My my ... New Film! (Polaroid Originals)

[Godfrey]

I've been shooting old, out of date, unrefrigerated Impossible Project film for so long (since 2013-2014) ... Well, most of it finally just stopped working at all. It was DEAD. I decided to say 'to heck with it' and tossed the ridiculously large number of defunct film packs into the toxic waste bin. So goes $500+!

So I finally ordered 10 packs of new Polaroid Originals film ... SX-70 and 600, B&W and color. I'll only order in smallish quantities nowadays; I don't shoot enough anymore. Loaded up the first pack of B&W 600 into my MiNT SLR670a ... essentially a refurbished and modernized SX-70 calibrated for 600 speed now. And snapped my first picture with it.

Excellent! Looks like they rolled back the contrast, speed is right on the money, processing speed is right up there now. Great Stuff!

G

 

[aizan]

i almost always need to make the b&w one tickmark darker. the highlights burn out all the time. good stuff otherwise!

 

[robert blu]

I didn't shoot Impossible since a few months, recently ordered the new B&W for 600 which I'll use on the old SX70 (with an ND filter on it). It's a good photo Godfrey!
robert
PS: most of the old film do not work because of the battery has lost power but could work on one of the new cameras which do not require batteries in the film, just for information. Of course contrast and sharpness are...old style 🙂

 

[Godfrey]

I didn't shoot Impossible since a few months, recently ordered the new B&W for 600 which I'll use on the old SX70 (with an ND filter on it). It's a good photo Godfrey!
robert
PS: most of the old film do not work because of the battery has lost power but could work on one of the new cameras which do not require batteries in the film, just for information. Of course contrast and sharpness are...old style 🙂

The batteries weren’t the problem. The reagent packets dried out and would no longer process the image. V2 B&W went way more contrasts than was useful. The new film is snappy and sharp while having a decent tonal scale.

G

 

[ptpdprinter]

Maybe it is the scan, but it looks terrible to me.

 

[gdi]

Maybe it is the scan, but it looks terrible to me.

Yeah, I tried an expensive pack of Impossible a couple of years ago and it was crappy. I looked around flickr and saw most shots were similar so I never tried another pack. Guess I'm not a Lomo kind of guy!

But this reminds me that I still have a few packs of FP100c that I need to shoot or pass along before it dries up...

 

[Godfrey]

Maybe it is the scan, but it looks terrible to me.

Quickie shot at the cafe this morning, lots of motion blur from the slow speed, and the 'scan' is a snap with the iPhone of the print so I could give the print to the subject.

Remember that the ACTUAL size of the image should be 3.5x4.5 inches, not so massively huge that looking at a 3x effective enlargement is doing to the digital image on this server. I made a mistake posting such a huge pixel count image ... I've now replaced the image with one that's about the real size, depending on your display (it's about a 100 dpi rez version).

In this particular instance, I'm more excited by the better tonal qualities than in whether this specific photograph is all that great, although it is rather a nice picture of David anyway. The print is far better than the scan; Polaroid prints are generally pretty difficult to scan and present such that they look as good as the original. 😀

G

 

[Mackinaw]

The new stuff in an SX-70.

Jim B.

 

[farlymac]

I've been shooting old, out of date, unrefrigerated Impossible Project film for so long (since 2013-2014) ... Well, most of it finally just stopped working at all. It was DEAD. I decided to say 'to heck with it' and tossed the ridiculously large number of defunct film packs into the toxic waste bin. So goes $500+!

So I finally ordered 10 packs of new Polaroid Originals film ... SX-70 and 600, B&W and color. I'll only order in smallish quantities nowadays; I don't shoot enough anymore. Loaded up the first pack of B&W 600 into my MiNT SLR670a ... essentially a refurbished and modernized SX-70 calibrated for 600 speed now. And snapped my first picture with it.

Excellent! Looks like they rolled back the contrast, speed is right on the money, processing speed is right up there now. Great Stuff!

G

I did better with a Swinger. 😀

PF

 

[Godfrey]

I did better with a Swinger. 😀

PF

Good for you. Buy some film for it now...
Sheesh.

G

 

[robert blu]

Shooting Polaroid/Impossible is not so much about sharpness but more about the emotion of doing it...anyway the recent emulsions perform much better in terms of tones than the one sold a couple of years ago...both color and B&W, just my opinion.
robert

 

[Godfrey]

For this exposure, I made a prior exposure in the same light and found that the shutter time was such that there was just time to move the camera as the exposure finished to create this dreamy effect.

