Polaroid Lovers Try To Revive Its Instant Film

Maximum Prophet nods a NY Times piece on a Dutch group living the retro dream: they are trying to bring back Polaroid film. This group has the machinery to make the film packs, but needs to recreate the chemicals. Polaroid Inc. stopping making the specialized chemicals years ago, after having stockpiled what they would need for their last production runs. "They want to recast an outdated production process in an abandoned Polaroid factory for an age that has fallen for digital pictures because they think people still have room in their hearts for retro photography that eschews airbrushing or Photoshop. 'This project is about building a very interesting business to last for at least another decade,' said Florian Kaps, the Austrian entrepreneur behind the effort [in Enschede, The Netherlands]. 'It is about the importance of analog aspects in a more and more digital world. ... If everyone runs in one direction [i.e. digital photography], it creates a niche market in the other.'"

Comments

Polaroids are cool

[orta]

I love the instant feedback you can get just watching it soak up the sun before seeing just how truely bad your photography is. I've gone through 3 cameras, fun times. It'd be nice to see if these guys get anywhere.

Re:They're called digital cameras

[stonecutter2]

A piece of instant film could be handed directly over to a friend or relative without further hassle. Digital cameras still require you to take the time to get to a computer and do something with the picture via the memory card or the camera itself. Instant sharing isn't as simple or direct as snapping the picture and handing it to someone, like with a Polaroid. Although being able to see if it was a "bad picture" was also handy, I think the coolest thing was the instant gratification factor that digital cameras still don't quite possess.

Duh?

[sexconker]

"If everyone runs in one direction [i.e. digital photography], it creates a niche market in the other."

Uh, no, not if EVERYONE runs in one direction.
Either way, it's pretty much a retarded business decision. Let's bring back those cameras that used 35 mm film AND showed you an (estimated) instant view of it on an LCD.

How about those cameras that saved to floppies?

RETRO COOL AMIRITE?

Properties of Polaroid films

[Animats]

Polaroid film had some unusual properties. For one thing, it's grainless. Unlike silver-based films, Polaroid film itself potentially has detail down to the molecular level. Most of Polaroid's own cameras didn't have good enough optics to take full advantage of this, but there were Polaroid films for view cameras which did.

Re:Properties of Polaroid films

[pz]

Polaroid film had some unusual properties. For one thing, it's grainless. Unlike silver-based films, Polaroid film itself potentially has detail down to the molecular level.

Huh? Polaroid film was, like nearly every other film, based on silver halide particles. The major difference between Polaroid's instant film cameras and standard 126 / 35mm / etc cameras was that the imaging surface was the same as the viewing surface so that there was no enlargement process. With 126 / 35mm / etc cameras, the imaging surface is smaller, often much smaller, than the viewing surface, so that as the negatives are enlarged when printed, the grain is made visible. If you view a 35mm negative without enlargement (for the sake of argument, let's say you view a 35mm positive, or slide, which has a conceptually easier image to understand) it will appear grainless. If you take a medium format camera and put slide film in it, you can take wonderful shots that are viewable without magnification that also appear grainless. Conversely, if you optically enlarge a Polaroid instant print you will most definitely see grain.

It has nothing to do with the graininess of the film, but whether it is enlarged before viewing. Polaroids are a large enough imaging surface that they do not require enlargement. That's why Polaroids lack apparent grain.

[ Polaroid developed some awe-inspiring technology to make the instant color print possible and a heapful of associated patents. Is it me, or are the patents we hear about these days -- say a regex to validate SSNs -- pitiful in comparison? ]

Other purposes: scientific devices

[getuid()]

Right now (as in: this very moment) I'm using an x-ray Laue diffraction machine to orient a set of crystals at a given angle. The machine is probably 30 years old, but other than that, it works just great.

This step is crucial in order to permit further experiments I need to do. The problem: I still have approximately about 60 instant-films from Polaroid left ("Type 57" or "Type 53"). But they are discontinued, so when they're gone, there will be none. It's very difficult to get these (actually, it took me more than 6 months of waiting time to get 160 of them), and the only option is to buy another Laue diffraction machine to replace the one we have, which is probably going to cost something with 5 trainling zeros.

Now if somebody was to take over production of "Polaroid Type 57" instant films (they are used for instant photography aswell), that'd solve the problem without us having to spend several hundres of thounsands of euros.

The "normal" polaroid pictures (i.e. those a mere mortal used to take during a holiday) are not exatcly the same as Type 57, but I'll go on a limb here and assert the technology required to manufacture them is similar... so I, for one, welcome our new retro-acting, Polaroid-instant-film-manufacturing overlords :-)

Re:Large format photography

[badasscat]

Polaroids can still be useful for previewing exposures in large-format photography, which is still a film world. They simply don't make 4x5" digital sensors, period.

They were also still in wide use up until the very end in the film industry, where they were used both for location scouting and for continuity. It is simply *not* more convenient to take a bunch of pictures with a digital camera, go back to the office and print them out, *then* put those printouts in a binder than it is to just take a bunch of photos and stick them in a binder immediately so anyone can see them. Even if you have a small digital printer that you bring with you, that's still an extra step, not to mention the time and effort it takes to hook up the printer and then print out the photo.

Of course, that is what the industry does these days, but they are still not particularly happy about it.

Hello? It's about ART not TECH...

[kaizendojo]

The reasoning behind this has nothing to do with efficiency, quality, etc. it's about artistic sensibility. For the same reason people love the fixed focus Lomo Cameras. Many of these photos are slightly blurry, over saturated and many of them hang in galleries and museums or are featured in priceless private collections. Poloroid film has a similar quality to it and can be quite effective in the right hands. It tends to shift to red and yellow casts which endow the subject with an instant retro look and feel.

Sorry, but some times, technology ISN'T the most important consideration. I own about 4 of the old bellows rangefinder models and would love to see film become available for them. Right now they are just art/conversation pieces; I imagine if I could CREATE art pieces using them, it would be invigorating. Not being able to "fix it in the mix" with Photoshop would force me to work harder in composition and choice of subject at the time of the shot.

Missing In Action: The Giant Polaroid

[mpapet]

Few of you probably know of the giant portrait camera(s) Polaroid built many years ago but I'm sure you have viewed images taken from them. This is probably the last, good, niche for the instant film process. I will stay consistent to my retro-digital geek cred and inform the ignorant that digital capture lacks cinematic quality. In 10 words or less, flesh tones+lighting reproduction are not as appealing and generally impossible to reproduce.

http://www.bwphotopro.com/Site/Trausch.html

I imagine in about a decade a 'brilliant' photographer will 'discover' the cinematic qualities of film after the average consumer is already used to mega-pixel digital cameras and low-res output devices producing cartoon-like images.

They should abandon their small camera dream and go giant format. I know it sounds crazy, but the artist set will demand it when they see a great print that can't possibly be had in the same amount of time with digital. High-quality opticskk are most likely to be available at the giant-size too.

That's my lunatic rant for the day.