I am sure that I am not alone being excited when Instax Square was announced, hoping that there would quickly come a back for Hasselblad cameras. I love shooting my Hasselblad 501c and I love shooting instax, i was really looking forward to someone making a back that could combine the two.

While a few people did make them, there were hurdles to jump over to get them to work properly, such as putting a spacer between the finder and the body itself, causing the user to lose infinity focus. There was, or is, someone making a cnc aluminum (I think) back that was wildly out of my price range, as well.

Being impatient, I decided to try to create my own, starting with the Instant Magny, which adapted Instax Square to 35mm cameras. I purchased just the film unit itself. This turned out to be close to impossible, as the internal drive gear/motor that ejects the film was placed forward of the film plane, making adapting it to a Hasselblad almost impossible.

Enter NONS. Nons has various SLR cameras that shoot Instax Mini and Instax Square; they are no stranger to creating well built equipment that uses Instax film. I was really hoping that they would come out with an Instax square back for the Hasselblad, as they seemed to have the most expertise in making Instax centered equipment. Sure enough, they announced the Instax Square back in August of 2023. They did a pre-order which, I missed out on. I kept an eye (both eyes, actually) on their page, hoping to snag on.

Speaking with a friend in November, I mentioned it, went to show him the website and BOOM, they were available for order! I bought one on the spot, asking price is $279.00 with shipping. I believe it showed up in two weeks or so (from Hong Kong).

The Back

Now that I’ve got all that rambling backstory out of the way, let’s flapjaw about the actual back. It takes instax square film, USB-C charging for an internal battery, has a darkslide with holder in the back side, and has an LCD screen that gives you your remaining film count as well battery level.

The unit has a power switch as well as a button to press and hold to eject the film. There is also a release catch on the top to remove the back from your camera, or in my case, from my camera. It is not a 3D printed product and feel pretty robust. Maybe it is injection molded.

The simple steps to use the back are as follows:

Install film
Turn on
Eject dark slide
Mount back
Remove dark slide
Shoot you lil image
Press and hold eject button
Wait patiently for the image to develop to find out you aren’t a good photographer

The big selling point of this back is that it you do not have to adjust the focus screen to get correct focus, as you do with other backs. The price point is good for what it is, other backs I have found go from around $450-$1000, which is way out of my budget.

A few things I have noticed about this back in its use so far: You cannot advance the camera itself when the dark slide is inserted, as the gears for the Hasselblad back are on that side of the camera and smash into the dark slide.

A few times, I have had to firmly press onto the back of the back while ejecting the film for the film eject hook to catch the film and eject it. This caused a few destroyed frames while I figured out what was going on. It has not happened since the original pack that I shot.

The film ejects from the side instead of the top, most likely because of the hooks on the back that connect the back. Given that the Hasselblad is a square frame camera, and Instax square is also square, I just rotate it 90 degrees and shoot it so that the film ejects up, meaning that the photo looks like a normal Polaroid/Instax.

Final Thoughts

I am really impressed with this back. It is well made and well designed. Its solid construction makes me confident in its longevity, as I am not gentle with my gear. The images it produces are perfectly fine for what they are: pocket sized instant photos. I plan on using this while traveling to give people portraits of themselves after I take a portrait on film. I’ll also be able to use it to test exposure, should I want to get into shooting with flash. Money well spent.