I remember when Fujifilm announced the Instax Pal three years ago, and I thought it was perhaps the most uninteresting camera ever made. It looked like a digipet or tiny one-eyed robot. It was an Instax camera that only took digital photos (that were intended to be printed on a Mini Link later). There wasn’t much to get excited about, so I didn’t even report on it.
Now Fujifilm just announced the Instax Pal 2, and this one seems much more interesting. First of all, it’s in the same category as the extremely popular Kodak Charmera keychain cameras. This is definitely bigger and heavier, but it’s close enough that it will be seen as similar. The size of the Pal 2 is actually not that far off from the old Pentax Auto 110, coming in just a little smaller. Fujifilm calls it palm-top. Its tiny size and retro styling are the selling points.
From what I could find, I believe that it has a tiny 1/3″ 10.7mp sensor, probably the same sensor found in the selfie camera of some smartphones. The lens is a 3.4mm (28mm full-frame-equivalent) f/2.2. You’re not going to get amazing image quality, but it’s going to be much better than the Charmera, and it’s going to be plenty good enough for Instax printing or sharing on social media. This might have the best image quality of all the Instax digital cameras, better than any of the EVO models.
What’s more interesting are the 30 effects, which seem to get inspiration from the Instax EVO line, especially the EVO Cinema camera. There are five themes—Modern, Y2K, Vintage, Chromatic, Fantasy—and within each theme are six effects. You can only have six loaded onto the camera at any one time, either one theme or six favorites chosen from the full list. You use an app to load the effects into the camera.
The Pal 2 seems like a fun little camera, smaller and much cheaper than the Fujifilm X half, but kind of similarly enjoyable. The X half obviously has better image quality and offers a different overall experience, but simply from a fun carry-everywhere perspective, it is similar enough that somebody might consider one over the other. I see this as a fun Christmas or birthday gift for your kids or any photographer you know. At $170, it’s definitely much more expensive than a Charmera, but it’s also much better.
An all-digital Instax camera is a little weird, but the intention is to print the images using an Instax Link printer, like the Mini 3 or the brand-new Wide 2. So if you don’t have an Instax printer, that would be an essential accessory you’d want to purchase in addition to the camera. You don’t have to print them, but that’s half the fun. The Pal 2 comes in two colors—black/silver and white—and will ship on September 29th.
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Fujifilm Instax Pal 2: in black/silver:
B&H
Fujifilm Instax Pal 2: in bwhite:
B&H
A cool mini ‘110 way’ digital camera.
I used to shoot with 110 at the time.
Definitly looks like an interesting Interesting & fun little digital Instax camera (the app is also a necessity).
Much better indeed that original Pal.
I definitely see it as a 110-like digital camera. Thanks for the input!
A cute design, and MUCH better looking than the original Pal; but I really wish they’d stop putting fake film advance levers on their smaller cameras like this and the X-Half.
In my opinion, a film advance lever on a digital camera is silly and superficial gimmick that pretty much screams “cheap toy”, even if the underlying camera is quite good (like the X-Half). The lever was a functional requirement for most mechanical film cameras through history and began noticeably disappearing in the late 80’s as electronic controls and automatic advance became the norm.
Aside from the rare instance where the lever cocks the mechanical shutter (like on the Epson R-D1), adding an advance lever to a digital camera feels to me like putting a supercharger air intake on an electric car just cause it “looks cool” 🙄
I tend to agree. From what I can tell, it doesn’t do anything important on the Pal 2; on the X half, I do like using it in film mode (I just wish it had a little resistance/feedback to feel more “real”). But most ideally, it would cock the mechanical shutter like on the R-D1.
I’d love to handle one, see how it feels, since it does seem kinda sweet.
On the other hand, it’s $100 more expensive than a CampSnap or such, and the CampSnap also just had their 110-style camera. I’m pretty dang confident that the Pal2 is going to be a much nicer camera, but is this a segment where having a better camera is worth the price?
At very least, I think it’s a huge improvement over the original Pal, which missed the mark IMHO for a screen-free camera by having no viewfinder whatsoever. You basically needed to connect with your phone, but the phone has a camera. I don’t really understand the point of the original Pal.
Yeah, I think it’s likely to be “best in class” for these types of cameras, but that isn’t what people typically look for when it comes to these. It could be viewed more negatively than positively, I’m not sure.
The original Pal was kind of stupid, I’m not sure why anyone purchased one.