Slashdot Mirror
FujiFilm Discontinues Last Film For Millions of Polaroid Cameras (fastcompany.com)
harrymcc writes: Polaroid stopped making film for its instant cameras in 2008. Thanks to Polaroid-compatible film from FujiFilm, many fans of instant photography kept on shooting with classic models such as the Big Shot, which Andy Warhol used in the 1970s. But FujiFilm has announced that it's discontinuing production of peel-apart instant film, which means that an array of cameras which survived Polaroid's own exit from instant photography will finally be orphaned. Could this be a job for the Impossible Project?
No. No one but Fuji was making peel-apart filn for po!aroid Land cameras. Impossible Project is producing integral film for polaroid 600, sx70 cameras. Fuji was producing peel apart film, and Instax film for its own range of instant cameras that have nothing to do with old polaroid. The new polkaroid cameras are essentially using Instax technology. This is the end for polaroid transfers. You might see it in film emulation applications, instagram like frames, but the real deal is now history. Sadly.
Polaroid instant cameras were convenient, but that's about it. If the fixative wasn't applied just right - even in the auto-fixing cameras, you'd get sloppy consistency, fading colors and off-hues.
Within a very short distance of home - and many tourist destinations - are places where I can jack my phone in, upload pictures and have plenty of good-quality photos to share around within an hour. And one thing no instant-shot camera could provide: multiple copies.
If you're really into print-on-the-spot, as I recall, Polaroid even has a portable photo printer and it's probably not a whole lot slower than timing the developer on an instant-shot film.
If their efforts end up anything like their non-peel-apart lineup, then it's truly doomed. I have an old Land camera and a 600 series camera that uses the integrated battery pack in the cartridge (and develops in open air). The film from Impossible for the 600 is dreadful. I've gone through 3-4 cartridges and got nothing but a blurry, faded-looking mess. At best.
You also can't point/shoot/eject/watch-it-develop like you could the original Polaroid. The Impossible film remains sensitive to light for at least 10-15 seconds if not longer, requiring hacks and tricks to eject it into either a box or under shade to make it develop properly at all. A real pain, all for vintage pictures that look like they're 40 years old the minute they fully develop.
A shame really, as they have been at it for quite a number of years now. I would have hoped they could have recreated a more faithful and reliable facsimile of the original film. I know some people have reported good results, but I was never able to come close
Therein lies the problem, not every market niche is profitable.
This is not a niche that is growing, a company here is not investing in a future hit. If the remaining users aren't willing to support an entire production line that line goes away. Fuji's exit says one of two things: 'They needed the money invested in that line for something else that was more profitable.' or 'The line was no longer profitable and never would be.'
What they have there are some old 600 cameras that work with film made by the Impossible Project, and a rebadged Fuji Instax camera that works with Fuji Instax film. Polaroid apparently has a rebadged version of that, too. The stuff they're talking apart in the article is what's generally referred to as peel-apart film or packfilm, for 100-series Polaroid cameras like the Polaroid Automatic 100, 250, 360 etc etc... They were a lot of them. Also, you can use the stuff on old press cameras, like a Graflex or Linhof 4x5. The pictures generally are of better quality than what you'd get from the Instax or 600-series integral-film. Obviously, I'm a fan, but this was a long time coming. They discontinued the 4x5 stuff years ago, leaving only the smaller FP-3000b (a great black & white instant film) and FP-100c (the color stuff in the article). Then last year, they stopped making FP-3000b. I was hoping that we'd get a few more years of FP-100c because of some sort of imagined manufacturing synergy with Fuji's Instax film (which remains very popular, it would seem), but alas! It wasn't to be. It's the end of an era, I guess; but film shooters like myself should be used to this sort of thing by now.