MiNT Polaroid SLR670a
Polaroid Originals 600 B&W Color Frames Edition

Scanned with Light L16
ISO 100 @ f/15 @ 1/5 @ 70mm​

One of the difficulties whem shooting with SX-70 type integral instant film is that the shiny cover surface on the image area makes it very difficult to capture to digital due to Newton rings on a scanner and/or specular reflections when using a copy camera. I decided to try using the L16 as a copy camera because I could work at a reasonable distance and control the reflections, and the camera has great DoF at its default settings. It does a good job, making it easy to see and frame accurately what I wanted from the original. The biggest difficulty is nailing the focus, but once you get past that hurdle the results are very true to the original image.

I made very minimal adjustments to the captured Polaroid image to get it just right. This pixel image represents about a 2x magnification of the original print.

G

 

[helen.HH]

Love it Godfrey !

Atmospheric ... nostalgic Cool

 

[Mackinaw]

.....One of the difficulties whem shooting with SX-70 type integral instant film is that the shiny cover surface on the image area makes it very difficult to capture to digital due to Newton rings on a scanner and/or specular reflections when using a copy camera......

I never had any problem scanning SX-70 prints with my old Epson 4490 scanner. Just place the print on the glass, close lid, and scan. I pull the scan into PS, and do final adjustments. Here's a typical example, taken last September.

Jim B.

 

[brbo]

I never had any problem scanning SX-70 prints with my old Epson 4490 scanner.

Never?! There are Newton rings visible on your scan.

I made a simple holder for scanning Polaroids on flatbed. You can also reuse empty Polaroid cartridges to hold the picture just slightly above the scanner glass (you do lose a bit of the picture border and you have to be careful not to scratch the picture when inserting it into the cartridge).

 

[Godfrey]

Another scan of instant film with the Light L16.

MiNT Polaroid SLR670a +
Polaroid Originals 600 B&W Color Frames Edition

Scanned with Light L16​

I've refined the technique now and have the Light's focus dead on the mark every time.

enjoy!
G

 

[pvdhaar]

Just put a Polaroid Originals I type film in the new OneStep. First two shots came out fine, but the next one jammed in the camera. Had to remove the pack (and waste another shot) to wriggle stuff around a bit to make it run again.. Maybe a case of dirty rollers straight from the factory, so I cleaned them up. Got the second pack in, and I'll see what that gives after the initial shots..

As per the results, the first pack was dated 11/17 so it's about halfway its best before date, and the colors are very magenta/orange/brownish. First prints on the second pack (dated 4/18) are much more neutral; this really is a film that you shouldn't let lay around for a long time before using it..

 

[Steve M.]

I don't see any Newton rings on Mackinaw's scan, and trust me, I've made a lot of them, so I would know! It looks like the colours just sorta flared out in areas of the grass, which is probably normal for instant films? Newton rings are, well......rings. His shot of the flowers is wonderful. No, it ain't sharp and the colour range is wacky and compressed, but that's what makes it cool.

Have to agree about Godfrey's print he posted four weeks ago looking really bad, quality wise. While I love the technology and great design of the SX 70 cameras, not many photos from those things looked very good. Ansel Adams made a few credible B&W prints w/ that huge camera he used, and Andy Warhol made some good portraits, but it seems the film that's available today is not capable of recreating those type of images. A pity, as Polaroids were a unique way to photograph the world if you were willing to overlook the built in size and quality limitations.

Now we just pull out a smart phone and send the images all over the world to be seen for free. Pretty good.

 

[jawarden]

I don't see any Newton rings on Mackinaw's scan, and trust me, I've made a lot of them, so I would know!

Most of her right leg.

 

[Mackinaw]

.......As per the results, the first pack was dated 11/17 so it's about halfway its best before date, and the colors are very magenta/orange/brownish. First prints on the second pack (dated 4/18) are much more neutral; this really is a film that you shouldn't let lay around for a long time before using it..

A few weeks back, I pulled out a pack of Polaroid Originals B&W film that had been in the refrigerator since last fall. I was taking some pics of a gal and her mother and Polaroids are always a good way to put people at ease before taking serious pictures. I was surprised how poor the pictures were once developed. Washed out with low contrast. I adjusted exposure and the picture quality was still poor. This surprised me, I’ve always had good results with their B&W film.

On a related note, I just ordered an Instax SQ6. This is a square format Instax camera that has an image marginally smaller than an SX-70 image. I get the camera tomorrow. I look forward to experimenting with it and Instax film.

Jim B.