Ask Florian Kaps of the Impossible Project

The Impossible Project, first mentioned here in 2009, has a goal that might be quixotic, but (despite the name) is looking ever more possible, after all: to bring back film for the millions of Polaroid instant cameras that have mostly become paperweights in the wake of the near-total discontinuation of instant film. This takes a sort of modern alchemy; the chemistry of instant film is tricky, and the knowledge had been dying out quickly. The Impossible team members didn't start from nothing, though: besides hiring a core of former Polaroid employees, they bought part of the former production facility in Enschede, the Netherlands, as well as production equipment. Now you can ask project founder Dr. Florian Kaps about the technical hurdles the project faces, as well as the motivations that led him to take on such a task. Note; though it's not all in stock right now, the project has successfully created various kinds of instant film, both monochrome and color. (If you have multiple unrelated questions, please post them separately.)

Comments

Re:Florian

[hairyfeet]

Kinda sad they don't know the difference between Florian KAPS and florian MUELEER, I guess everyone that is named Steve better have an umbrella handy in case a FLOSSie troll start flinging poo at them because he shares the same first name as the head of "the company that shall not be named". I swear everytime I think /. has reached the absolute peak of batshit then someone shows up with a tanker full of crazy and blows my scale all to hell.

As for TFA, here is a crazy question.....why? Wouldn't it be smarter if you wanted to save all those Polaroid cameras to just develop a CMOS sensor that would fit in the old film slot and let you convert it to digital? I mean we have adapters to let you play MP3s through a cassette slot, so why not a CMOS that turns an analog into a digital?

it just seems to me to be a better long term solution than trying to keep a funky film format alive. Sure they were cool back in the day but IIRC their shelf life wasn't great, and I wouldn't be surprised if the process to make the film didn't leave you ended up with some seriously nasty toxic wate from the manufacturing process. After all when the film was designed we didn't really know how dangerous a lot of those chemicals were and were big on a "better living through chemistry" kick. So unless they are gonna charge $100 a pack or make it in a third world hellhole where they can just dump the waste in the local river i bet its gonna be a money bleeding operation. If it wasn't Polaroid would still be making it now wouldn't they?