I shot this photograph of the Mackinac Bridge with a Sinar A-1 on early New55 film. They had issues with their developer pods; sometimes they wouldn’t break. In this case, the failure resulted in a developed picture where the line of the emulsion matched the line of the bridge. I couldn’t take this one again if I tried.
Here‘s a of my favourite building to photograph, an old radio station from the 1930’s. It‘s located in the middle of nowhere, and it‘s always a bit surreal to come out of the forest to a clearing and see this concrete cathedral, as it‘s nicknamed. The pink novelty film makes it even more out of this world.
This picture is almost twice analog. It’s an Instax portrait of my sons during our holiday in Denmark. Then I took a picture of the polaroid on some 35mm slide film. And yes, then I cheated, because I scanned it ;-)
I don‘t own any Instax cameras, and a year ago I bought my daughter a Fuji Instax mini. But Polaroid is a different story :) I really like this machine.
I made a short video that demonstrates how to fold and unfold/open a Polaroid SX-70 camera. It also shows how the film “magically” develops in 15 minutes (sped up, obviously).
I’m not an expert on moving picture film but as far as I know, there are three ways of doing this:
1) Shoot and develop a positive. For colour, you can use Ektachrome E100 — which is an excellent film that’s been recently revived and is produced new. I have a review of it here: analog.cafe/r/kodak-ektach…
You will need to develop your Ektachrome in E-6 chemistry. You can also develop some black and white films as a positive (a different process) — but that depends on the lab and whether that film has a clear enough base.
2) Shoot negative, scan, then transfer to positive film. This may be expensive. Essentially, you’ll shoot, develop, scan, edit, and then use a machine that can transfer your digital images onto positive film and then develop that. This method also gives you a lot of flexibility when it comes to image quality, effects, etc. Some modern Hollywood films are made this way.
3) Shoot negative and then directly transfer to positive. Essentially, it’ll be your developed negatives that will be projected on suitable emulsion using a machine. I know the least about this method other than it’s common in the industry.
Oh, but! I want to say something about this camera too. It’s about the plastic Polaroid I-2 lens.
Modern plastic lenses can be incredibly sharp. The flagship $1,000+ smartphones use them. Polaroid’s new I-2 lens is sold as the sharpest Polaroid lens ever made — sharper than the one in my SX-70 camera (which has been considered to be the sharpest lens up until now on this type of a camera since the 1970s when it was released: analog.cafe/r/polaroid-sx-…)
One video even showed a comparison between the two cameras (youtube.com/watch?v=kBJzE6…) Of course, those were not scientific measurements and Polaroid hasn’t shared any of their technical data.
I am sure that the new lens is sharper, but that is not what makes a camera lens good (unless you’re just starting with photography and that’s all you know, which is unsarcastically great!) But the character of bokeh, vignetting, contrast, and other distortions are a huge part of the experience — and no review put out thus far has mentioned any of these. And of course, I’m curious about durability.
I’ll keep an eye out for more feedback and deeper dives into this camera. Polaroid didn’t send me mine so that’s all I have for now, unless the blog does really well this fall/winter and I end up purchasing one to test and maybe keep for a very long time.
This is obviously a huge milestone for Polaroid, formerly Impossible Project. 🎉
A ton of content emerged about Polaroid I-2 this week.
Lucky YouTubers, social media personalities, reporters, and bloggers put out reviews and opinions about the camera and the company. And even those who didn’t get to play with an advance copy still posted their thoughts about it (like me, right now).
I want to highlight two of the best pieces of content about the camera from the people who actually used it:
youtube.com/watch?v=3sooI3… (The Verge). Of all the videos I’ve seen, this is the only one that accurately points out the camera’s flaws and talks about its advantages. It’s neither overly critical nor nauseatingly fanboy-ish.
youtube.com/watch?v=3nTs5i… (Polaroid). If you’re in the process of justifying spending $600 on a plastic instant film camera, this video lays out the effort, the technology, and the history behind making this product. It’s well-produced, accurate, and not pushy.
There is so much content about this camera that I can’t possibly review it all. But if you go out searching for more, watch out for the people who have never held this camera (or maybe any film camera) in their hands, dunking on Polaroid for the price tag, small maximum aperture, film quality, and anything they aren’t used to seeing on a digital camera. Others state positive things about this camera that aren’t accurate.
It’s overwhelming. But the camera indeed seems very interesting and I can’t blame anyone for wanting to talk about it.
Today, I unboxed the new RETO Project, the KODAK EKTAR H35N half-frame film camera.
I got my review copy very quickly. Naturally, I’m very excited to test it out. As mentioned above, it has glass and aspherical lens elements, which I don’t think any plastic toy/reusable camera design has.
The review is coming soon. I’ve decided to load CineStill 50D (even though I had Ektar and was very tempted to use it). I decided to go with CineStill to see if I could exaggerate the star effect that the optional lens filter produces on this camera. That’s to be determined, of course.
Last week, I bought a few extra rolls from a very kind photographer who gave me a generous deal. The package came in a neat paper envelope; it felt surreal, fondling with so much film that’s nearly extinct.
Dmitri Sep 21, ‘23
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ridley Sep 21, ‘23
pinhology Sep 21, ‘23
Dmitri Sep 21, ‘23
Maaike Sep 21, ‘23
Dmitri Sep 21, ‘23
Dmitri Sep 21, ‘23
mail Sep 21, ‘23
roman pastierik Sep 21, ‘23
roman pastierik Sep 21, ‘23
Dmitri Sep 20, ‘23, edited on Apr 27, ‘24
Dmitri Sep 17, ‘23
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Dmitri Sep 14, ‘23
spider-pik Sep 14, ‘23
Dmitri Sep 8, ‘23, edited on Mar 14, ‘24
Dmitri Sep 8, ‘23, edited on Mar 14, ‘24
Dmitri Sep 8, ‘23, edited on Mar 14, ‘24
Dmitri Sep 6, ‘23, edited on Mar 14, ‘24