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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 "They want to recast an outdated production process in an abandoned Polaroid factory for an age that has fallen for digital pictures because they think people still have room in their hearts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.'"
Part of the advantage of instant film was being able to see how the picture was that instant, thus giving you the ability to retake the picture if you weren't satisfied. Digital cameras, with their screens and additional features, do the same job but do it even better. There's no need for instant film anymore.
"It's a reverse vampire...they....they crave the sun!"
Although the trend is toward easy digital transferring of images, they're usually not that great if taken with cell phones, and digital cameras require an intermediate step to get it to a computer. I remember the days of taking Polaroids of friends, and snapping several so everyone got one. I'm not even sure that most younger folks these days would have even seen a Polaroid "insta-matic" but I bet they'd get a real kick out of them if they did. It was kind of special that you got to shoot the picture and develop it and instantly pass it along/share it with others. I hope they can figure out the chemical process necessary to recreate the film, but maybe Kodak could be persuaded to license the formula to the new manufacturer?
If I were Polaroid, I'd make a system for printing Digital Photos to REAL photo paper, and not using crappy Inkjet or Color Laser, for the home market.
You mean like this product that's been around for years?
Amateur pornographers often used Polaroids to avoid having to develop their film at a store.
Especially useful for test shots with new models/actors. Decent enough results, you don't have to worry about the photomat guy making extra copies and selling them, a lot more cost-effective than contracting out to a more trusted source for developing (since most photos will be trashed / paper clipped to an application for a pro photo/film shoot), and a lot easier to say "here are all the photos" when you land a contract / the model/actor bails out.
Also useful if it's pics of you and your significant others that you don't intend to sell/distribute, and of course, for anything that is super freaky, borderline illegal, or illegal.
Wow, I knew companies were quick to bring new products to market, but 3 minutes later and it's already available on amazon?
Polaroid, color me impressed!
"Don't trust the skull."
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.
Using a digital camera to take a test shot can be useful in the same situation, but that means using a separate camera, from a slightly different angle, potentially different field of view, etc.
Are you adequate?
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 :-)
Saw at bar.
One guy dressed up as Pinocchio, was really well done.
His buddy dressed up as the guy from Memento with a short sleeved white shirt, and black maker tattoos all over his arms and what you could see of his chest.
In the front shirt pocket of his shirt was a photo of his buddy dressed up at Pinocchio.
On the back he had written: "Don't believe his lies!"
Fscking Brilliant! :)
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.