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Polaroid Can't Compete with Digital Cameras
mobydobius was among several who noted that poloroid can't keep up in the era of digital cameras. They filed for chapter 11, and have a billion dollars of debt. This deal gets them a bit of cash, but none of this seems surprising considering the cost of their instant film. In just a few short years, digital cameras knocked 'em down. There's a lesson here, but I think it's something like "Don't eat the Yellow Snow".
About a year ago I was in a situation were I needed a high quality print (hard copy) quickly. My options:
1. Use my digital camera and buy a photo printer.
2. Buy a polaroid camera and film.
3. Use my conventional camera and get I one hour processing at the drug store down the street.
My evaluation:
1. too expensive >$200 for printer
2. too expensive >$30
3. didn't have my camera with me so bought a disposable for $3.00 and developed for $6.99 (took a 1/2 hour).
Of course, as you scale option 1 would become the winner since polaroid film is (can't quite remember exactly) more than $2 per photo.
I expect that polaroid would still be in business if they got the cost down to about 50 cents per picture and sold disposable cameras. They did market the the fun-shot cameras but these are just plain stupid.
Side Note: I think digital cameras will be the next to go as dv cameras become more main stream. My sony dv camcorder takes as good a still shot as my olympus digital camera and it has that cool night vision.
It's really too bad that polaroid is going out of business (well, filing bankrupt, anyway) because if you ask a lot of photographers, they will tell you that polaroid film has unique and beautiful saturation and color levels. The film often adds a hazy, almost surreal glow to it's pictures, and the photos have a filtered, artistic feel to them. The polaroid 'following' is almost that which is similar to the lomo following - practically a cult.
Personally I think that polaroid cameras, and the entire idea or polaroid pictrures, is also superb in that it can provide you with instant, hard proof of an event. Not to discount the quality of digital photography, but where I work (in the ER of a large hospital) polariod cameras have time and again allowed us to document abuse, sexual abuse, rape, accidents, and other events that would incur an unholy amount of paperwork were we unable to provide visual proof. I can assure you that many a polaroid photo has been used in saving many young girls', battered womens' and childrens' lives. A picture is worth a thousand words, and by being able to provide images of the bruise, wound, or overall condition right before it's covered up in bandages and dressings is important. Another thing that makes them so valuable is that they're point-and-shoot-and-develop; any nurse, doctor or tech can do it. I hope polaroid doesn't stop selling their film, at least!
I'm the unfortunate owner of one of their low-end "Fun! Flash 640SE" cameras.
My complaint with it has nothing to do with the low quality of the images (which look as though they are merely "interpolated" to 640x480 rather than actually BEING 640x480 as advertised) nor the cheap construction - I rather expected both for a ~$80 digital camera.
My complaint is their horrendous support for it. In my specific case, I'd emailed to them asking about protocol specs so that the gPhoto project might be able to put together a working driver. Now, the fact that they would give no useful information is, sadly, not all that unusual, but the form of the response was rather unimpressive. Over a month after sending the email, I got back a medium-sized email in reply. ALL BUT ONE LINE of that email was form-letter "thank you for contacting polaroid blah blah blah". The very first line was the only unique one. It said "that information is not available."
Given that Xirlink actually made the camera core, and there APPEARS to be some sort of business-stifling "Intellectual Property" agreement between Polaroid's digital division and that "ArcSoft" company that makes the obnoxious 'pretty bird' program (I forget the name of the windows 9x-only software - its mascot is a clown-colored bird...) that is supposed to keep it such that only the Polaroid/ArcSoft drivers are able to get to the camera, so I wrote back asking if they meant that they didn't HAVE the information (i.e. that I should contact Xirlink or ArcSoft instead) or that they were not allowed to release it. Over a week later, another one-terse-line-plus-formletter-crap response - "We do not make that information available." (which is not only somewhat rude but as before doesn't even answer the question.)
It was then that I figured they were screwed...if they had no interest in AT LEAST being polite to potential new markets, let alone actually encouraging their development, it seemed pretty obvious that other digital camera companies would roll over them, and, as others have already pointed out in this vein, considering how expensive and low quality their other "instant photograph" products were, that digital cameras would slowly devour that market as they got cheaper, and polaroid would have nothing to fall back on. Nice going, Polaroid.
(On the plus side, last I heard there was some progress in getting recognizeable images from the Polaroid "Fun!" cameras, so maybe I'll be able to actually use mine eventually...More info about the cameras here and, more currently, here.)
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The film for such a monster is exceptionally expensive, but the results are breath taking. I've used polaroid instant film backs for my Medium format and view cameras, which were invaluable in teaching me how to use the cameras effectivly.
Polaroids foray into digital was both ill managed and ill concieved, but to say that Digital has trumped Film is a mistake. It's much more valid to say that overfinancing your company on junk debt is a sure way to bankruptcy. So don't see this as the end of fil, film can do a lot that digital can't do and I'm sure that will be true for some time (10 years+). There isn't a digital camera out there that can do what a view camera can do in competent hands. This is not to dis digital, I love my digital camera with a passion too, but the color reproduction on it (yes, even in tiff mode) is not as nice.
Chris DiBona
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.