Photos from the Impossible I-1 ...

[Godfrey]

Nice Godfrey, maybe you should right the manual. I wonder how many I-1s there are out there?

thanks!

Little need to write a manual... The manual that came with the camera is pretty solid. The I-1 app documentation is built-in and it works pretty well for a v1.0 app, although I hope for some improvements and additional features in the manual mode operation.

 

[robert blu]

First pack of the new B&W film, shot taken by my wife...I'm the subject...

 

[robert blu]

A corner in my apartment, photo taken by my wife (again!), full auto exposure.
One of the reason for which I bough this camera is that I wanted to support the Impossible Project, what they did is stunning...
robert

 

[Godfrey]

Nicely done, Robert.

Impossible's B&W 2.0 is very contrasty; it takes a bit of effort to keep it under control. I hope they tone it down a little.

G

 

[robert blu]

Nicely done, Robert.

G

Honestly my wife shot these two photos 🙂

I like contrast in B&W, the only point I would like the possibility to give less power to the flash when doing portraits at short distance. I took one head and shoulder of my wife and her face is blown out, almost white!
Maybe with the app it's possible to do it, not yet explored...

robert

 

[Godfrey]

..
I like contrast in B&W, the only point I would like the possibility to give less power to the flash when doing portraits at short distance. I took one head and shoulder of my wife and her face is blown out, almost white!
Maybe with the app it's possible to do it, not yet explored...

I've had the same issue ... At head and shoulder distance, you're too close for the flash with the 600 B&W film.

With the app and manual mode, you can control the flash output in four steps: off, low, mid, full. What that translates to in practical terms I haven't experimented with just yet.

Contrasty B&W is good, but the B&W 2.0 formulation is harsh enough to net very little latitude. I'd like a little more*mid-tone range to work with that would give about a stop more latitude.

 

[raid]

First pack of the new B&W film, shot taken by my wife...I'm the subject...

I can vouch that this is Robert!

 

[Spanik]

You mean nice standard snapshots like this?

Impossible I-1
Impossible 600 Color v3 beta 2​

Very easy, just depends on what film you choose.

You don't get any choices in Instax film. You're not going to get cyanograph, magenta, yellow duotone, green duotone, etc etc.

Don't judge without understanding what Impossible is offering, or what you are seeing. I've been playing with outdated, older, and effects films because I like the effects. If you stick to current production, non-expired, non-beta materials, you get high-quality standard results.

G

Much more what I would expect of a film. Might get a pack of that for the 5000. Problem is that they make more noise about the specials than simple standard film.

 

[Godfrey]

Much more what I would expect of a film. Might get a pack of that for the 5000. Problem is that they make more noise about the specials than simple standard film.

The most recent announcement about the four newly released standard film families just went out on May 18:

http://us5.campaign-archive2.com/?u=5025d3a98d9a97240d347e846&id=41cddb420b&e=6b2fae32e6

Limited edition specials, out of date older releases, and other such stuff ride are very popular, however, so they post a lot of those.

G

 

[Prest_400]

That Falafel shot looks fantastic. The color! Also, it's having the finesse of shooting under the best environment.
Shade, that is.
Summer's coming and over here it's brutal sun and strong heat, uh oh, time to practice shielding technique and ice cooler carry. That and train my relunctant and hard to catch friend to model. Guy's too photogenic for a single frame.

Shielding I try to do the first seconds and wait until having some emergence. Then it's hard to dismiss seeing the magic.

BTW I'll have to redirect myself to an SX70 thread, given I'm all in on the film but not yet the i1 😀 The slower 100 film makes me suffer under shade.

 

[Godfrey]

That Falafel shot looks fantastic. The color! ....

Thanks! Yes, the 600 Color v3 is very good indeed. Shooting these cameras brings me back to all the limitations of shooting film from the past ... Easy to forget when you shoot with a modern camera all the time. Exercising my skills within the film's limitations help improve my work when I pick up the Leica SL or M-P again. It keeps me aware of what I'm doing.

The new films are significantly less light sensitive coming out of the camera, which helps a lot. The I-1 has a full frog-tongue built in so auto-shields the film, but I nip the prints into my bag quickly anyway for the first few minutes.

I'm shooting the SX-70 less since I got the SLR670a (uses 600 film). But the SX-70 film works better in the SLR670m and 66/6 Instant Pinhole ... less reciprocity effect for long manual exposures (and of course, the SLR670m's autoexposure is set up for SX-70 film). So I keep some stock of SX-70 film around, primarily B&W at present but I will get some of the new color for those cameras soon.

