Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo Cinema

The Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo Cinema ($409.95) is one of the strangest cameras I’ve tried in my nearly fifteen years as a reviewer—but it’s also one of the most fun to use. The Evo Cinema is a mash-up of a camcorder, …

The Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo Cinema ($409.95) is one of the strangest cameras I've tried in my nearly fifteen years as a reviewer—but it's also one of the most fun to use. The Evo Cinema is a mash-up of a camcorder, stills camera, and instant photo printer, all wrapped in a design that's inspired by Super 8 movie cameras. It leans heavily into nostalgia with a set of ten retro filters that mimic the look of footage from the 1930s through 2020s, and works with a snazzy smartphone app so you can edit and share movie clips with the world.

There's crossover appeal for creators who simply want to have fun making short movies, as well as digital video artists. I'm kind of amazed I had such a good time using the Evo Cinema; it's easily the most interesting Instax digital-instant hybrid camera to date, and earns our Editors' Choice award for its fun factor and feature set. The Evo Cinema's tall, skinny form, front-positioned shutter button, and side dials make it stand out at a time when most digital cameras look alike.

Fujifilm doesn't go full retro like the Camp Snap CS-8 ($199); the Evo Cinema follows current-day design trends with a tasteful dark gray and black exterior. It fits naturally into the hand and provides a stable platform for recording video and avoiding camera shake. A couple of included accessories accentuate the Super 8 look. A handgrip screws into the tripod socket and features a lip that juts out to support your index finger.

It also comes with an eyepiece that clips onto the rear LCD so you can hold the camera up to your eye to record. Using it shows off every flaw in the low-res 1.5-inch display, and magnifies the screen enough so you can see the LCD's grid pattern. Nonetheless, I couldn't help hearing The Wonder Years theme in my head whenever I put the camera to my eye. The retro vibes are real. The Evo Cinema measures 5.2 by 1.6 by 3.9 inches (HWD) and weighs 9.5 ounces without the accessories attached or film loaded.

It's about 6.5 by 1.6 by 5.6 inches and 12.2 ounces with the grip, eyepiece, and a film pack. It's meant to be held like a camcorder, so its shutter release is located in the front, right where your index finger naturally falls. A 28mm equivalent lens is perfect for selfie video, and there's both a mirror to help you frame when self-recording, plus a video light just above the lens to brighten up footage in a dark room.

The camera runs on a built-in rechargeable battery that proves to be pretty limited. I got just 125 15-second clips, about a half hour of record time, on a full charge. It recharges via USB-C and saves video and photos onto a microSDXC card. There are a few control buttons on the rear, all located below the 1.5-inch LCD. Menu, Back, and Play are all self-explanatory, and there's also a control wheel with a central OK button.

You'll use the Back and OK buttons a lot—whenever you record a video clip, the camera asks whether you'd like to save it (OK) or trash it (Back). This is a clever approach that makes it easy to edit short clips in-camera. Each video is limited to a maximum of 15 seconds, but you don't have to record it all at once. You can record for a few seconds, change your angle or filter settings, and continue to build the same clip until you hit the 15-second record limit.

This copies the method that student filmmakers used with VHS camcorders back in the 80s and 90s, before everyone had a powerful nonlinear editing tool (a smartphone) in their pocket. The left-side panel houses the bulk of camera controls. It has a +/- wheel that sets digital zoom, the On/Off button, and a Cine/Still switch to change between movies and photos. A second toggle switch enables or disables a decorative frame around your pictures and videos, and works in conjunction with the Gen dial, which changes the video filter to mimic the look of movies from various points in time, from the 1930s through the 2020s.

The strength of the Gen filter is set by twisting a control ring around the lens. Finally, there's a lever that lets you print a photo or a still frame from a video clip directly from the camera. It mimics the winding lever that pushed film through old 8mm and Super 8 movie cameras—it's a nice touch. You can also print from the smartphone app, a plus if you have arthritis or another disability that would make the lever difficult to manipulate.

