I am enjoying these photos even though I normally don’t like to see buildings being torn down.
Also: the color is just amazing. Although I have new packs of “Polaroid” (Impossible) film, I haven’t used them yet. The last time I used such film was about five or more years ago; I heard that it was improved, but what I’m seeing here is amazing. The colors I was getting were washed out and had limited range. For instant photos I’ve been playing with Fuji instax for a few years - better quality than my Polaroid photos, but still not the equal of this.
My Polaroid cameras, excluding 100-series pack film cameras, are an original SX-70, an SLR 690, and a Spectra 1200. The only control over exposure I have is the exposure dial which I think gives +/- 1 stop.
Chris, do you have one of those MiNT Polaroids that allow selection of shutter speeds? Either way, you have really mastered how to get the very best from this film.
I don't have the Mint camera. The manual shutter control on it is actually a worthless feature. There are two reasons: One is that when you use the manual shutter option on that camera, the lens aperture is stuck wide open at f8. The lens vignettes a good amount at f8 and is less sharp than when stopped down. The second reason is that the manual shutter control only allows setting in one stop increments. The Polaroid film has NO exposure latitude. NONE. Even a 1/4 stop change is noticeable. A 1/2 stop change on Polaroid looks like a one stop change on a digital camera or regular e-6 slide film.
The current Polaroid film does have a very limited dynamic range; contrast is very high, but interestingly the blacks are not that deep and the whites are not that bright. This gives high contrast midtones and a lot of tonal compression and detail loss in the very dark and very light tones.
I have an SX-70 that was converted to use 600 film. I've found that most people overexpose the current Polaroid films. My camera often gives better results set to give less than normal exposure. The examples on Polaroid's website and the shots I see others post online look washed out and flat because of the overexposure. Less exposure keeps highlight details from blowing out and increases color saturation a lot.
Polaroid's website recommends giving 1/2 stop less exposure in bright sun and normal exposure in softer light. I find that sometimes is true and sometimes I get best exposure giving 1/2 stop less than Polaroid's recommendations. If the scene is mostly dark tones, that is especially true. If the scene is mostly white, like the one below, I have the hardest time with exposure.
You need to give more than normal exposure with white scenes. This one looked best with 3/4 stop over normal. Given that the normal setting really overexposes slightly in my experience, I was really giving a little more than one stop over.
The lighten darken control on the SX-70 cameras has three marks on each side of the normal setting. Each mark represents a 1/2 stop change toward over or under exposure and allows you to set as much as 1.5 stops of change in either direction. The +3/4 stop exposure I gave the photo of my house was done by setting the exposure control to a setting halfway between the first and second marks on the 'lighten' side. Although I have gotten good at guessing what exposure setting to use, I still bracket exposures just to be sure, and this practice has saved many images. It is wasteful, and expensive. If I were an average person buying a Polaroid camera to do family snapshot stuff, I'd be pissed because the films today just plain don't give perfect results without a lot of exposure bracketing and part of the issue is that I think the films are faster than they claim (which is why most shots are overexposed unless you dial in some darkening). The old Polaroid films back in the 90s gave good results with normal exposure much more often and they had a wider tonal range.
Polaroid actually admits on their website that the current SX-70 film is faster than the original stuff, so you have to dial in about 2/3 stop less exposure! Why the Hell they did that is beyond comprehension. Like I said, I suspect that the 600 film is faster than claimed too, just because so much of what I see online is overexposed and my own experience shows that I get better results most of the time giving less than normal exposure unless the subject is very light toned.
