It’s been a while since the Instax Mini 40’s 2021 launch, and it’s about time Fujifilm named a successor. That camera is the Instax Mini 41, obviously, and it brings along similar stylings and a more compact shape to the ‘high-end’ instant camera from the Japanese house.
The Instax Mini 41 launches in Japan on 17 April this year, before heading to other territories at an unspecified time in the future. Pricing is similarly a mystery, both on its home ground and abroad, but everything else about the camera — and its attendant accessories — is known.
Mini 41 me
The Mini 41 has been streamlined, sporting rounded vertical edges as opposed to the highly retro flat sides of its immediate ancestor. A new colour scheme has been added to the all-black from the Mini 40. It’s not much — silver and orange accents to the mostly monochrome appearance – but it’s enough to set the two ranges apart.
It wouldn’t be an update without some actual new features, and that’s what Fuji has squeezed in here. Somehow. It’s tough to innovate an analogue camera in 2025, but tweaks to how the viewfinder works (called Close-Up Mode) and automatic exposure capabilities (Automatic Light Adjustment is its official title) have managed that task.
The first feature will maintain parity between what’s seen through the viewfinder and the final image. The Mini 40 included a secondary target in the viewfinder since up-close shooting would offset the lens. This has now been corrected via parallax adjustment. The second feature will automatically set exposure levels based on the current lighting. The result should be better permanent shots and less uncertainty about what you’ll get from your instant-printing photo.
Also coming to the Instax Mini 41’s launch is a new colour-coded case that inverts the major colorways of the camera. Grey canvas dominates orange and black accents, the latter mostly in the zippered and interior sections. A small pouch on the rear gives users a place to stash printed images until they’re needed.
Pricing is currently ‘open’, meaning we can’t have those details yet. The Mini 40 launched in South Africa at R1,700, so expect something around the R2,000 mark, with about 200 bucks set aside per pack of compatible instant film.
