Photography

As an alternative to buying your own printer, if you can cope with the delay, there's many firms out there that will do really nice prints from digital photos at surprisingly low costs, delivered pretty fast.

Give how much I've wasted on unused colours of ink and printers just breaking entirely, that is how I now do the few photos I want hard copies of.

In passing, if taking shots to record precise colours (you mention glazes), I hope you've worked out you want some known colour reference cards or the like in every shot - nothing, whether digital or film, is going to give you accurate colours or luminance without post-processing.

You didn't really give a use case beyond taking lots of photos. With that in mind maybe get a Instax printer. Use any camera you like, take as many pictures as you want, edit if necessary and print your favorites. Yes you will be using the same $2/print but now you get more control over what gets printed. There are even some higher end Instax cameras that have an SD card slot that allow you to do everything in one device that keep in line with the retro Polaroid aesthetic if that's what you're after.

I'm with the others on this. Your stated use cases are in conflict with each other. Instant printers and taking zillions of comparative pictures, especially under controlled conditions, are not two things that go hand in hand. Do you actually need your prints to be instant? Otherwise, a regular digital camera will be significantly cheaper to run (i.e., free) and much nicer to use. All of the instant printer cameras, even the hybrid digital ones, are oriented at Polaroid style happy-snaps and offer very limited controls, typically no adjustable zoom whatsoever, and on the cheaper end also have questionable optics.

I mean, you're not carrying your scrapbook around with you, are you?

Or are you?

There's probably no need to go as far as a full prosumer DSLR or mirrorless body, but even a basic current point-and-shoot model from any of the big names like Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Pentax, etc. should probably do you if you want a dedicated cameara. Smartphones ate the entire low end point-and-shoot market so what's left over these days are all models that are thoroughly competent. What many of those will provide you over and above your phone's camera, for instance, is likely to be a significant zoom range (the humble Canon Powershot SX740HS has an 35mm equivalent zoom range of a rather absurd 24-960mm) and better light gathering capability, much better optics, in many cases the ability to focus much closer to the objective lens, and at least some modicum of manual control if you want to dabble in that sort of thing. You can also stick it on a tripod and lock its exposure settings to some known value if you need to take a bunch of comparative photos of a series of objects.

Pair this with a photo printer you can leave at home. A dye sublimination photo printer also does not produce output that is cheap, per se, but the results should be comparable to commercial photo prints and certainly stand up better to age than Polaroid style instant photos. Dye sub printers have ribbon cartridges that are storage stable unlike inkjet printers and produce extremely consistent results. You can choose which photos to print and which not to, and also if you put a little time into it you can choose the size of your print or, if you're keeping them small as stated, cram multiple photos into one print to reduce your costs and then cut them up to put in your scrapbook afterwards. Instant print cameras can only produce one size of physical output.

These days there is very little call for using film or instant-prints other than for hipster purposes, or if you are a specific type of nerd. This is valid in its way, but there's a reason digital crushed the entire photography market the exact nanosecond it managed enough resolution to be a viable replacement for film.

https://youtu.be/lSwqx-xiUhs

Shoot digital, print cheap n small on a canon selphy

All film is going to be expensive, especially instant developing cameras because of the extra technology in both the film and camera.

You can save money by going black/white or by getting a normal film camera. The film market is picking up at the moment so there are more options available if you look around, but 90% of film is still made by about 2 companies.

I would suggest a half frame camera because that will double the number of pictures you can take per roll of film and if they're only going to be small you won't notice any quality drop.

Buy thermal print camera on Temu. Printing for free. It's crap, but results look cool sometimes.