I was caught up with a film jam in my Instax Mini 8. The first thought that came into my mind was “Oh no! I broke my camera.” The black slide (the first thing that slides up when you put a new film) was caught in the camera rollers. I panicked and said cursed words, for the new film I loaded was somewhat damaged. The film I loaded has its black slide already pop slightly on the film plastic covers (the black plastic at the top of the film).
Searched high and low, to the point where the article I read was talking technical stuffs. I don’t know how to disassemble my Instax Camera (and it’s super scary to do so.) But gladly I found valuable article and video, after internal panicking and say:
This article offers tips and tricks in fixing your Instax Mini camera. Although it says “for Instax Mini 9”, it worked for my Instax Mini 8 camera. Turned out my film camera needed a new pair of batteries. (Pro Tip: If you’re not using your camera that much, get the batteries out from its compartment. That way, you can preserve its battery life, and you won’t get any problems later on.)
However, if you’re more into the actual process, than reading articles, this video really helped me solve this dilemma. Just a caution: you must do the pulling gently, so as you won’t break the back of the film and the little lever on the film compartment. And boy, the pulling process can be so hard!
Do the whole pulling process in a dark room (not necessarily the one being used by photographers), having your own room or inside a big closet will suffice. But if you don’t have one, you can use pillowcases, topped with dark-colored pillowcases or fabrics, as long as you can create a dark environment. And also, turn off all the light sources (i.e. lamp, LED lights, fluorescent lights) We don’t want the light to reach the film because it will result into pictures that are all-white.
The whole process, I guess, took me a good 2-3 hours. (Kind of forgot actually!) It won’t take you a half-day working on it. And a word of advice: Follow the whole video thoroughly! You must diligently listen and follow through. Don’t watch a part of it then you say, you have it figured out. Because you may cause another problem that might lead your camera broken.
These photos are the ones I took after doing the operation. Just don’t mind the dates, as to they’re 5 months prior from the time I created this post. Also mind you, only the black cover thingy was jammed in the film roller, so I was able to salvage 3 films. (The 2nd and 3rd photo are in Cebuano language. I translated it in the Pro Tip above.)
So, that covers up my journey in fixing this film jammed dilemma. Thank you for dropping by, and see you on my next blog post!
xoxo
Aie ❤
Originally created on 21 August 2019 02:58PM
Life of Aie 