School’s out. The holiday season is just about upon us. And that means a busier social calendar for most people. We’ve spoken before about how instant cameras, like the Fujifilm Instax Mini 12, make a great addition to celebrations – capturing moments in time in a special way that only analogue pieces of photography equipment can.

Well, you can also have the best of both worlds with the Instax WIDE Evo hybrid camera, which, in a single device, combines digital photography capabilities with an instant printer (including Smartphone pairing so you can print pics off there too). The Instax WIDE Evo isn’t exactly new at this point – it launched in South Africa back in March or so – but it might be the Instax product that finally ticks off all your requirements because it is so comprehensive in terms of features.

Of course, the Instax range is quite vast at this point, so as a little more context, the WIDE Evo can be considered the big brother to the similarly hybrid Instax mini Evo. The difference being that the latter produces credit card-size mini prints while the WIDE, like its name suggests, shoots out wide landscape orientated images that are over twice the size of Mini photos at 62 x 99mm. Much better for group shots then.

Feature loaded for creativity

The WIDE Evo also has a lot more creative capabilities than the also-hybrid instax mini LiPlay+, a more recent release which is about compact photography and printing fun. You may prefer a more straightforward product, in which case the LiPlay+ is for you (if you’re okay with mini-size prints!), but with the WIDE Evo, experimentation is encouraged.

Via dials on either side of the camera, you can play with ten lens settings (i.e. lighting effects), as well as ten film filters, and you can set the degree of lens effect by physically rotating the lens. There are even a further six framing options to give your pic a unique look. The result is hundreds of aesthetic combinations, which you may choose to share with other WIDE Evo users around the world thanks to the camera’s free dedicated app.

Just be aware that some of these effects look better on the camera’s LCD viewing screen than they do when printed out, and there’s no image editing after snapping the photo. You can change zoom, print quality and a few minor other things but you’re stuck with your setting choices when you took the pic… unless you go through the process of exporting and editing using third party software.

On the plus side, once you have your shot captured, you can print it out as many times as you like, giving everyone in your party a physical copy.

Adjust your analogue thinking

On that note, if you’re a veteran of the Instax analogue cameras, you may need to shift your thinking here. The WIDE Evo functions like a digital camera in that you can take as many images as you like before printing – all stored on the camera’s built-in memory (which accommodates around 45 images), or the microSD/microSDHC memory card inserted by you. That means more room for play here in achieving the perfect shot. No worrying about blinking people or figures being chopped off. You can also use the menu to toy with flash requirements, exposure, super close-up macro photography and timing.

For the record, the Instax WIDE Evo doesn’t have a button to take pics, but rather a shutter lever that you press halfway to focus, and then fully to take your photo. Printing is unnecessarily gimmicky or playfully retro, depending on your point of view, as you need to turn a tiny Print Crank to start the process.

As a few other bits of potentially useful information, the Instax WIDE Evo comes with a lens cap and shoulder strap, plus a handy tripod point on the base. With its digital components, general size, and built-in Lithium-ion battery (many Instax cameras use disposable batteries), it’s also on the heftier side, with the body weighing just over 500g. By contrast, the similarly sized, straight-up analogue Instax Mini 12 is 300g.

Final considerations

Honestly, most complaints about the Instax WIDE Evo feel more like gripes than anything more significant. The camera’s flat on/off dial isn’t easy to work with in a hurry, and the default sleep setting, at two minutes, is far too short if you’re using the WIDE Evo app on your phone to select and edit a photo for printing through the camera. That said, you can adjust this time easily through the camera’s options menu.

Consumers should be aware, though, that the hybrid nature of the Instax WIDE Evo does naturally translate into a more substantial price tag. The WIDE Evo is retailing in South Africa for R6,500 – R7,300. By comparison, the similarly-featured mini Evo is R3,000; last year’s analogue Instax WIDE 400 (the first wide-format Instax camera in a decade) is around R3,600; and the popular, analogue-only Instax mini 12 is available for under R1,500. Also, you’re looking at paying R200 per set of WIDE film, consisting of 10 sheets. Plain framed mini film packs come in at R170-180.

This is all a roundabout way of saying that the WIDE Evo probably isn’t going to be an impulse purchase “tech toy.” It’s a bit more of an investment, although its feature range back up that fact, along with the fact that Fujifilm consider it sitting right at the top of the Instax range. Which it absolutely does!