Fujifilm is updating its hybrid instant camera again, and this time the changes go past a fresh coat of paint. The Instax Mini Evo 2, announced Monday, brings a substantially bigger sensor, a touchscreen that covers the entire back panel and face-detection autofocus to a camera that blends digital shooting with instant printing.
The idea behind the Mini Evo line hasn't changed. You shoot digitally, review the shot on screen, and print only the frames you want onto Instax Mini film, the credit-card-sized 62 x 46mm stock Fujifilm has sold for years. Everything else stays as a digital file. It's a workaround for the biggest complaint about instant cameras: wasting film on a bad shot.
What's new is the hardware underneath. Fujifilm moved from a Type 1/5 (6.3mm²) sensor in the original Mini Evo to a Type 1/2.77 (20.6mm²) sensor here, a sizable jump for a pocket camera built around a 2.4 x 1.8-inch print. That sensor packs roughly 16.3 million effective pixels, though standard photos still save at about 6.1MP. A new wide-angle mode, tucked into the Lens Effects menu, pushes the field of view from a standard 33mm equivalent out to 23mm equivalent and can save at a higher 12.8MP when there's a memory card in the slot, though it's capped at 6.1MP when relying on internal storage alone.
The back of the camera looks different too. Fujifilm dropped the original's 3-inch LCD and its physical buttons in favor of a 4.5-inch touchscreen that takes up the whole rear panel. Autofocus still runs from 10cm to infinity, and now includes face detection, something the first Mini Evo lacked entirely.
Software gets a couple of additions as well. An Expanded View mode shows more of the scene than will actually print, with a framing guide overlaid so you know what's getting cropped. And there's now a video option, called Immersive Movie, that captures roughly five-second clips at 560 x 992 pixels and 24fps. It's a narrow feature. It only works with a memory card inserted, and nobody is going to mistake it for a vlogging camera.
The signature trick of the Mini Evo series survives the redesign: 10 lens effects combined with 10 film effects for 100 total looks, adjusted through the two physical dials that remain on top of the camera and around the lens. Fujifilm swapped out the Fisheye and Mirror lens effects for the new wide-angle mode and one called After Image. Flash settings, exposure compensation, white balance control and a macro mode all carry over from the first generation, along with the film-advance-style print lever that's become the series' trademark.
One thing didn't carry over: color choice. The original Mini Evo shipped in three finishes. The Mini Evo 2 comes only in black.
Fujifilm has set a US price of $290, with availability starting at the end of November. No Indian pricing or launch date has been announced yet, and Fujifilm hasn't said whether other colorways might follow after launch.
GDFiled by The Gadgets Desk
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