Enter the Kodak Pro Image 100

Back around the time I picked up the Kodak HD 400, I snagged a 5 roll pack of recently expired Kodak Pro Image 100…

In short, despite the dramatic convex curl to the negatives, this is some of the best film I’ve used: great color, great skin tones, very low grain, just an absolute pleasure, and I’m very tempted to snag a decent quantity more and put it in the freezer for a project or something. It’s really that good.*

MashaAllah.

So my darling, adorable wife and I paid a visit to her cousin’s house for lunch one afternoon, actually, I guess right after visiting the Arboretum, maybe… no, no. My memory is faulty. We went to Mustang’s after going to check out the Nebraska Furniture Mart up on 121 and picking up a new coffee table (finally, and what a strange experience… bought inside, paid for, given a receipt with a number on it, then told to drive around the back, call the number into a drive-through speaker thing, and pull into a loading bay for a couple of guys to bring the table out and shove it in the back: what will Warren Buffet buy next?), so that would be the Saturday that Spring Break started, I guess, before any of the walks around Dallas or trips anywhere.

Anyway.

No matter what I threw at it, the Pro Image 100 performed beautifully.

Little bit of bromide drag there, guess my agitation was a bit too vigorous, but still, just look at that color, and the relatively low grain. SubhanAllah.

Here’s a 100% crop of the above, just to peep that smooth grain…

And that’s even home-developed, probably too hot, probably too-vigorously agitated, probably all kinds of other small errors made. SubhanAllah. Beautiful film.

That’s probably the best shot of Mustang’s bunny that I’ve made yet. MashaAllah.

I can’t say enough good about this film, really. Hit up the ‘bay and grab some. Maybe shoot a few (dozen) rolls my way.

The next morning, I was just hot to get through the roll… I’d forgotten the Pro Image was loaded, and just wanted to clear the FG out and get some other films into it. I burned a bunch of frames, and God willing, I won’t make that mistake again.

Still, even burning through film, occasionally something decent comes out, and it really helps if you’re using a really decent film.

So that’s it for the Pro Image for awhile. I have 4 rolls in the fridge, and they’re going to stay there for awhile, until I have some good reason—a vacation, maybe, a well-defined project, etc.—to use it. Good stuff.

It does tend to develop a convex curl to it, but I’ve recently discovered that if you cut the developed negatives, sleeve them, and then put them between heavy photography books for a couple of days, the warp disappears and you wind up with some reasonably flat negatives.

GoGo.

*I hesitate, though, since the refrigerator currently has 30 rolls of color negative, 7 rolls of slide, and 14 rolls of black & white… But Pro Image 100 just is that good, and most of the other Color Negative is unknown to me and hand-rolled… Let me wait a day or to and think on it. The Buy Now button’s call is a bit too strong at present.