It isn’t quite like Leica to foray into instant-cameras. It doesn’t coincide with their philosophy of producing only the finest, most premium cameras ever, backed by superior lensmaking and finesse, all bound together in a beautifully minimal packaging. An instant camera doesn’t fall within those parameters. They’re meant for instant gratification, for capturing images that are often filtered/distorted for flair, and aren’t high-resolution, given that they’re developed on a tiny canvas and subsequently forgotten about.
It is, however, a designer’s job to explore uncharted territories, often imagining scenarios that don’t exist, or aren’t even thought about. So here’s Daniel Huang’s self-made Leica Instant M, a minimalist camera featuring a viewfinder display of 1:1 ratio to film, designed to mount Leica’s M Lenses… or as he calls it, a premium instant photo camera. Huang believes Leica’s first and only instant model, the Sofort failed to capture the Leica spirit. It based itself on Fujifilm’s Instax Mini 90 and even used Instax film. “Traditionally, Leica lens and cameras are highly treasured collectibles. Their manual lenses produce a recognizable “Leica look” –Notilux lens continue to increase its resell value. Leica camera bodies are prized for its build quality, although they don’t have the highest specs. Their entry-level TL camera bodies, each hand polished for 40 minutes, became a minimalist icon. On the contrary, Leica Sofort’s plastic body and fixed lens feels like an unjustifiably expensive rebadge.”, Huang says.
Huang’s Leica Instant M takes advantage of a hybrid digital and analog system to reduce its flange focal length, effectively allows the camera to mount full-frame lens for the first time. The camera would sport an interchangeable lens system, allowing you to mount and use any of Leica’s lenses on it, something that’s innately Leica-esque in quality.
The camera comes in a simple box-shaped design that definitely exudes a quality of seriousness, unlike the playful nature of the Instax Mini 90. You’ve got the M-Mount on the front that sits atop Leica’s sensor (the hybrid arrangement), and a 1:1 ratio viewfinder on the back that lets you compose your shots and gives you a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) sort of deal. The Instant M is stripped of digital adjustments and post-processing, and analog controls like aperture and focus are done via the manual lens. The viewfinder is slightly inset, giving you a curved surface to dig your fingers into for better grip, and the shutter button on the front lets you click the picture you see in your viewfinder, before the film slowly ejects off the top of the camera.
The Instant M isn’t an official Leica camera, but is, on the other hand, a brilliant interpretation of what Leica’s instant cameras (if they ever decided to re-enter the market) should look like. Clean aesthetics, a design that feels pure and precious, and integrates into it the ability to use all of Leica’s M-mount lenses… the Instant M is the Leica instant-camera that should have been but never was!
Designer: Daniel Huang
As a proud owner of a similar device, I can vouch for how amazing it is to be able to click selfies and pictures, edit them, and then print them out on instant film. You get a level of control that you just don’t get with other instant cameras. You can take multiple shots and select which one you want to immortalize in print, and you can even crop, rotate, edit, and tweak photos to make them look absolutely spectacular.
The Impossible Instant Lab converts these images into print, using a camera lens and instant-film. A bellow structure opens upwards to create a dark-room of sorts, and you place your phone on top, with the image you want to print opened on your phone’s screen. The Instant Lab comes with its own app that lets you customize your picture, cropping it to a square, as well as deciding how much exposure you want your print to have. Place the phone (with the image loaded on the app) on top of the Instant Lab and pull the shutter outwards. The camera does the rest, clicking a picture of your phone’s screen and translating it on print. Press the film-release button and the print comes cascading outwards and develops within seconds!
Aside from giving you the freedom to choose, crop, tweak, and print photos of your choice, the Instant Lab also gives you the ability to create Polaroid-style (and Polaroid level) pictures without really owning a Polaroid or an Instax. Universally compatible, you can print pictures from a week to even a year ago, giving you the ability to relive memories through a beautiful physical print! 100% would recommend for your next Christmas holiday card!
Designer: The Impossible Project
Following the launch of its OneStep 2 instant camera last year, Polaroid Originals is back at it again with another retro shooter -- though this time it's a smart one. Like the OneStep 2, the new One Step+ also uses the company's recently developed i...
You have to appreciate Motorola for absolutely nailing its mods game. While the Essential Phone and RED’s Hydrogen Phone made lofty promises but never delivered on their modular eco-system, Motorola, despite being an underdog in the smartphone race, has produced some incredible modules that attach to your phone and give them superpowers. After a seriously good camera mod from Hasselblad, speaker mod from JBL, and even its own Alexa smart speaker attachment courtesy a partnership with Amazon, Motorola’s next strike comes in the form of a sprocket that attaches itself to your phone and turns it into a Polaroid!
The Polaroid mod turns memories from digital ones to physical ones, and from a dime a dozen, to memories that are special because unlike the thousands of photos you upload, download, share, repost, throwback with, this mod produces images that are more one-of-a-kind, to begin with. The Polaroid mod, albeit slightly thick (after all, it fits a printer into your phone) gives your Motorola phone a mod that other phones would die to have. Click selfies, edit them, and print them out on Polaroid’s special paper, and you’ve got tangible evidence of a memory that you’re less likely to forget like the photos you’ve got on your cloud drive or in your gallery from years back. Priced at $199, the mod may be on the slightly more expensive side, but it’s worth using your phone as your camera lens, selecting which picture you want to print, and more importantly, being able to use your front-facing camera and your display as a view-finder so you know exactly what you’re clicking!
Designer: Polaroid for Motorola
