Instax Wide Color

Instax Wide arrived in 1999, the year after Fujifilm launched the Mini format. The image area is 99 by 62 millimeters, close in size to a Polaroid SX-70 print but with the longer dimension running horizontal. Fujifilm has manufactured the chemistry continuously since launch, which makes Instax the only mainstream integral instant film still in production from a single original source.

The emulsion is ISO 800, daylight balanced to 5500K, and paired in the pack with the developer pod and receiver sheet for each of ten exposures. Each frame develops in roughly 90 seconds after the rollers crush the pod, with full color rising fastest in the first thirty seconds and the final density settling later. Cold weather slows the process. Below about 5C the chemistry crawls and the print can come out flat. Above 40C the dyes run unpredictably.

Compared to Polaroid's modern i-Type stock, Wide reads sharper, with cleaner highlights and a slightly cooler color cast. Polaroid prints are more atmospheric and forgiving of underexposure. Instax is closer to a daylight color negative response baked into a print. Skin tones come out natural rather than vintage; saturation is moderate rather than punchy.

The cameras that take this film matter as much as the chemistry. The Instax Wide 300 and the newer Wide 400 are the current mass-market options; LomoGraphy's Lomo'Instant Wide gives you actual exposure controls. With any of them, the meter is automatic and the latitude is what it is.

Reciprocity exponent is 1.0. Instax integral chemistry is engineered for fixed short exposure times and Fujifilm does not publish a curve past a second; Zone Light Meter treats the metered time as the shot time. In practical instant-camera use the shutter is rarely open longer than about a second anyway. The bigger exposure variable is usually flash distance rather than reciprocity.