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Review on Capture Golden Memories on the Go: Fujifilm Instax Share SP-2 Mobile Printer (Gold)! by Stephen Cernatescu

Revainrating 4 out of 5

See Tips for Better Prints

If you already have the SP-1, there is no need to purchase the SP-2. If you don't have one and decide you want one, yes, I would definitely recommend this little printer. Instead of buying a Fujifilm Instax camera, I bought a printer for several reasons: 1) I'm a perfectionist. On the negative side, though, it's such a waste of film when I'm using a camera and I'm not happy with live film, which happens quite often (imagine shooting multiple times with your phone). that I will not keep or exhibit them. The slides come in packs of 10 and are not cheap. I understand the excitement of having an instant camera and seeing photos appear instantly, but the frustration of seeing not-so-great pictures is more than excitement to me. 2) You choose what you want to print from your phone and print again if necessary. With an instant camera, you don't have the ability to save and reprint images. With this printer I can easily take photos and choose the best ones. I bought gold and it's a beautiful color. I use this printer with care because I don't want to accidentally hit the film open button (the film will be ruined) or hit the "reprint" button on the side. Unlike an instant camera, this printer is definitely not for kids. I have used this printer and here are my tips for you on the best quality images to print. Keep in mind that as you may know, the color of the images is vintage. In this case, the photos are obtained with improved colors and slightly overexposed. So it is better to take RAW images from your phone. For example, if you use an iPhone, you can choose from different filters (Tonal, Mono, Fade, Noir, etc.) when taking photos. I usually choose "none" for True Color and these are the RAW images I'm talking about. Don't get me wrong, if you choose filters (special colors) they will look really good on your phone. But when you print them out with this printer, they will either look TOO DARK or TOO LIGHT because the color has already been enhanced by your phone. (cm. 2 photos attached, one with a filter from my phone and the other printout was too dark.) This also applies to photos you take from any photo app or from Instagram that you already edited or in any way changed colour. Another example, if your face is already overexposed in the raw image (e.g. on a hot sunny day at the beach and no shadows) this is not the best option to print as it will overexpose your face. . I also tried one of my wedding photos. It came out a bit blurry because the original has a "softening" effect. This leads to, that all previously edited photos are too dark, too light or a bit washed out. Some of them weren't as bad but not as good as I was hoping judging by the original images. (Again, I'm VERY picky about images.) Of course, if your original RAW images are blurry or low-resolution (depending on what phone you're shooting with), this will also affect the quality of prints from it printer off. As a reminder, after developing the film you will see that the border lines do not fully develop (with some white lines if you look closely). My suggestion is not to use clips on the images and not put them directly into the album. Let them sit a little longer (I usually leave them overnight, just to be sure), the white border lines in the image will disappear over time. So far I'm enjoying this little printer. I haven't had any issues with this little machine other than the Wi-Fi connection going on and off due to the fact that I'm in the process of selecting photos for printing, which can take some time. I suggest you first figure out which photo to select, connect to the printer's WiFi, open the app and select the exact photo you want in case the WiFi goes down while you're still selecting a photo. Some people complain about the official app. Unfortunately, this is the only app that lets you connect and print from your phone. I don't like any of the templates from the app, but luckily I just like to print plain white ones with white borders. The app definitely has room for improvement. The only disappointment for me is the black and white version. I was excited about this new feature, but not so much now. I haven't found that black and white images look attractive yet. For this reason I give 4 instead of 5 stars. I may need to do more experiments to come to a conclusion.

Pros
  • High-resolution images at 800 x 600 dpi, 320 dpi to clearly capture subtle tones, facial expressions, characters or objects. Uses 256 levels per color (RGB)
Cons
  • No instructions