Instax Mini

Fujifilm launched Instax in 1998, and Instax Mini is the small format: a print of 54 by 86 mm with an image area of about 46 by 62 mm. It is the size of a bank card, and the shape is the first thing a viewer recognises.

The film is rated at ISO 800 and the chemistry is modern. Colour is cleaner and more saturated than any Polaroid integral film, and the print holds finer detail. It reads as a current instant picture rather than a nostalgic one.

State the shape and the size. A small portrait format print, 54 by 86 mm, with a narrow white border and a slightly wider strip at the foot. Without the size the model returns a Polaroid square.

Ask for clean bright saturated colour. That is the opposite instruction to the two Polaroid entries, and it is the difference a viewer sees first after the shape.

Skin comes out bright and slightly cool under the flash, clean rather than flattering. Sky clips to white whenever the flash fires, because the camera exposes for the subject. Shadow detail is thin: the background falls away fast and a dark garment loses its folds.

Use it for an event, a photo booth, a guest book, a party wall, or any picture that should read as a print somebody handed over.

Leave it alone when you want age or softness. Instax is clean and modern, and a faded Instax is a contradiction the model will resolve badly.

Polaroid 600 shares the flash and the falloff and nothing else. The Polaroid print is square, its border is wide at the foot, and its colour is muted. The Instax print is a small rectangle with a narrow border, and its colour is clean and saturated.

Cinema publishes Overexposed and Film Grain at /techniques/cinema/, and neither one fits here. Instax clips the background to dark rather than lifting the frame to white, and the print is fine grained, so a grain entry adds a texture the film does not have.

Fujifilm launched Instax in 1998 and the format outlived almost every film it competed with. Sales rose through the 2010s while Fujifilm closed one film line after another, and Instax became the company's main consumer film business. The Mini print, 54 by 86 mm, is now the default shape of an instant picture at a wedding or a party, and the Instax Mini cameras still put a flash on every frame.

The model returns a square Polaroid with a wide white tab. Give the size in millimetres and say a portrait format rectangle with a narrow border.

The second failure is faded muted colour, borrowed from the Polaroid entries. Say clean bright saturated colour, and ban the faded look by name.