Instax Square SQ40 review: Leather bound

In one look

Expert Rating

Benefits

Premium black leather design
Easy to use
Good quality in low light

The inconvenients

Limited orders and options
Not refillable

Our opinion

The Instax Square SQ40 is nothing new – it’s really just the (cheaper) SQ1 dressed in a black vegan leather finish. Slight improvements in low-light performance help justify the price hike, and if you want a square Instax that doesn’t look like a toy, this is your only option.

The Instax Square SQ40 fits into a fairly natural niche for the brand: it’s the more expensive of Fujifilm’s two current square instant cameras, which it justifies less on its specs and more on a few high-end design features.

It’s still a dead simple instant camera with minimal buttons and controls, so it’s not aimed at more advanced photographers. But the black design and vegan leather finish may be enough to justify the colorful, toy-like SQ1’s modest price hike.

Design and build

Rotary lens controls
Vegan leather finish
Only available in black

Instax has kept the design of the SQ40 simple.

Unlike the playful SQ1, this one is available in just one color: black. It’s finished in vegan leather, though, which makes it a bit more premium than the company’s other square option, and of course much more like a regular camera.

It’s essentially the same choice the company offers between the black leather Instax Mini 40 and the plastic Mini 11 and Mini 12.

Dominic Preston / Foundry

Other than the finish, the SQ40 does not deviate from the design of the SQ1. It’s about the same size, dominated by a large central lens structure, with a big flash, selfie mirror and single shutter button also found on the front.

This shutter is the only button on the entire camera, and the only other control is the lens itself, which you twist to turn the camera on, and twist a bit further to enter selfie mode. It couldn’t be much simpler.

Instax has kept the design of the SQ40 simple

Head back and you’ll find the film compartment – easy to open and swap in a new pack – as well as the viewfinder, number of shots and battery compartment.

Dominic Preston / Foundry

The silver sides only feature the mounting points for the thin leather strap that comes with the camera.

Other than color and finish, the only real difference between this camera’s design and its cheaper counterpart is that it doesn’t feature the slightly ribbed column grip around the shutter button – perhaps Instax felt it was no longer needed with the additional faux leather grip.

Photos and Features

Produces large square format prints
Automatically manages flash and exposure
Uses non-rechargeable CR2 batteries

You shouldn’t be shocked to learn that the Square SQ40 takes square shots. These square prints are a bit smaller than regular Polaroids but have about the same shape and fall between Instax Mini and Wide in terms of size.

Dominic Preston / Foundry

With so few controls, you don’t have many options for taking pictures. The camera manages its flash automatically – so you can’t choose to turn it on or off – meaning all you can really do is point and shoot.

The only additional choice you have is to choose between the normal shooting mode and the selfie option. The latter doesn’t do much different, but it adjusts the camera’s focal length to better suit arm-length shooting – meaning you’ll also want to switch to selfie mode for any macro or close-up photography.

Dominic Preston / Foundry

The limited options are a far cry from the Instax Square SQ6 (which, despite its name, was the company’s first square camera), which offered a range of shooting modes and manual flash controls.

Personally, I miss all those extra features, but Instax has clearly decided that simplicity is king – and since the SQ6 is no longer on sale, you don’t have much choice in the matter anyway.

You don’t have many options when it comes to taking pictures

The good news is that, generally speaking, the SQ40 still succeeds. Instax says it’s refined its exposure algorithms so the camera can better handle a range of lighting, and in fairness, it shows.

I had better luck with low-light photos than usual with an instant camera, capturing detail in a nighttime portrait, and even properly exposing a neon sign in a darkened room. Most instant cameras would struggle with either.

Dominic Preston / Foundry

The camera is powered by a pair of CR2 batteries – it’s a bit annoying that Instax can’t just use a rechargeable battery, but hey ho.

The company claims that a pair of batteries should last 30 packs of film, or 300 shots. So the good news is that you probably won’t have to replace the batteries very often.

Pricing & Availability

The SQ40 is available now for $150 / £135 from Amazon and all the usual tech retailers.

By default it comes without a movie included, so you’ll have to buy that too – usually $25 / £17 for a pack of 20 shots, although it will cost more if you want one of the variants with a background pattern.

The SQ40 costs a bit more than the $120/£120 Instax SQ1, but the features are essentially identical – the only significant differences are in the design, with black vegan leather instead of pastel plastic. If you don’t care about the design, save your money and buy the SQ1 instead.

You can also usually spend a little less on an Instax Mini camera, although they do take pictures in a smaller format, of course.

Check out our ranking of the best instant cameras for all the options right now, including some from other manufacturers.

Verdict

The Instax Square SQ40 doesn’t offer many surprises: it’s basically the SQ1 in a black leather jacket.

Dominic Preston / Foundry

Photo quality seems slightly improved, especially in harsher lighting, but there’s not much to it, so you should only spend more on this model if you particularly like the look.

As with all recent Instax cameras, there’s virtually no control for users – but with more complex models now only available second-hand and rival instant cameras taking the same approach, buyers don’t have much choice either way.