Fujifilm’s new Instax Square 2 gives instant-photo fans a way to shift the color of their shots without adding digital features: slide a physical filter in front of the lens and let the film do the rest. The square-format camera is expected to be available later this month for $119.95, in slate blue, brick red, and misty white.
A switch labeled for mood filters moves one of two colored filters into place. Warm aims for a “subtle golden tone,” while Cool produces “crisp, blue-toned” results. It’s a modest bit of camera engineering with a pleasingly direct payoff: choose a look before taking the picture, rather than trying to recreate it afterward in an app. This is less digital editing suite, more tiny analog lighting department.
The Square 2 continues a product line that includes the Instax Square SQ6, launched in 2018, and the later SQ1 and SQ40. Fujifilm says the new model has a sculpted body design; its overall layout is similar to the SQ1, but with more rounded edges. The camera keeps an optical viewfinder on the back and a small front mirror to help frame selfies. A rotating ring on the lens selects Close-up, Standard, or Landscape mode, with a focus range from 0.3 meters to infinity.
Exposure is automatic, as are adjustments to the xenon flash. The camera otherwise sticks with the straightforward analog approach: the new filters change the light reaching the film, not a digital image file. That makes the Square 2’s customization tactile and limited by design—a feature for people who want a deliberate look, not a miniature editing workstation disguised as a camera.
Fujifilm is also adding a new instant-film option called Soft Haze. It produces images with reduced color saturation and contrast, glowing highlights, and warm, diffused shadows. Each pack costs $18.99 and contains 10 exposures. Between the lens filters and the softer film stock, photographers get two different ways to steer the character of a print before it leaves the camera. Neither promises endless control, which may be part of the charm: instant film has always made the occasional surprise part of the process.
At $119.95, the Square 2 is priced the same as the SQ1 was in 2020. The core appeal here isn’t a dramatic reinvention of instant photography; it’s a pair of simple, physical controls and a new film look added to an established format. For anyone who likes square prints with a bit of color mood baked in, that’s a refreshingly concrete pitch. The marketing department can leave the word “revolutionary” in the drawer.
Sources: Glitch Please! and The Verge — https://www.theverge.com/tech/1010990/fujifilm-instax-square-2-analog-instant-film-camera-filters — Reporting by Andrew Liszewski
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