Nons Instant Back – Is this a review…?

The Nons instant back has been out for a while now… so I’ll spare you the technical review, unboxing, and product photos. Instead I’d like to tell you why this product is perfect, for me.

Backstory

In 2014 I was starting my career. On the weekdays I worked as a 2nd AC and on weekends I would do photo assisting. One of the photographers I worked for shot food professionally on a Mamiya RZ67. Every shoot would start with me picking up fresh film and a few packs of Fujifilm FP100C for the day. Once on set, we would spend a little time getting the lights in the general “right spot,” and then the Fuji pack film would come out to humble us. A few tweaks here, a few more test shots there, perfect – we would switch to 120. 

The number of packs used per shoot would make any 2025 film photographer blush, but back then FP was $14 a pack. So low cost, that after the shoot I would be given the leftovers as a “tip”. I would put them through a garage sale land camera and less than 10% of my photos would come out amazing. Simpler times. Instant film and film in general was at its lowest and most accessible point. 

Today, nothing really comes close to FP100C, or 3200B – but now that it’s dead (to me), what can fill its niche? One Instant is trying, and I wish them success, but it doesn’t yet fit the demanding needs of a professional photographer and is cost prohibitive for lighting tests. Fuji has their Instax line and Polaroid’s newest models do have some manual control and flash sync options, but nothing is similar to pack film in quality and more importantly, in method and optics. 

My predicament

I’m a filmmaker by trade and because photography has always been a hobby based side hustle of mine, it’s been hard to justify certain expenses. When I was starting out analog cameras were far cheaper than digital ones, simpler and more fun to use. I went full analog for my creative photo work around 2017 and never looked back. The process went smooth enough, most clients didn’t really care, but I was making art with the tools I loved. Tools that made it more effortless to get great photos, until I started working with strobes.

I had not considered this in my transition. Flash photography was new and daunting to me, but I wanted to figure it out. Trial and error got me far enough, but I always had to borrow a digital camera “comfort blanket” to make sure the lighting was right. Not ideal. I remembered my experiences assisting that food photographer, but after looking into packfilm backs for my Hasselblad I noticed that the price of FP100C had already launched to $60+/pack… Ridiculous, there had to be a better (cheaper) way. 

A single use DLSR was too bulky/cost prohibitive and the instant cameras at that time would not have been suitable for testing lighting setups, lacking manual controls or proper flash sync. In the end I opted for an old Ricoh GR. Easy to chuck in a bag, inexpensive at the time, but more importantly it had a hot shoe. The poor quality screen and 28mm were not ideal for studio shoots but it got me through the next 4 years. 

Solution #1

Sometime around 2020 Mint Camera released their SX70 “Ming” Edition. It was expensive, but I had moved to NYC and was making more money so I could excuse the purchase. In theory this would be a better solution. That is: Full manual controls, compact size, and flash sync via the Time Machine add on dongle. Plus, it was a very sexy camera.

The big beautiful photographs it spit out dwarfed the instax square format and were comparable to FP100C (without the negative). The colors were gorgeous and saturated, and the lens…  perfect. The ability to shoot multiple speeds of Polaroid film and flash sync via 2.5mm jack, everything seemed amazing! 

I bought it and here is what I learned:

Polaroid film is expensive. $2+ per shot. To my dismay, the $900 Ming spit out a fair amount of blank frames, especially when using flash. You see, the flash sync port on the Time Machine (and the Time Machine in general) is a little fiddly to use. It doesn’t fall off easily, but it feels extremely fragile and can come loose without falling out leading to $2 black frames. When removed from the camera the Time Machine can easily be lost or damaged. The 2.5mm jack I was excited about? Well it turns out having a cord dangling from it exacerbated the wiggly Time Machine problem and was a tripping hazard on set.

Despite all of that I really loved the camera. I shot it for a few months more without the time machine, as Edwin Land intended, and honestly had a fantastic time. However, the cost of film, the cost of the camera, and it not being a good solution to my problem… I had to let it go. After all, I am not a photographer, what was I doing with a $900 niche product?

But isn’t this about the Nons back?

Well not really, and yes. Enter Nons. 

I continued to move more and more into the video space and was shooting less photos professionally, certainly less with strobes. If I do a shoot now, likely it will be with natural light outdoors or my tungsten/hmi lights in studio. This works pretty well until you need to dip into higher shutter speeds. In order to get 1/125+ consistently in studio, on medium format with any depth of field at all… I needed to use bigger constant lights which were expensive to rent and heated up the set fast. I grew weary of this method.

It was then that I stumbled across a video for the Nons back. I was floored. It ticked all my 2017 boxes and was a much lower barrier to entry than the SX70 Ming route. But would it work? Would there be hidden let downs similar to my experience with the Ming? After all, who is Nons? I’ve never heard of them. Do I even need this back, or could I continue to get by with my trusty Ricoh?

A year later, after seeing/reading a few real world reviews, I caved to my GAS and decided to go for it. 

The day it arrived Brooklyn was baking. 95 degrees, humid, and hardly a day to take photos. Nevertheless I snapped the Nons back onto my Hasselblad with ease, ejected the dark slide, and instantly knew I would be out for hours. 

The speed of Instax being around 800 ASA  made the first photos easy to expose –  meaning, I only had one option in full sun: F16-F22 at 1/500. I was shooting the Hasselblad like a rangefinder, zone focusing and glancing at the ground glass for shapes rather than subjects. Shot after shot came out beautifully and developed quickly, much faster than the polaroid stuff. The best part, no blank frames!!! The whole day and not a single blank frame. Without reading the manual. Brilliant!

Another thing I did not expect but appreciate about this setup is the ability for me to test new techniques, filters, and double exposures with ease. I recently purchased this Hasselblad Softar 1 filter and wanted to try it out. Of course there are details lost in the murkiness of instant film, but this gives me a starting idea of the effect it’s creating. I can imagine the rest. As for double exposures, I’m not great at them yet but I am interested in improving my skills. The Nons Instant back makes it stupid simple to learn. Just wind and shoot as many times as you want, eject when finished. What more can you ask? 

Funny enough I haven’t even tested the Nons Instant back with a flash yet, but I know it will work since I know my camera works. To be honest, after using the back for a few hours, I could care less about flash photography. This thing is so damn fun! It fills the exact niche I was looking for, but more importantly, it brought renewed energy to my photography. I have already lined up a few shoots as an excuse to shoot with it more. With the cost of Instax square being roughly the same cost per shot (or cheaper) than 120 film, I suspect I will be using this a lot more going forward. Another paintbrush. 

10/10 product. My niche needs are filled and I no longer lust for FP100C. Future shoots with this back can be seen on my website & instagram.

* I wanted to briefly add that Nons has since launched preorders for an updated version of this instant back including a spacer for no black borders. This is an awesome addition for people who want that, but having to toggle between the two setups when shooting a session is too fiddly for me. Part of why I love this adapter so much is it really is that I can go between 120 backs and instant back with ease. I don’t mind the black frame around the image and plan of getting black instax for paid gigs to hide this effect. 

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