Polaroid Colorpack II - Part Deux

Hey, all you guys and guyettes, no, no I haven't given up digital.  Digital remains my weapon of choice, and what I enjoy using for my photography.  It's just that I've gotten on this Polaroid bender and I need to play it out. 

Abandoned Home - hazy overcast

Anyway....I bought another Polaroid the other night.  More on that in a later post, but in the meantime I had the opportunity to shoot some black and white using my ultra-retro Polaroid Colorpack.  This time I used Fujifilm 3200B which is high ISO (sorry ASA for the film geeks).  I shot several indoors images using the high ISO film, and no joy, the images were too dark.  I then switched to outside shots in moderate to bright lighting and wow, the quality is right out of the 60's.  So buttery and smooth. 

Lamp Post at Starbucks

No one is home

I did buy some Flashcubes online, but alas my $1 Goodwill purchased Colorpack II doesn't seem to work with flashcubes.  They didn't fire, so it appears for this camera I'm stuck with outdoors or high light images.

Anyway, the camera has minimal settings. There is a light / dark dial on the front of the camera.  When I went outside I set the dial to the middle setting.  I spent all my time making sure I set the distance dial correctly and focusing on the composition.  Bottomline, the images are NO way close to the quality you can get using digital, but there is something uber about pushing the shutter release and pulling the film out of the camera and peeling the backing off of it.  So retro.  A good compliment to my digital life.



It's always a good time for Santa

Enjoy diversity.

Polaroid A-Go-Go

Went to the local Indianapolis Creative Gathering aka Artist Meetup at the Khoury Restaurant in Broad Ripple.  Got a chance to chat with several local artist, primarily photographers.  Event is organized monthly by a local Indianapolis uber-painter Travis Little.

One fun thing is that I brought several of my newly acquired Polaroid cameras and my Polaroid Spectra II that I've had for years, but just recently brought out.  Took a few shots of the people I chatted with.  As you can tell, the quality of the film leaves much to be desired, but come on, it's a Polaroid and you are supposed to get muted colors and limited contrast.

Careful shooting Polaroid film.  A key is to get film from the Impossible Project or depending on the Polaroid model, from Fujifilm.  Most film you get off the internet from Polaroid is well past it's used by date.  Any, oh by the way, the film is pricey....

The following are from my Polaroid Spectra camera.

Stacy, Paul, Ryan & Wilbur, all local photographers

Hey, it's me! Photo by Paul

Polaroid Colorpack II - Retro Goodness

The first shot after I bought the film - Behind Roberts Camera in Indianapolis

I’m a photography podcast fanboy and recently watched a podcast by Chase Javis on his InvitationToHang project in NYC from last year.  The podcast showed the cameras he was using for the project.  Several were old school Polaroid cameras.  As I watched the podcast it was POW…flashback.  I used to shoot Polaroid cameras, and I thought to myself, I bet I still have one.

Anyway one thing led to another and I dug up my old Polaroid, a Polaroid Spectra 2.  It had been collecting dust as I was now a fully committed digital shooter.  Just for giggles, I went to Roberts to see if they had any film for the Spectra and they said nope.  They did however have film for the 600 series and Fujifilm for the ColorPack series. Note, I’ll post another blog on the Spectra as I did get some film online from the ImpossibleProject.

Anyway since I didn’t find any film for my Spectra camera, I went on a personal mission to find a ColorPack or 600 series Polaroid camera.  I wanted to get one as cheaply as possible. Guess what – SUCCESS.  I went to a local Goodwill Outlet and I found this beauty.

Polaroid Colorpack II instant camera in good working order

I grabbed it and the final price, only $1.  I thought to myself, even if it didn’t work, come on Steve, it’s only a buck.  I brought the dusty beast home and cleaned the outside & the corrosion in the battery area.  The next day I went back to Roberts and bought a pack of 100 ISO color Fujifilm and a 3000 ISO black & white Fujifilm.  I loaded the color film, held my breath and guess what, it worked.  Sweet.

Today I went out and shot the full color pack (only 10 photos) and, it’s fun.  This pack was basically just to figure out how to dial in the camera, and figure out how to use it.  At 100 ISO a sunny day means you have some blown out or images pushing the right side of the histogram.  There is a dial on the front that you can dial to darken or lighten and I found outside I needed to turn it to full darken and the images came out fine.  The images below have one shot with "normal" setting, and the second with the dial set to "darken"

I also shot a couple of images inside earlier and the results were no good.  WAY too dark for 100 ISO file.  Looks like I need to find some Flashcubes online.

Ambient light without a flashcube with 100 ISO film - EPIC fail

The fun thing about this camera is that it’s manual focus and that’s about it.  You basically point and shoot.  The lens ring has distance markings on it that you turn to the right distance of your subject.  Since this is NOT a DSLR you are doing lots of guessing to get the focus right.  However, in my first film pack that didn’t seem to be an issue.

The second fun thing about this camera is that once you shoot a photo, you “pull” the film out of the camera and let it develop.  Very old school.

The only drawback to this camera is that the film is somewhat expensive.  A 10-pack is in the $15 range.  Not as expensive as the 600 or Spectra type film, but unlike a digital camera you want each shot to count.

Bottomline, good times and a fun compliment to digital.