Canon - Ivy CLIQ2 Instant Film Camera - Charcoal

nice size, easily slips into your pocket on trips. the camera quality is pretty bad, and that’s coming from a professional photographer. the zink printer depreciates in quality drastically. my first few prints were alright but they’re coming out basically unusable now. buy an instax instead

The Canon Ivy Cliq 2 is a portable printer/point and shoot camera all in one. It features a Zink (zero ink) 2x3” instant printer. The camera comes with 10 sheets of the paper in the box, with paper readily available on the market (at around $0.50/print). The camera has an expandable memory storage slot for microSD cards (up to 256GB). The Cliq 2 has similar features to the previous generation but has seen a number of tweaks. Gone are the duplicate/reprint and the aspect ratio buttons, and instead are replaced by filters and borders. The loss of the aspect ratio is minor, but the reprint is noticeable loss. The Cliq 2’s filter button allows you to toggle between a regular exposure, vivid (brighter colors, softer image), and B&W. The border button literally adds a border to the photo to give it a polaroid look. The Cliq 2 is pretty similar to the last generation. Both feature 700mAh rechargeable batteries, 5MP sensors, manual viewfinder, and an auto flash. That’s really where the similarities end though. The Cliq 2 has a smaller aperture (F2.2 vs 2.4) which helps reduce blur at the expense of image appearing darker. It seems they have tried to balance this with a higher ISO range for dealing with lower light situations. The 2 also features a wider angle lens (2.6 vs 24mm focal length) making group selfies easier to pull off. The printer also received an upgrade. Print times remain the same (50 sec), but the print resolution has increased from 314x500 dpi to 314x600 dpi. Lastly the most notable upgrade is the large selfie mirror that surrounds the camera lens – this feature was originally on available on the Cliq+. The microSD utilization also appears to be different. From what I could find the original Cliq didn’t allow you to take pictures if you ran out of paper. That seems bonkers to have such a limitation. The Cliq 2 does not have that issue at all. If you run out of paper you can keep snapping away like you would with a point and shoot. If you still have paper in the camera but don’t want an image printed, you can pop the paper out, close the cover, and take your picture. This image will be stored on the SD card, but not printed. To that point you can only print pictures as you take them – you cannot print from storage. Also if you use a filter or add a border the camera stores 2 files on the memory card. One file is the image that would be printed with the filter/border, and the other file is the untouched version. You can snap away in B&W and still have the color version available. The modified images start with IME_1XXX.jpg while the standard versions are named IMG_1XXX.jpg. This is pretty nice to be honest. Image quality for the camera is average. You need to keep a steady hand and avoid shooting moving subjects, and then you get a fairly clear image. The 5MP resolution is nothing to write home about, but the goal is to print a 2X3” image, so the resolution doesn’t need to be really high. The camera struggles in low light situations, so they really should be avoided. The B&W filter does a nice job in medium light, but gets a bit washed out in super bright lighting situations. In medium/low light I feel like your best chance at a good image is the B&W filter. The standard and vivid filters both look good in medium to bright lights. The colors popped more in vivid when I used it on an overcast day versus the standard. The vivid filter takes some sharpness out of the images and leaves them a bit softer. So what is the purpose of this camera? I set out to find it over the last few days and I think I did. I went to 2 outdoor outings over the weekend. An outdoor fall party with my kids and their grandparents, and the other with my GF at a brewery – doing our best to stay distanced though. At the fall party I took a couple pics of my kids with some Halloween decorations and was able to give the prints to Grandma for her scrap book – the peel and stick photo paper came to good use here. I took pictures of the other kids and gave parents the prints, and people seemed to enjoy it and find it to be neat. The other outing was a doggo costume contest at brewery. We brought our dog in a pirate outfit and had a number of kids coming over to pet him. I took a pic using the selfie mirror of the GF and I and waited for it to print. The kids saw it print out and asked if I could take their pictures with my dog so they could have prints as well. They were super excited and it made their day to get the little prints to take home. So what did I learn from this? This camera is a really neat novelty. People at parties love it, kids love it, and I got to spread some joy. Would I use this camera day to day – no because my smart phone is more convenient. But that’s not what this is for. I have really nice Canon mirrorless EOS and Nikon mirrorless that get pulled out only when the occasion is right - even though they are my best cameras. The Cliq 2 is similar in that regard – the occasion has to be right to use it. If you use this as a basis for explaining the camera then it becomes easier to see its value. This is a fun camera that takes decent pictures and prints them out on the go. Based on this view point I think it’s a good platform. It has some drawbacks – I wish the reprint button was still a thing, viewfinder is a little awkward, no way to cancel a print, and print costs. If you buy this camera with the right intentions I think you would be pleased with how it performs.

This camera is super slim and can fit I’m back pockets. Picture comes out right away. Also you can take selfies.