G

 

[Godfrey]

I tried another setup for capturing the instant film prints using the Leica SL, 60mm macro, etc. Modestly successful ... decent quality, and reasonably quick. I need to actually build a proper jig, though, along with the right lighting for best evenness in capture. The little buggers are a pain to scan or photograph because of the glossy acrylic cover sheet.

Another I-1 memento with the cyanographic film:

Impossible I-1
Impossible 600 Cyanographic​

enjoy!

G

 

[Prest_400]

Flatbed scans have proved no problem to me at the moment, but as I have to fire up the rig it is the most inconvenient and I tend to procastinate.

Also, some frames that are to be given when shot with people have no chance to be scanned at home. With some friends I take it for scan and then give it to them later, but sometimes not.
The iPhone app is a decent quick&dirty option and using it indoors together with a darkslide to mitigate some reflections gives an ok result. But yes, the glossy surface shines its best when photographed (pun intended).

 

[Godfrey]

My best quick&dirty seems to be to use the HP multifunction scanner/printer/fax gizmo and set it to 1200 ppi. It seems to cause Newton rings far less than the Epson 2400, even if it doesn't support the full 16bit color depth the results are good. But it's very slow compared to capturing with the copy camera approach ... I was able to capture about 250 exposures of backlog in an hour or so on Saturday with the SL, the same would take me days with a flatbed scanner. Luckily I rarely shoot in such volumes (or I'd go broke...). ;-)

Frames going to friends I just shoot two and keep one. Makes it much easier to deal with.

G

 

[Godfrey]

Manual mode with this one, using the I-1 app from my iPhone... Set focus to Macro mode (.2-.5 yards), then used a reading from the Light Meter app for ISO 640 @ f/8 @ 1/15 second.

Impossible I-1
Impossible 600 Yellow Duotone​

enjoy!
G

 

[Huss]

From what I see it wants to be the Lomo of instant photography. There is nothing that says you cannot make "art oriented" photography with instax. However if I see this, then you simply cannot make a decent photo with Impossible. I'm really disappointed.

I'm w/ Spanik. These frankly , apart from the B&W, look awful. And the falafal shot - that is awful too and that is meant to be the shot that is meant to demonstrate a control? It's washed out and blurry.
My Instax produces such better shots it's not even funny. And I didn't think those were particularly good!
It's interesting when a camera cannot produce technically decent results the excuse is given that it's actually artistic. It's not, and here's why. Art is not created by the tool, but by the user. Otherwise one could argue that all it takes to make an artist is to pick up one of these cameras. Because every shot will be blurry, out of focus, washed out. Which means it's art...

I am not anti Impossible project. I want them to succeed but praising it so far is like telling your kid he's done so well for his 8th place medal. I have an SX70 and a packet of Impossible Project B&W film so I am an Impossible Project customer, and I'm hoping that I can get something cool out of that. The only shots that I liked above were those taken w/ the B&W film.

 

[MiniMoke]

I am not anti Impossible project. I want them to succeed but praising it so far is like telling your kid he's done so well for his 8th place medal. I have an SX70 and a packet of Impossible Project B&W film so I am an Impossible Project customer, and I'm hoping that I can get something cool out of that. The only shots that I liked above were those taken w/ the B&W film.

Yes, I applaud Impossible's achievements too, but the results, apart from the SX70 perhaps, remain very 'lomographic'.

Unless quality gets drastically better and prices lower, Impossible is not for me. Mind you, this is MY opinion and you may have yours.

As much as I'd like to support Impossible (I bought a refurbished Pola and I have some packs of film now), I can't just do it now.

 

[Jerevan]

The instant film material has some limitations - it's printed matter as opposed to film; the resolution is lower.

I find it can be pretty hard to convey what you see when you hold something in your hand versus a digital approximation.

And if you think you can do better, then by all means, start your own factory and try to reverse engineer something.

 

[Jerevan]

Manual mode with this one, using the I-1 app from my iPhone... Set focus to Macro mode (.2-.5 yards), then used a reading from the Light Meter app for ISO 640 @ f/8 @ 1/15 second.

Impossible I-1
Impossible 600 Yellow Duotone​

enjoy!
G

To me, it's getting there - keep on going.

 

[thart2009]

Manual mode with this one, using the I-1 app from my iPhone... Set focus to Macro mode (.2-.5 yards), then used a reading from the Light Meter app for ISO 640 @ f/8 @ 1/15 second.

Impossible I-1
Impossible 600 Yellow Duotone​

enjoy!
G

The best Third Man Records Edition I have seen.. Nice.