Fujifilm Instax Wide 400
After one of my shoots, a my friend and model’s partner once asked me - ‘is Matt good at FPS games? Because his timing is insane.’
The short answer is yes.
I’ve been a professional photographer for about 5 years at the time of writing this, and where I live I am known for my “action” photography. I shoot fire, dance, skate and aerial - all of which require impeccable timing and moment awareness to shoot.
One of the biggest challenges for me though was to find a camera that can keep up with my timing - what I wanted more than anything is when I press the shutter, the camera immediately takes a photo. No delay for focusing, just an immediate and instantaneous photo.
So in in 2025, I’ve purchased 2 instant cameras: Polaroid Flip and an Instax Wide 400.
The Polaroid sort of did what I needed to do. It has an auto focus that uses sonar is fast and reactive (less than 1/2 a second of a delay) - which was close enough to match my timing. However Polaroids are quite literally, temperamental. At nearly almost 2 dollars a photo and the unpredictable chemical composition (in regards to temperature) of the film made long term sustainability untenable. Also, the Sonar auto focus would latch on anything that was in front of the camera.
Shot with the Polaroid Flip. First photo of the shoot.
Shot with the Wide 400 a few minutes later.
In the months after my disappointment with the Flip, I ended up watching a content creator named Russel Rabanal who is a portrait photographer who also dabbles in instant photography and created a video talking about the Wide 400 as a viable option in portrait photography.
On a whim, I picked up the Wide 400 after it was put back in stock at my local Target. And I can say that it has helped me be a a lot more intentional in my photography. When shooting action, I can only shoot the moment that I’ve anticipated verses getting down in 2-3 shots. I’ve shot perhaps 200 photos (a few portraits, and a wedding) with it in the past two months since I picked it up.
The biggest problem that I’ve run into is that while shooting, I’ve sometimes forgotten to change focus settings when switching from Portrait to Wide photography, and the ultra close up. This means that you could be out of focus and not know it until it develops.
Pros: Cost per photo is lower than other options. Truly instant photography. Film isn’t as affected by temperature or storage. Good entry price at roughly 185 dollars.
Cons: Film tones develop cool (blue-ish). Manual Focus. No control over exposure and flash. Close up shot adapter really hard to use. Uses AA batteries vs rechargable lithium ion.