Instant Cameras: The Complete Guide to Instant Photography

An instant camera exposes self-developing film and starts the development itself, so you get a chemically developed print a short time after you press the shutter. The film holds the developing and fixing chemicals, which is the whole trick: nothing has to go to a lab.

Fujifilm says each Instax photo is only tens of micrometers thick yet has 18 layers, and every shot has its own pod of developer that a roller spreads across the picture as the camera ejects it. The image appears over about 90 seconds. Tom's Guide says its reviewers often found the full image took several minutes to settle, with richer color and sharper focus at the end.

Polaroid color film (Go, i-Type, 600 and SX-70) takes 10 to 15 minutes. A film shield, which Polaroid calls the frog's tongue, covers the print as it comes out to keep light off it. Polaroid says to wait ten seconds, flick the shield up, then put the picture somewhere cool and dark while it finishes.

Neither maker wants you to shake the print. Fujifilm says to hold an Instax photo steady while it develops, and Polaroid says not to shake a developing picture. For the longer story of how the print forms, see What is a Polaroid?.

The camera decides the film, and the film decides the print size and what every shot costs. Instax is cheaper per photo; Polaroid's full-size film gives a nearly square picture that is bigger than Instax Mini or Square. Prices below were checked at Glazer's Camera in Seattle (Instax film) and Polaroid.com (Polaroid film) on October 28, 2026, and the per-photo figure is the pack price divided by the number of shots.

Roundups quote lower numbers than today's shelf prices. Tom's Guide says film costs 50 cents and up per shot, and PCMag says about $0.80 for color Instax Mini and $1.25 for black and white. At the October 2026 prices checked for this page, the cheapest color instant film works out to about $0.83 a shot, in a 60-shot Instax Mini value pack at Glazer's.

• Instax Mini (ISO 800, a credit-card-size 54 x 86 mm print) fits Instax Mini cameras such as the Mini 12 and Mini 41, and the hybrid Mini Evo prints on it too.
• Instax Square and Instax Wide need cameras made for them. Wide gives the biggest Instax picture, about twice the Mini: see Instax Mini vs Wide.
• Polaroid 600 (ASA 640) has a battery in every pack and works in vintage 600 cameras as well as the I-2, Flip, Now, Now+, Lab, OneStep 2 and OneStep+.
• Polaroid i-Type (ASA 640) is the same size with no battery, made for modern cameras that have their own battery, such as the Now Gen 3, Flip and I-2. Polaroid says it does not work in vintage cameras.
• Polaroid SX-70 film is slower (ASA 160), carries its own battery and is made for SX-70 and I-2 cameras. The Polaroid film guide covers every Polaroid type.
• Polaroid Go film is a smaller format that only fits the Polaroid Go camera.

Polaroid prints a production date, not an expiry date, on the box and says the film is best used within 12 months of it. It recommends keeping packs cool, dry and flat in the fridge, away from sunlight, and letting them warm up before you shoot. Fujifilm only asks for a dry, cool place for Instax and says to leave the cartridge in its foil until you load it. More on shelf life in Does Polaroid film expire?.

Temperature matters when you shoot, too. Fujifilm US rates current Instax Mini film for 41 F to 104 F (5 C to 40 C). Polaroid says its film turns pink above 82 F (28 C) and blue below 55 F (13 C), so a cool bag helps in summer.

At the airport, TSA recommends carrying undeveloped film, and cameras loaded with it, in your carry-on or asking for a hand inspection. Polaroid gives the same advice and says photos you have already taken are fine through the X-ray. The details, including CT scanners, are in Can instant film go through airport X-ray?.

A developed Instax print can last for years if you keep it cool, dry and out of direct sunlight, according to Fujifilm. Tom's Guide adds that sunlight bleaches instant photos and that frames help them last longer.

Not in the film sense. Zink is a printing paper that uses heat to form the image, with color crystals built into each sheet, and Tech Advisor describes a Zink camera as a digital camera that prints onto that paper rather than one that exposes real film. Some best-instant-camera roundups, such as Tech Advisor's, still list Zink models like the Kodak Smile+ next to Instax and Polaroid cameras.

PCMag puts Zink prints at about $0.50 each, cheaper than any film, but says their tonality and color fidelity are not on the level of Instax and Polaroid film. Hybrids such as the Instax Mini Evo are a different thing again: they capture digitally but print on real Instax Mini film.

Polaroid film nearly disappeared in 2008, when the original company stopped making it. Fujifilm kept selling Instax, and the Impossible Project, later renamed Polaroid, brought the film back in 2010.

• 1948: Polaroid's Model 95, designed by Edwin Land, goes on sale. It is widely considered the first commercial instant camera.
• 1972: Polaroid introduces integral film, which develops and fixes itself with no peeling or timing by the photographer.
• Kodak's exit: Kodak sold its own, incompatible instant cameras until a Polaroid patent lawsuit forced it to stop making both the camera and the film.
• 1998: Fujifilm launches Instax on November 10.
• 2008: In February the original Polaroid files for bankruptcy protection a second time and says it will stop making instant film and cameras.
• 2010: The Impossible Project, using Polaroid's old equipment and plant in Enschede, Netherlands, starts mass-producing new film for existing Polaroid cameras.
• 2016: Fujifilm stops making peel-apart instant film; FP-100C is the last one.
• 2017: Instax Square film and its first camera arrive. The Polaroid brand is bought by Impossible's largest shareholder and the company becomes Polaroid Originals, shortened to Polaroid in March 2020.
• 2025: On April 8, Fujifilm says cumulative Instax camera and smartphone-printer sales have passed 100 million units.
• 2026: On October 20, after a fifth straight year of record Instax sales, Fujifilm announces a 3 billion yen investment to raise Instax film capacity by about 20% over fiscal 2026.