Brick Squad - Polaroid SX-70 + Impossible

[Godfrey]

The SX-70 and Impossible film is so delightfully unpredictable...

Polaroid SX-70 + Impossible Project Color Shade
captured to digital with
Ricoh GXR + A12 50mm Macro and Lightroom 4​

.. and it produces photos that look like nothing else.

thanks for looking, comments always appreciated.

 

[loquax ludens]

I like it. It has a fascinating character and randomness. It's images like this that prompted me to buy an SX-70 and some IP film. However, I'm not getting any images remotely that good in terms of either color or sharpness, so it's been a bit of a disappointment. As for the sharpness, perhaps it's my camera needing some adjustment to the focus mechanism. But I doubt the washed out colors I'm getting are due to the camera.

 

[Godfrey]

I like it. It has a fascinating character and randomness. It's images like this that prompted me to buy an SX-70 and some IP film. However, I'm not getting any images remotely that good in terms of either color or sharpness, so it's been a bit of a disappointment. As for the sharpness, perhaps it's my camera needing some adjustment to the focus mechanism. But I doubt the washed out colors I'm getting are due to the camera.

Can't say about the sharpness ... Polaroid SX70 photos are never "sharp sharp" like 35mm to my eye ... but I don't think there's anything wrong with your film.

My photos are never posted unprocessed; I don't expect what comes out of the camera to be the finished product. As I do with digital cameras, what I record on film is just a starting point.

To produce this photo, I set up my Ricoh GXR with the A12 50mm Macro on a copy stand and photographed the IP image from the SX70, after recording an Xrite Color Checker and white frame for calibration purposes. With camera calibration and white point set by these two calibration frames, this is what the raw image that came out of the SX70 looked like:

086 - Brick Squad - calibrated, unretouched image ​

The finished image has been adjusted and interpreted to resemble what my eye and mind saw when I captured it. Of course the specific peculiarities of the IP Color Shade film transformed it in unpredictable ways beyond that too. 🙂

 

[Godfrey]

Gee I thought the Impossible Project film was nothing but poorly made products cloaked by magnificent marketing....

The Impossible Project film is a very complex attempt to replicate what Polaroid had spent a dozen years and who knows how much money creating, from scratch. It's weird and funky, and often doesn't do what I expect, but to think of it as "poorly made" is unfair. I'm amazed it exists at all, and it is certainly fun to work with, if expensive.

It took a lot of heart and madness to take on replicating SX70 film. Sane people don't do that kind of stuff.

My first three packs of Color Shade film produced very peculiar results, and the developing agent didn't spread evenly as it is supposed to. I thought it was the camera, and called to see if they did refurbishing or service work on the SX70, but they checked my results and the serial number, apologized for the inconvenience, and sent me another set of three film packs free of charge. Weird and funky though it might be, that's good customer service and they mean well by their efforts.

 

[Ezzie]

If only Polaroid had done what Kodak are now trying.

 

[loquax ludens]

Can't say about the sharpness ... Polaroid SX70 photos are never "sharp sharp" like 35mm to my eye ... but I don't think there's anything wrong with your film.

My photos are never posted unprocessed; I don't expect what comes out of the camera to be the finished product. As I do with digital cameras, what I record on film is just a starting point.

To produce this photo, I set up my Ricoh GXR with the A12 50mm Macro on a copy stand and photographed the IP image from the SX70, after recording an Xrite Color Checker and white frame for calibration purposes. With camera calibration and white point set by these two calibration frames, this is what the raw image that came out of the SX70 looked like:

The finished image has been adjusted and interpreted to resemble what my eye and mind saw when I captured it. Of course the specific peculiarities of the IP Color Shade film transformed it in unpredictable ways beyond that too. 🙂

Thanks for the explanation of your process, Godfrey. I might give that sort of process a try then. I was really hoping for good prints directly from the camera, though.

It took a lot of heart and madness to take on replicating SX70 film. Sane people don't do that kind of stuff.

I agree, and I'm glad they were mad enough to try it. I continue to watch for improvement. I'm greatly encouraged that they have made an 8x10 film available. Again, it takes heart and madness...

 

[Godfrey]

Well I didn't read anything about "ejecting the film into the empty, dark film box so it isn't exposed to light" until AFTER I bought the $40 a pack film.... their slick marketing glosses over the outright flaws and the fact that it barely, only sort of works. So I feel like I'm being scammed because they ought to be more explicit that the retail customers are essentially Beta testing the product for them, and it is nothing at all like the consistently professional quality products that Polaroid made. ...

I don't know how you could miss it, or how they could be more transparent about it. See:

http://shop.the-impossible-project.com/allabout/colorshade/

It says to shade the film immediately after exposure in four or five places right there. It says it in the film use instructions packaged with every film pack. I knew about the limitations of the IP film before I ever bought a pack (which cost me $24 apiece, not $40, and they offer volume discounts if you're going to shoot a lot of it that drives the price down to about $17/pack or $2.20 per frame).

The fact that they were able to manufacture film for the SX70 that works at all is a miracle. They have nothing like the kind of money that Polaroid invested to create the SX70 and its film in the first place. Despite their financial backing, this is a shoestring effort.

You can be unhappy about it, but I don't think your complaints are warranted. They've been totally transparent about what they're producing, and very supportive when I talk to them.

