Fuji’s Instax Mini Link 2 lets you paint with light before you print

Instant cameras are ace at capturing the moment, but for 21st century types that can’t put down their phones, instant printers are where the action is. They take your high quality smartphone snaps and turn ’em into physical photos – and now Fuji’s new Instax Mini Link 2 also wants to help out on the creative side of things.

One you pair the pocket-sized printer with your phone and download Fuji’s updated app, it’ll let you ‘draw’ effects in the air with its built-in LED, to give each pic some extra personalisation before you hit print. Hold the button down and the printer vibrates as you ‘paint’, with your phone playing sounds to match the onscreen effects. There are neon lights, spray paint, glitter effects, bubbles and cherry blossoms to play with.

The app can also record video clips of your artistic endeavours, ’embedding’ them in the physical photo with a QR code that’ll point you to a cloud-hosted version of the footage, ready for downloading or sharing to social media.

There are a handful of different digital picture frames, filters and stickers to jazz up your photos with, and you can tweak brightness, contrast and saturation before you commit your pics to film. The collage mode has also been expanded from the previous-gen model, so you can spread a single image across multiple Instax prints.

As before, the Instax Mini Link 2 spits out Fuji’s credit card-sized Instax Mini prints, which are proper instant film that takes a few minutes to develop. Each print takes around 15 seconds to transfer from a paired smartphone over Bluetooth. The overall design has been streamlined, with a hidden USB charging port and choice of Soft Pink, Clay White and Space Blue colours.

The printer is good for around 100 prints between charges – or less if you’re really into the light painting aspect.

The Instax Mini Link 2 is up for pre-order right now, and will go on general sale later this month. Expect to pay around £120 – a slight bump over the outgoing model.

Also landing this month is the latest pack of Instax Mini film. The Spray Art film packs daub colourful, light-reflective hues over the (usually white) borders of each print, which Fuji says makes for a great pairing with any light-painted snaps. Individual packs of ten prints should set you back around £9.