Fujifilm Instax Square SQ1 – Review 2020

The Fujifilm Instax Square SQ1 ($119.95) is as simple—and fun—to use as any other Instax camera. It’s a pure point-and-shoot, easy enough to pass off to a friend for a snapshot, and its wide-angle lens makes for solid selfies. If you’re looking for a square format instant camera, and are more of a snapshooter than artiste, the SQ1 is an instant camera with loads of appeal, and our Editors’ Choice.

Solid Color Aesthetics

The SQ1 drops the split two-tone design from the previous-generation SQ6 in favor of a mostly solid color in your choice of Chalk White, Glacier Blue, or Terracotta Orange. The camera itself is all plastic, and while there’s certainly a blockiness to the overall look, edges are comfortably rounded off and the textured grip and wrist strap make it very easy to handhold.

The camera comes in different colors including Chalk White and Terracotta Orange

The camera itself is on the bulky side, at 5.2 by 4.7 by 2.3 inches (HWD), and it weighs a little shy of a pound with a full pack of film loaded. It’s wide enough to sit upright when set on a flat surface, but Fujifilm didn’t bother to include a tripod socket. There aren’t any manual exposure options (for long exposure work), nor is there a self-timer. 

Film loads in a door at the rear and ejects from the top. Instax Square packs are a little tricky to load—you need to make sure you insert them at an angle to fit. There’s a yellow strip on both the film pack and in the film compartment to guide you.

The SQ1 is powered by a pair of included CR2 batteries. They’re long lasting, but not as readily available at retail as more common AA and AAA cells. You can get them easily enough via Amazon and at big-box store, but you’re not as likely to find them at the corner bodega. Fujifilm expects the camera to snap about 300 photos before you need to swap them out for a new set.

You frame shots with an optical viewfinder. It’s a small, fixed view of the world, but it’s bright enough to use indoors. A pair of etched half circles almost meet at its center, making it a bit easier to keep the finder centered at your eye for the most accurate framing. It doesn’t offer a precise through-the-lens view, but it’s close enough to reality for snapshots.

Instax Square Film

Each pack of Instax Square film includes ten frames, with a square image area a bit smaller all around (2.4 by 2.4 inches) than the old-school Polaroid film (3.1 by 3.0 inches) used by competitors like the Polaroid Now.

The smaller photo is a bit less impactful, but Fujifilm’s colors are truer, and the film cost is about half—figure about $1 a photo for color Instax Square, versus $2 per for Polaroid’s film.

I’ve long lamented the lack of black-and-white materials in Instax Square. My days of complaining are over: Fujifilm is adding Instax Square Monochrome film to its catalog, priced at $14.99 per pack of 10 shots. It’s a little bit more than you’ll pay for the standard color film, but it’s worth if you like to work in black and white.

I’ve not yet had a chance to try it, but its image quality should be identical to the current Instax Wide and Mini Monochrome film.

A Wide Lens With Selfie Mode

The SQ1’s lens is the same one used by the SQ6. Plastic optics don’t make for the sharpest images, but there’s enough resolution here to make the 2.4-inch photos look good. You don’t get macro focus, but with a twist the lens goes from standard focusing range to close focus for arm’s-length selfie shots—it’ll nail focus from about a foot (0.3m) to about 1.6 feet (0.5m). There’s a small mirror next to the lens, helpful for framing up shots.

The angle of view is similar to a 28mm lens on a full-frame camera—set your smartphone’s main lens to square format and you’ll net similar framing. The f-stop is very small, just f/12.6, so the SQ1’s flash always fires—even when photographing outdoors on a bright day.

Other analog Instax Square cameras use decidedly different lenses. The funky Lomo’Instant Square is a folding camera with a tighter 40mm-equivalent glass lens, and the Diana Instant goes the opposite direction, with a unique plastic lens famous for its imperfections.

Fujifilm also sells a digital Instax Square, now in its second generation. It’s called the SQ20 and does some things an analog camera can’t—its most compelling feature is the ability to print only shots you want. In-camera editing tools let you add filters and print off black-and-white shots, so you can use the less expensive color film and still get black-and-white prints.

The One-Button Instax Square

The SQ1 doesn’t try to get fancy with digital features, menus, or a display. Instead, Fujifilm has done a good job here in terms of simplicity. The Instax Square SQ1 offers the ease of one-button operation, a mirror for selfies, and it gives you the spontaneous, unpredictable feeling that you only get with a true film camera.

Snapshooters who don’t want to print every photo should look at the older SQ10, now selling for just a few dollars more than the SQ1. If you’re not set on the square format, the smaller Instax Mini LiPlay is worth a look too, as is the purely analog Instax Mini 11.

Creators, meanwhile, may find the SQ1 to be a bit too basic. The Lomo’Instant Square, or the larger format Polaroid OneStep+, are better choices there—both offer more creative options, including double exposure support.

For ease of use and fun factor, though, it’s tough to argue with the Instax Square SQ1. It’s a camera that will be a hit at parties, weddings, and the like (when we get back to having those), an affordable starter for kids just getting into photography, and one pros can pick up and use with ease when the full-frame kit is safely stowed away, so we have no hesitation recommending it as our Editors’ Choice.

Fujifilm Instax Square SQ1 Specs

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