In the box comes the camera, charging cable, and 10 sheets of its printer paper. It is sleek, lightweight, and smaller than most counterparts. Right away it has a plus, no batteries. This makes it an excellent gift that can be used the same day it’s given without an extra trip for batteries. After no more than a fifteen minute charge time, you’re more than ready to shoot away. The camera itself is easy to use, power button is clearly marked right next to the shoot, buttons to toggle filters and frames are also clearly marked. After you take a photo, wait about four or five seconds as the indicator will begin flashing an array of colors, and the photo will begin audibly printing. It’s a subtle sound, but quite noticeable. If you don’t have anymore paper, do not fret, a standard SD card can be purchased to save any photos you still wish to take, and with the charging cable (or any micro usb) you can connect the camera to a computer to access them. The camera’s quality itself, is a pretty good camera. Taking still photos comes out quite nicely, but if you’re taking photos of moving subjects the camera does not attempt to focus before printing so you may get some blurry images. The vivid setting is as described, a filter that brings out the color in your image, though this setting does sometimes make the image appear less sharp than its original setting. As for the black and white, this setting may be better used for indoors, as the natural sunlight may hit certain surfaces harshly and create sections of bright white on the image that should be darker. But it is still a lovely setting to capture nature and loved ones in. The photos can be printed with or without borders; Without borders produces small pictures that would be nice in a book or even framed with others as a nice collage, and with borders produces photos great for the wall, fridge, or wallet. One last great feature to the photo paper is the sticky backing. Peel the back and stick photos anywhere. Over all, although the quality of the photos are sometime not picture perfect, I would still recommend to friends and family for the size of the camera and the sticky photo paper.

Growing up in the 1980s, we didn’t have the luxury of having a digital camera to carry around in our pockets. In fact, most photos we took had to be processed and we wouldn’t know for sure if the pictures turned out for about a week after we dropped them off. We did, however, have an instant camera that would print photos out from the camera and within about 10 seconds after the photo was pushed out, it was developed. That is what the Canon Ivy Cliq2 reminds me of. The design of the camera is very similar to a slim point and shoot digital camera, but it’s not as heavy. I have to admit that when you hold the camera, it almost feels like a toy. It has a simple layout and only has four buttons (five including the reset button) for operation. To use the camera, you turn it on, snap a photo, and then it prints out automatically. The printer is audible, but not ‘loud’. The camera is rechargeable and uses a Micro USB connection to gain power. This was one of the things I didn’t care for about the camera. I personally feel that Micro USB is ‘old tech’ and that devices should be moving more toward USB-C as a charging option. That said, the port for the Micro USB cable is a bit on the large side. At first glance, I actually thought it was a Mini USB port. Next to that port is a Micro SD Card slot, which can be used to store photos. The camera is only a 5MP camera. Therefore it takes decent photos to capture the moment, but in all honesty, most people’s smartphones have a higher megapixel count than this camera. It’s a fully automatic camera so you don’t really have any control over focus or lighting effects. You can change the photo to black and white or upgrade its basic look by changing the vivid filter settings. You also have the option to add a border if you like. But, since there is no preview option for the photo, you cannot see what the filters might do to the picture before it prints out. Once you print out your photos you can peal to stick the photos with its sticky back. I can see a quick family photo for fun and sticking it to the fridge. My daughter will love this but for me, I am a bit more on the high-end of photography. I shoot with a Canon 5D Mark IV. So it was a bit getting used to when playing with the Ivy The printer portion of the camera can hold up to 10 sheets of its specialty paper (Zink Photo Paper). One set is shipped with the camera, but you can purchase additional packets of the paper. This is the major downside to this camera - the specialty paper. All in all, the Ivy Cliq2 is a fun instant camera to play around with. I could see using this for a variety of things including as a party favor or holiday gift. It’s almost a novelty-style product.

The Canon Ivy Cliq 2 instant camera printer is more of a novelty item than a useful digital camera or adults. The camera itself has a good build quality that does not make it feel too cheap. It reminds me of a hybrid of the first camera my parents bought for me when we were going on vacation just so I would not screw up their SLR camera and a polaroid camera. The camera has an internal rechargeable battery that is charged via the micro usb input at the bottom of the camera. There is also a micro sd slot at the bottom of that camera so that you can save the photos you take in a digital format The camera does not have any digital screen on it so that you can preview the photos prior to printing them. You simply frame the photo in the viewfinder and click the shutter button. The camera does give you a audible sound to indicate that it took a picture. You have the option of printing a photo with no filter, a vivid filter or a black and white filter and with or without a border. The print quality is not going to blow you away however its good enough for the kids to take some fun photos. The 2 X 3 instant photo paper that the camera uses is peel and stick so you can make your own photo stickers. Simply put if you are expecting a great print quality from these photos then you will be disappointed. This is more of a fun novelty item for the kids so they can have the nostalgic feeling of using a polaroid type camera.

Easy to take pictures and print right away or print at a later time

The Canon Ivy Cliq 2 instant film camera will be nostalgic to many of us that grew up with instant cameras. It's also at a price point that makes it affordable as a fun camera for kids or teenagers. If you're looking for a camera that produces really exceptional quality photos though then this camera may not be for you as the print resolution according to Canon is 314x600 dpi with a 5MP camera. The camera itself has no built in storage and so you may want to consider adding a MicroSD memory card (up to 256GB). The battery life is quite good with the ability to take approximately 25 photos between charges and the battery is charged with a Micro USB cable.