In the 1990s, when brick-sized zoom compacts ruled the streets, the Leica Mini 3 slipped into the scene like a stealthy haiku—small, poetic, and disarmingly brilliant. Priced between 400–400–800 (2024 USD) today, this 180g plastic-and-glass gem is the Mini Cooper of film cameras: unpretentious, joyful, and engineered for spontaneity. Forget clunky SLRs—this is photography’s answer to a perfectly folded origami crane.
I used to have a beautiful dream of making everyone I photographed look more beautiful than they really were. Achieving this is actually not difficult with Kodak Proimage film, which is excellent for capturing portraits with warm, healthy-looking skin tones. What’s more, this film is also reasonably priced!
A good portrait film should have several key features, such as warm tones that whiten the skin, fine grain that enhances detail, and excellent exposure latitude that allows for shallow depth of field. In all these aspects, Kodak Proimage performs exceptionally well. Kodak is renowned for its mastery of color, especially when it comes to capturing skin tones. The colors in Proimage are harmonious and transparent, creating a peaceful and comfortable atmosphere.
One of the outstanding qualities of Proimage is its well-balanced colors that never overpower the subject, resembling the soft hues of watercolor paintings. The colors are transparent and vibrant without being oily, reminiscent of a jar of colorful candies. Besides portraits, Proimage is also perfect for capturing landscapes and street scenes, creating a transparent and watercolor-like feel. Street scenes captured with Proimage exude a peaceful and calming ambiance, which is quite different from the vibrant and colorful look of Kodak Ultramax 400.
While Proimage’s ISO 100 film is ideal for capturing images in bright daylight, it can also be used at night with good results, thanks to its professional-grade quality and high tolerance for different lighting situations. Nonetheless, given its ISO 100 rating, it’s still advisable to use it during daytime shoots whenever possible.
Kodak proimage 100
flesh-tone reproduction, color accuracy, and saturation.
Intended for room temperature storage.
Excellent latent-image keeping characteristics.
Printing characteristics similar to those of Kodak gold films.
The film of choice for portrait and social photographers.
