instax is well known for its instant cameras and portable printers, they have just gone one fun step further with the instax mini Link smartphone controller, printer and multifunction app.

One image can change us.

A picture, a moment can change the way we feel. Change how we see ourselves. Change our understanding and change the rules. Provoke and change history.

MPB puts photo and video kit into more hands, more sustainably. Every month, visual storytellers sell more than 20,000 cameras and lenses to MPB. Choose used and get affordable access to kit that doesn’t cost the earth. Sell the kit you’re not using to MPB. Trade in for the kit you need to create. Buy used, spend less and get more. Buy. Sell. Trade. Create.

This smaller, lighter printer (it's small enough to fit into a trouser pocket or bag and light enough not to worry about carrying around with you) has hidden talents and is particularly targeted at 'Generation Z' - the 8-to-24-year-olds who actually just want to print out fun instant images they have captured on their smartphones. Plus, the instax mini Link can do a lot more than just printing, too, something I'll talk about in more detail shortly. 

Fujifilm instax knows that today's smartphones take great photos/videos and that cheap instant cameras with plastic lenses struggle to compete (even if they are still proving to be popular) so by allowing us to print images from our smartphones is a really great idea. 

As with most smartphone printers, there's an app (isn't there an app for everything nowadays?) and you just have to search the Apple app store or the Android play store to find the free instax mini Link app. The app connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth and as well as printing images, you can use the app to edit brightness, contrast and saturation levels of images as well as apply filters. Collage and frame mode allows you to split images across printouts or merge images together onto one photo sheet – this can be very effective for triptychs where you want three related images to appear together.

"I can imagine quite a few houses this Christmas with loads of neat prints on the kitchen notice board and in diaries, yearbooks and on the kid's bedroom walls." 

For those who capture video with their smartphones, the instax mini Link Video Print feature will be of interest as it allows you to scroll frame-by-frame to find the very best frame to print from a video sequence. Party print allows all of your friends to pool their images into a frame while Match Test takes a picture of you and your potential crush and scores you for compatibility and prints this out with the colourful scores on the photos. 

A print takes 12 seconds to scroll out and within the minute, it is fully developed and viewable. The instax mini Link uses Fujifilm instax mini instant film so if you already own a Fujifilm instant camera, you may have some at home. 

As a neat final trick, the instax camera mode turns the printer into a remote smartphone camera controller whereby your tripod-mounted smartphone can be controlled from the printer as if the printer was a console game controller; Role the printer forward to zoom in to yourself for a non-handheld selfie then pull it back upright to stop the zooming action when you see the screen filled. To zoom out again, you simply role the printer back and to take a photo, you press the single printer button. 

The only thing I could think the instax mini Link couldn’t do was add custom text into the photo such as a picture of someone and their Instagram handle or phone number.

Pricing & Availability 

The instax mini Link hits the shops this Friday (4 October 2019) and retails for just under £110. You can also pre-order the instax mini Link from Amazon, with a pack of film and free fridge magnets, for £135.99.

Visit the Instax website for more information. 

Photos from the Instax mini Link launch event in London by Stuart Fawcett (JackAllTog).