Film Friday - July 12, 2024. Fuji Instax Wide Color

Amazingly enough, not only is instant film not dead, it is actually thriving. That is in large part due to the popularity of the Fuji Instax films, so it is time for us to give one of those films the Film Friday treatment. Here goes!

Fuji Instax Wide cameras and film were first introduced in 1999, a year after the company first launched the Instax Mini. Fuji had an arrangement of sorts with Polaroid, and based their Instax films off of Polaroid’s SX-70 films. But Fuji went about it a little differently. Instax films expose through the back of the film, meaning the cameras don’t need bulky mirrors to reverse the images. Additionally, Fuji opted to include both the pressure plate and batteries in the camera as opposed to the film cartridge, making those film cartridges significantly less expensive. By 2015, after a somewhat slow start, Fuji Instax cameras were outselling Fuji digital cameras and had seen a global surge in popularity, mostly driven by the Mini but still including the Fuji Instax Wide.

So why so popular? There are a few reasons that Instax film and cameras have caught on. The biggest is the image quality. Instax film performs incredibly well and very consistently. Instax images are bright, saturated, and crisp. And they produce these results with every shot. Early on, Instax’s only real competitor was the Impossible Project film which was known for having muted, washed-out colors and for being incredibly finicky and not always producing great images. With Instax film you never have such concerns.

Every staff birthday involves a birthday portrait and for quite some time now we have been using a Fuji Instax Wide camera and film to capture those moments. Note the wall of Instax Wide images in the background.

Many of our staff use the Fuji Instax Wide, but Peter in particular has owned one for you years and used it to make portraits of his friends at parties.

Fuji Instax film is an ISO 800 film, so it is nice and fast. The cameras include flashes but the film’s high speed gives it great versatility, making it akin to the Polaroid 600 series of film and cameras. Instax really is a carry-everywhere, go-anywhere type of film. You can use it for candid portraits, landscapes, street scenes, indoors, outdoors, weddings, bar mitzvahs, you name it. Furthermore, it has about a five minute developing time, which is pretty dang fast as far as instant films go. A million different chemical reactions occur right there in your hand as you want that freshly exposed Instax image develop.

Many of our staff own and use Instax cameras and it seems like the majority of them use the Wide over the Mini or Square. This popularity seems to be based on the size of the Instax Wide image, which is a pleasing 3.9in by 2.4in image surrounded by a white border (the aspect ratio is designed to emulate the golden ratio). While Instax Mini users prefer the size of that camera, most Instax enthusiasts agree that they like the size of the Instax film the best.

How about a couple more examples.

Peter and friend. Several of these Instax images are many years old and have held up incredibly well. The film is very stable and stores well after exposure.

That is mostly all we have to say about Fuji Instax. It may not seem as much as some of the other films we have featured but don’t let that fool you. Instax Wide film is a great film and in terms of saturation and “pop”, really delivers. Both the cameras and film are economical as well, so it is a very viable system to get into and work with regularly. Plus you get the benefit of producing a unique original with every shot.

If you haven’t tried Fuji Instax Wide yet, click here for our current selection of Fuji Instax Wide films.

How about a few more examples to close this out?