I tried instant film photography for the first time at the beginning of the year. I used Instax Mini films and Instax Neo 90 camera and was disappointed with the results I got - all of my test photos were blurry. I examined both the camera and the film packages that were used and concluded that the camera was the weakest part. 

Although most Instax cameras have a contemporary look, they all are fixed-focus, fixed-aperture cameras with automatic shutter speed. Moreover, they are equipped with only the simplest plastic lenses. That fact, combined with the amount of Instax film sales (in 2016 Fuji sold five million Instax cameras), made me conclude sadly: Why do people spend so much money (one Euro per exposure) for photos which are fated to go to the trash the instant they were taken and processed? I can't even imagine the amount of non-recyclable plastic waste these films introduce to the environment. 

Also, I found another source of photo waste - old middle-format cameras like Russian Lubitel (which stands for amateur). Nowadays, if you shoot with middle-format then you can afford a used Hasselblad or Kiev camera, or a Czech Flexaret, and these have either a better design or higher quality. Lubitel was meant to be a mass-market model which, in my experience, resulted in low quality.

Among four Lubitel cameras I obtained for examination and experiments, two had the same problem with their focusing (viewing) lens. The lenses had enormous backlash in their screw threads. The threads are quadruple 0.75 mm pitch and had up to 0.24 mm axial backlash, which resulted in nearly a 30-degree (!) angle backlash. This makes sharp focusing practically impossible. 

Despite the shortcomings, I can't deny that there is definitely something special about instant photography. And so I decided, even if I can't completely solve the issue with photo waste pollution, I can improve the experience for people engaged in instant photography by providing them some direction to take technically better photos.