Fujifilm's best-selling 2012 instant camera — Instax Mini film, 60mm f/12.7 lens, dial-set exposure, AA power.
The Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 was the November 2012 successor to the Instax Mini 7s and became one of the best-selling instant cameras of the 2010s. Its rounded, toy-like body shipped in a wide palette of pastel colours and made it a fixture at parties and weddings before later Mini models replaced it.
It exposes credit-card-sized Instax Mini integral film through a two-component, two-element 60mm f/12.7 Fujinon lens focusing from about 0.6m to infinity. Framing is via an inverted Galilean viewfinder at 0.4x magnification. Exposure is set by turning the aperture dial to the position indicated by an LED metering readout, with a high-key setting for brighter results. Power comes from two AA batteries, good for roughly ten film packs.
The Mini 8 suits beginners and anyone who wants instant physical prints with zero learning curve. Its limits are real: fixed shutter behaviour, no close-focus below 0.6m without an accessory lens, and flash that always fires indoors, so results are charmingly unpredictable rather than precise. That unpredictability is much of its appeal.
Used examples are abundant and cheap, and crucially Instax Mini film is still in production, so the camera remains fully usable. Check that the lens barrel extends and the shutter fires with fresh AAs, that the film door closes flush with intact light seals, that the ejection rollers are clean (dirty rollers cause banding on prints), and that the metering LEDs light as the scene changes.