 

[Godfrey]

Thanks for the explanation of your process, Godfrey. I might give that sort of process a try then. I was really hoping for good prints directly from the camera, though.

I agree, and I'm glad they were mad enough to try it. I continue to watch for improvement. I'm greatly encouraged that they have made an 8x10 film available. Again, it takes heart and madness...

Glad to help.

They seem to be improving things with every production run. This is a heck of a niche product ... the thought of replicating what Polaroid produced with all their personnel, talent, money, and—btw—the genius, Dr. Ed Land, at the helm is mind blowing.

 

[rxmd]

Well I didn't read anything about "ejecting the film into the empty, dark film box so it isn't exposed to light" until AFTER I bought the $40 a pack film.... their slick marketing glosses over the outright flaws and the fact that it barely, only sort of works. So I feel like I'm being scammed because they ought to be more explicit that the retail customers are essentially Beta testing the product for them, and it is nothing at all like the consistently professional quality products that Polaroid made.

They have some wealthy backers. It would behoove them to return to the chemistry set and get their products closer to working reliably rather than cultivating disgusted former customers like myself! I've probably "unsold" dozens of boxes with just this post!

Well it says so on their website, it says so on the box, what more do you want? If you didn't read that before, you can't really claim they've been hiding it from you.

The future of film is boutique production with lots of variability, sample inconsistency, quirky operation and paying a premium for it not because it's good, but because it's film. At least they're transparent about it. If you want the consistency of a 1980s mass-produced product, those days are long gone and are never coming back, not with Polaroid, nor with any other film.

 

[pdexposures]

They have some wealthy backers. It would behoove them to return to the chemistry set and get their products closer to working reliably rather than cultivating disgusted former customers like myself! I've probably "unsold" dozens of boxes with just this post!

Interesting, I've taken all of these withing the past few days. No shielding or letting them develop in a box. Seems fine to me 🙂

 

[ernstk]

These are really good. Have you done any post processing or are they straight out of the camera?

 

[whitecat]

Boy I miss my original SX 70 film....

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/pho...mbcheck=0&page=1&sortby=&sorttime=&way=&date=

 

[Keith]

I'm waiting for someone to take a photo with an M9 and 50mm f0.95 Noctilux ... inkjet print it ... then photograph the print with an SX-70 and some Impossible Project film.

Then I'll know the world has gone completely mad! 😀

 

[pdexposures]

These are really good. Have you done any post processing or are they straight out of the camera?

Straight out of the camera other than a little sharpening to compensate for the loss when scanning, scanned with Vuescan and an Epson V500.

 

[Godfrey]

It was $40 by the time you add shipping ;-p And this was a year ago, pretty sure they added the cautions since then.

Anyway, it is a strange time, now we take a digital picture to proof before we shoot a Polaroid....

Sorry, but I bought my first IP film about 8 months ago, and read the cautions several months before that when I first encountered the project.

If you're going to ding IP for the cost of shipping, you better refer to the prices of everything else with shipping included. Where did they have to ship to? Did you get overnight? Sheesh. It has sometimes cost me $25 to ship a $4 item to someone in a remote city ... like London ... I can't say that the item cost $29.

 

[Godfrey]

I'm still on my first film pack with one shot left. I have found that, at least with this pack, the film is very light sensitive.

IP Color Shade is ASA 125 where original Time Zero film was ASA 80-100. The SX70 resets to neutral on the light/dark control when you close it, so it's very easy to accidentally overexpose. IP Silver Shade is slower and I get decent exposures at the normal setting most of the time.

I do find that I need to shade the film carefully after making an exposure. I bought one of their 'tongues' for the SX70, which does the best job, but I've also just used my hand and stuffed the print into my bag to process, too.

Impossible Project film is quirky stuff, but no more quirky than things like callotypes and daguerreotypes. As you work with these 'alternative process' materials, you get a feel for how they work and the consistency improves. That's part of the magic involved. 🙂

 

[Godfrey]

I'm waiting for someone to take a photo with an M9 and 50mm f0.95 Noctilux ... inkjet print it ... then photograph the print with an SX-70 and some Impossible Project film.

Then I'll know the world has gone completely mad! 😀

OMG ... you've given men an idea now ... ;-)

 

[vdonovan]

Regarding sharpness, it's my experience the people buying SX-70s to shoot the Impossible film don't realize that the ISO is only around 100. The SX-70 exposes by varying the shutter speed (up to 10 seconds), so in some lighting conditions exposures can be long, leading to blurriness.

 

[thegman]

Well it says so on their website, it says so on the box, what more do you want? If you didn't read that before, you can't really claim they've been hiding it from you.

The future of film is boutique production with lots of variability, sample inconsistency, quirky operation and paying a premium for it not because it's good, but because it's film. At least they're transparent about it. If you want the consistency of a 1980s mass-produced product, those days are long gone and are never coming back, not with Polaroid, nor with any other film.

Agree with what you're saying to an extent, but I'm not sure the days of consistency in film making are long gone, Kodak, Fujifilm and Ilford seem to be every bit as good as they were, if not better. For the smaller makers like Impossible, I've no doubt you're right, it's seems unlikely they would ever get that mass-produced consistency. Having said that, it seemed unlikely they'd release a product at all.