue. All bright photos are overexposed (this can be corrected a bit with the brightness/contrast settings, but then there are other problems). Photos can be exposed normally but still appear too light when printed and the larger square makes this more apparent. On the other hand, all mostly dark photos (even those with very well-lit areas) tend to end up too dark (sometimes almost black). You really should have the best exposure as you'll find that almost every image needs editing and still can't be used. The recent Instax Square SQ10 offered some nice "Instagram" filters for your images and the ability to add vignetting. These modes are NOT available in the SP-3, the only color options are black and white or sepia. vertical portrait or landscape (best for mini/wide). I've found that the cropping required to use square photos looks very awkward unless you crop it specifically for the format. That means cropping the corners of the landscape and often turning portraits of people into close-ups. finished print. This has happened several times and each shot is a bit pricey which is very disappointing. The resolution is also taken over from the almost 1.5 year old Instax Share SP-2 (800x800 pixels on the SP-3). which also matches the resolution of the SQ-3 camera released earlier this year. This is noticeable as you sometimes see smearing/banding issues in printouts. The Instax Share SQ10 (which admittedly isn't a great camera either) lets you print photos from a micro SD card (admittedly a little harder than the Wi-Fi SP-3), add filters and bring in a built-in camera with the same print size 800x800 for about the same price as this one. As someone who really enjoyed Instax Share SP-1 and SP-2, I was disappointed with SP3. The movie is more than twice the size, the design is a bit strange, it doesn't fix the problems of previous versions and brings its own to the app. I was happy when it was released, but ended up sending it back.