Taking photos with Instax Mini

[tsuperman-ed]

Sorry to post such a noob question here.

I've wasted nearly an entire pack of film on my Instax Mini, due to this problem. Not to say that I am a pro photographer- but whenever I look through the viewfinder, focus it on the object nicely and then snap it, the whole photograph comes out wrong. Like the object is more to the left/right instead of middle where I saw it through the viewfinder at.

I did not shake whatsoever, so can anyone help me?

P.S I'm not cocked eye in case you're thinking 'bout that. Heh ^^

Thanks in advance, sorry for the whole chunk above

 

[Iustinus]

this is due to Parallax error becasue ur viewfinder and ur taking lens have a distance in between.
this error become bigger if u shot close subject.
is a common error in rangefinder, TLR and those camera with viewfinder and lens taking seperated. of course some high-end rangefinder like leica got parallax error correction on it's body.
google can tell u more if u wish to know about this Parrallax error.

 

[edarkflame]

this is due to the viewfinder being askew from the lens and film plane. your viewfinder is not like the ones found in dSLRs where mirrors in the camera body are used to bring the image from the lens to the viewfinder i.e. the image you see is the image the lens sees. the instax mini uses a separate lenses for the viewfinder and for image capture.

as said in the previous post, your images will have subjects off-centred when you shoot close-ups. you can prevent this by shifting your focus (from viewfinder) a little to the top-right direction. this needs practise.

 

[huggable]

The design is like a rangefinder, what you see on the viewfinder is not what the camera lens see. There is a parallax difference. In portrait mode, frame the person a little to the right (and higher) in the viewfinder.

 

[tsuperman-ed]

Thanks to all for the replies, solved my problem already. Am waiting to get my new pack of Instax film to try out the shifting to top-right direction. Thanks loads!