The Gen dial and its corresponding filters are the heart of the Evo Cinema. They change the look and sound of clips to match cameras from different decades. Do you want flickering black-and-white with scratches and hollow audio? Set it to the 1930s. Looking for the look of a CRT TV? The 1970s is the ticket. And if you just want a modern-looking clip, ratchet over to the 2020s. It's extremely fun to try out different looks, and I love being able to turn overlay frames on or off.

I'm especially fond of the 2000s frame, which mimics the rear screen display of a digital camera from that era, and the 1980s, which adds an alarm-clock-style LED time and date stamp like you see on old 35mm film prints. Swapping between different settings is like stepping into a time machine. Camp Snap is making a similar nostalgia play with its CS-8, a Super 8-inspired camera with an even wider-angle lens and a set of built-in vintage look filters.

The CS-8 is about half the price at $199 and delivers video that's similar in quality to the Evo Cinema, but its filters aren't nearly as innovative, nor does it provide the ability to share video via QR codes on prints, or work as a smartphone printer. The Evo Cinema connects to the Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo app, a free download for Android and iOS. The camera includes Bluetooth for quick pairing and printing, and lets you switch over to Wi-Fi to copy videos at a decent speed.

It takes about 10 seconds to copy a 15-second video over Wi-Fi. I see the app as an essential part of the Evo Cinema experience. It makes it easy for anyone—even folks who have never edited a video before—to build short clips (up to 30 seconds long) using a linear editing timeline. Select a clip, trim it down to a length you want, add another, and repeat. When you're done, you'll have a bite-sized clip that you can share on your social feed or print out.

You read that right, the Evo Cinema lets you print video onto instant film. Sort of. When you print a video clip, the app uploads it to Fujifilm's web hosting service, and puts a QR code with a link onto the print itself, so anyone with the picture can scan the code and watch the clip on their phone. You can hand the print over to a friend or family member at a gathering, and I see some potential for street artists to post them amidst graffiti to share their work.

Clips are hosted for two years, after which they'll disappear. The short clips, editing tools, and social sharing aspect remind me a heck of a lot of Vine, a platform that looked like it was set to take over the world with its strict 6-second video clips, and more recently TikTok. With the ability to print video clips, still photos you've captured with the camera, frame grabs from video clips, or any photo stored on your phone, the Evo Cinema is a real multitasker.

It's also a stills camera (with the same basic features as the Instax LiPlay, LiPlay+, and Mini Evo), and a smartphone printer like the Mini Link 3 and recent Mini Link+. I printed a few photos I'd shot with high-end cameras (the Sony a7 V and Ricoh GR IV) and one of my favorite iPhone 13 cat portraits, and they all look great on Instax Mini film. On a technical level, the Evo Cinema isn't much of a video camera.

Its teensy Type 1/5 image sensor records vertical video at a meager 600 by 800 pixels at a fixed 24fps frame rate. It's no match for what newer smartphones can do. The small sensor also makes for grainy footage in low light—you'll want to make sure to turn on the Evo Cinema's LED light when recording in anything less than sunlight. Any recent iPhone or Galaxy handset uses a sensor that's many times larger, with support for 4K with 10-bit HDR color, and delivers great video in all kinds of light.

The Evo Cinema can't compete on specs. I don't think that's a problem, though. The Evo isn't a professional camera, it's a fun camera. Its filter effects reinforce that, and while savvy editors could certainly mimic their look with video editing tools, family photographers will appreciate the nostalgic take on video capture. It's just a heck of a lot of fun to switch the dial between different decades.

If you find yourself complaining about the lack of resolution, manual controls, or frame rate options, you're simply not in the intended audience for this camera. That's OK, because there are plenty of cameras you'd find more suitable—the iPhone 17, Sony ZV-1 Mark II, or Canon EOS R50 V, to name just a few. The Cinema also works as a photo camera, and its 5MP snapshots have the same vibes and resolution as the stills-first cameras in the line.

The basic picture quality is the same you get with its LiPlay, LiPlay+, Mini Evo, and Wide Evo, but the filters are different. The LiPlay series has simple color filters and a light leak effect, while the Evo Mini and Wide have those plus mirror and color shift effects, among others. The Evo Cinema's photo mode has the same filters and frames as its movie engine. The Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo Cinema rolls video with fun filters that emulate home movies from across the decades and cleverly shares them using instant prints.

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