Instax Square SQ40 Review: Leatherbound

At a glance

Expert’s Rating

Pros

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

Cons

Limited controls and options
Not rechargeable

Our Verdict

The Instax Square SQ40 isn’t anything new – it’s really just the (cheaper) SQ1 dressed up in a black vegan leather finish. Slight improvements to low light performance help justify the price hike though, and if you want a square Instax that doesn’t feel like a toy, this is your only option.

The Instax Square SQ40 fits into a natural enough niche for the brand: it’s the more expensive of Fujifilm’s two current square instant cameras, which it justifies less by its features and more through a couple of premium design features.

This is still a dead simple instant camera, with minimal buttons and controls, so it’s not intended for more advanced photographers. But the black design and vegan leather finish may be enough to justify the modest price hike from the colourful, toylike SQ1.

Design & build

Rotating lens controls
Vegan leather finish
Only available in black

Instax has kept the design of the SQ40 simple.

Unlike the playful SQ1, this is available in a single colour: black. It’s finished in vegan leather though, making it feel a little more premium than the company’s other square option, and of course a lot more like a classic camera.

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

Dominic Preston / Foundry

Other than the finish, the SQ40 doesn’t stray far from the SQ1’s design. It’s about the same size, dominated by a large central lens structure, with a chunky flash, selfie mirror, and a single shutter button also found on the front.

That shutter button is the only button on the whole camera, and the only other control is the lens itself, which you rotate to turn the camera on, and rotate a bit further to switch to the selfie mode. It couldn’t be much simpler.

Instax has kept the design of the SQ40 simple

Flip to the rear and you find the film compartment – easy to open and swap a new pack in – plus the viewfinder, shot count, and battery slot.

Dominic Preston / Foundry

The silvery sides only feature the mounting points for the slim leather strap that comes included with the camera.

Outside of the colour and finish, the only real difference between the design of this camera 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 grip of the faux leather.

Photos & features

Shoots large square format prints
Handles flash & exposure automatically
Uses nonrechargeable CR2 batteries

You shouldn’t be shocked to hear that the Square SQ40 shoots, well, square photos. These square prints are a little smaller than classic Polaroids but in about the same shape, and sit between the Instax Mini and Wide formats in terms of size.

Dominic Preston / Foundry

With so few controls, you don’t have many options when it comes to taking photos. The camera handles its flash automatically – so you can’t choose to turn it on or off – meaning all you can really do is pointandshoot.

The only extra choice you have is to decide between the regular shooting mode and the selfie option. The latter doesn’t do a whole lot that’s different, but it adjusts the camera’s focal length to better suit taking shots at arm’s length – meaning you’ll also want to shift so selfie mode for any macro or closeup photography.

Dominic Preston / Foundry

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

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

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

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

I had more luck with low light photos than I’m used to from an instant camera, capturing the details in a nighttime portrait and even correctly exposing a neon sign in a dim 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 says that a pair of batteries should last for 30 packs of film – meaning 300 shots – so the good news at least is that you probably won’t have to replace the batteries very often.

Price & availability

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

By default it ships without film included, so you’ll have to buy that too – typically $25/£17 for a pack of 20 shots, though it’ll cost more if you want one of the variants with a background design.

The SQ40 costs a little more than the $120/£120 Instax SQ1, but the features are essentially identical – the only meaningful differences are to 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 generally spend a bit less on an Instax Mini camera, though of course they shoot in a smaller format.

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 much in the way of surprises: it’s essentially the SQ1 in a black leather jacket.

Dominic Preston / Foundry

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

As with all recent Instax cameras, there are next to no controls for users – but with more complex models now only available secondhand, and rival instant cameras taking the same approach, buyers don’t get much of a choice either way.