Polaroids: technique, do's and don'ts

Polaroids in general work well for abstraction and double-exposures - they already have a softness and colour-palette films generally lack. Pinholing with a Polaroid is fun, but a bit pricey due to the chanciness (and colour casts are terrible with minute-plus exposures)

In the 3x4 and 4x5 version of Polaroid, there's a tremendous 3000 ISO black & white film. Beautiful tonality, nice grain. I use it in a 1920-era Polaroid Land Camera that was converted to take modern Polaroid pack films, 3000 just barely gives me a workable shutter speed with the antique lens.

Consumer Polaroids with flash still look better to my eye than all the club photographers you see online losing digital. Better skin tones, not as harsh.

http://www.geocities.jp/odessa_istanbul/Resources/tarkovskyinstant2web.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a393/lostmesa/tark33334pag.jpg

http://coincidences.typepad.com/still_images_and_moving_o/images/tark3473792pag.jpg

ihttp://products.consumerguide.com/media/frontend/productImages/0/3/66611110028703-large-Polaroid-One.jpg

It should work with the 600-format Polaroid film sold at your nearest supermarket or big box. It won't work with some types of Polaroid film (peel-aparts that are generally only available at camera shops, whatever weird little formats they still sell/make).

http://flickr.com/images/spaceball.gif

So I read somewhere that Polaroid will stop producing films pretty soon. Anybody heard this?

i hope not! altho i guess you'll still be able to get it from ebay for quite a while/?

Contrary to Outkast's advice, there is no need to 'shake it'.

Yeah, Polaroid is shutting down their film production operation, and will focus on digital cameras, printers, and televisions. They'll make film for another year only, while they consider licensing other companies to manufacture "Polaroid" film.

polaroid? more like pwn3daroid

http://www.nu.nl/news.jsp?n=1430884&c=30 (dutch, no prob for baaderonixx i guess)

So they'll shut down factories in the Netherlands, Mexico and the US 'cause they stop producing the instant films. Availability is garuanteed into 2009 and they hope to sell the technology to another firm.

so stupid

that's pretty weak. although i haven't used it in awhile i love my Holga with the polaroid back.

I've been thinking about buying a polaroid camera for a while now and this thread has spurred me. Any advice and/or models to look out for on ebay? Are there any models who's film has long since been discontinued?

Love how much that second Tarkovsky shot (the dog) looks like something out of Stalker.

There's Fuji-branded Polaroid-compatible film available - but I'm not sure if Polaroid makes it and sells to them, or if Fuji rolls their own.

there are two different kinds of Polaroid cameras that you can still get film for, nate:

those that take 600-film (kind you see in grocery stores) - all the basic viewfinder/no controls cameras, some fancier cameras that used to be produced back in the day (search for Polaroid SLR on Ebay)

SX-70 cameras were popular for their color palette and for manipulating, but they discontinued the actual SX-70 film and now you can only get overpriced 600-film repackaged to work with them. Avoid these.

Then you have peel-apart packfilm cameras - 6xx film - B&W or color, fast or slow. You take the shot, manually pull the film through the roller, wait however long it tells you, and then peel them apart. B&H list of peel-apart packfilm

There's also individual sheet film made to work with 4x5 cameras (pinhole, view cameras, etc.) that's gotten too rich for my blood lately.

There are a lot of older Polaroids that no longer have film made for them, so you want to make sure that whatever you're looking at one that takes one of these films. The Land List is the best resource for looking up models and what kind of film they take.

Pawn shops are a good place to find these.

So I took the plunge and got this Supercolor 635 for £10 on ebay!

http://www.kameramuseum.de/1polaroid/supercolor-635.jpg