Instant photography is alive and well, and if you need proof, look no further than Amazon’s top selling items in Camera & Photo. For the second year in a row, Fujifilm’s Instax products dominated the category over the Holiday shopping season.
Last year, Amazon’s holiday recap revealed that a pack of Instax instant film was the top selling Camera & Photo product. This year, the picture is even more decisive. The seven top selling products in Camera & Photo are all instant film cameras and packs; of those, 6 are Fuji products, one is Polaroid.
The top three products are a 20-pack of Instax Mini film, a bundle of three of those so-called “Twin Packs,” and the Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 Instant camera… in blue.
You have to go all the way down to the number 8 seller before you even find a digital product, and even then you’re greeted by two GoPros at 8 and 9—the number 10 best seller is even more Instax film.
It’s getting harder and harder to justify the idea that film is “dead”… or even “dying.”
Sourse: petapixel.com
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Costco just started selling the packs of film. That must say something…
I’m sure wedding photographers will soon migrate en masse to Fuji Instax cameras.
You’re not wrong. I use the Instax SP2 printer. When I get some down time during a wedding, I’ll print out 4 or 5 of the photos from the day and give them to the bride and groom as a little something until they get their real photos. This has been a huge hit! The couple LOVE the photos!
Item 5 is a digital print. It is zink photo paper.
My daughter has never really been into photography, despite my 10 years of shooting, selling and hanging my own images at home. However she kept asking for a Polaroid, after looking at the prices for the film I found the Instax and ordered one for her for Xmas. She loves it. I bought loads of different types of film, mono, different patterns on the image frames and she’s had a great time with the little Instax. It’s not great in very dark situations but that’s not biggy, it’s mainly a selfie/portrait fun camera and she’s loads of images. The Instax film is dirt-cheap on eBay ( compared to 35mm and processing and certainly Polaroid film ). We tried to convince her to print images of her phone but this little Instax provides instant gratification with a trendy retro-feel and it’s good to finally find a way for me to connect photographically with my daughter.
Film isn’t dead, but it is just a novelty.
Novelty because you don’t use it? I’m not sure I’d agree with your word choice. I’d agree if you said it was niche, but not novelty.
I stand by the word choice, novel means unusual in an interesting way. It is the uniqueness of the entire process or experience of shooting and developing film that draws people in. I am also not saying that there is anything wrong with that either.
Niche would also apply.
Makes sense, thanks for clarifying.