Following my recent failed attempt to get a working image from the Handle I had a breakthrough. A neighbour has a number of original Kodak instant prints and was kind enough to lend me one.
Comparing the Kodak film with a piece of Instax Square film showed that modern Instax is about half the thickness of the Kodak film. At the bottom of the film is a long ‘pod’ which is used to space out the films in the cassette and provides support for the camera to push each film towards rollers for development.
Using a piece of plastic from a folder that was roughly the same thickness as the Kodak film I made an Instax mount. Along the bottom of the mount I added a further sliver of plastic and wrapped this with a piece of masking tape for extra support.
After testing the mount with an exposed piece of Instax and the dark slide a couple of times, it seemed to work so I loaded a piece of unexposed film and took a photograph.
Imagine my surprise as an image started to appear! After a couple of image was a reasonably exposed frame, and just to make sure this wasn’t a fluke I made three more exposures.
The first exposed the trees beautifully, but the cloudy sky with a bit of blue sky was burned out.
Something went wrong with the second frame and the mount started to be ejected with the dark slide. In retrospect I think the dark slide has to be securely fitted before inserting the cassette into the camera. Nevertheless, I continued taking a photograph and the result certainly fulfills the competition rules for #shittycamerachallenge #instantregret.
The last photograph was a nicely exposed frame of the street, and the mount worked perfectly.
Since taking these photographs, I have made two more mounts and now I have enough for three films in the cassette at the same time. I have to perform one final check but I think I’m nearly ready to try some different film.
/ˈsnæp.ʃɒt/ 