stefanie.k
johanna and ronja
I've shot about thirty polaroids by date so maybe it's time to share the experiences I made with instant film.
The camera I use is a Polaroid Impulse 600. Since Polaroid went out of business and doesn't produce instant film any more I have to use film made by The Impossible Project. The colour film suitable for my camera is PX 680 Color Shade.
Well, I love shooting polaroids. I love the strong colours, the imperfections, the unpredictable saturation and/or colour balance in every single shot. However, Impossible film is extremely sensitive to light right after exposure and prone to defects.
I started using my Polaroid camera in late summer. Nearly every picture from the first film pack turned out great. High saturation, nice colour balance and perfect contrasts. The next time I took polaroids was in autumn and the degrees were of course lower than in summer. Approximately 7-10 degrees Celsius what means about 44 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. In my humble opinion the film is not only sensitive to light but also to temperature! My pics were very light with awfully low contrast. To me it looked as if the exposure just couldn't work properly. Now it's April and I tried it again. I've realized that it's best to take all the eight shots you got in a film pack at a single blow. If you leave some shots in the camera the quality of the film deteriorates. The typical brown spots appear where the emulsion didn't work out.
The only thing that really annoys me about the Impossible films are these brown defects often located at the upper frame. I have several pictures where the defect covers the face of the person I portraited.
There are three things you should consider when taking polaroids with Impossible film:
1. Immediately shield your photos from sunlight when they get ejected from the camera! Some people use a darkslide to cover the photo, I made a little cardboard box I shoot into.
2. Keep the temperature in mind. It's like developing photos in a darkroom. The higher the temperature the quicker the exposure. My film didn't really work at temperatures below about 15 degrees of Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit).
3. Shoot all the pictures in a film pack at once. This prevents the left photos from losing quality when remaining in the camera.
And last but not least - ENJOY!
johanna and ronja
I've shot about thirty polaroids by date so maybe it's time to share the experiences I made with instant film.
The camera I use is a Polaroid Impulse 600. Since Polaroid went out of business and doesn't produce instant film any more I have to use film made by The Impossible Project. The colour film suitable for my camera is PX 680 Color Shade.
Well, I love shooting polaroids. I love the strong colours, the imperfections, the unpredictable saturation and/or colour balance in every single shot. However, Impossible film is extremely sensitive to light right after exposure and prone to defects.
I started using my Polaroid camera in late summer. Nearly every picture from the first film pack turned out great. High saturation, nice colour balance and perfect contrasts. The next time I took polaroids was in autumn and the degrees were of course lower than in summer. Approximately 7-10 degrees Celsius what means about 44 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. In my humble opinion the film is not only sensitive to light but also to temperature! My pics were very light with awfully low contrast. To me it looked as if the exposure just couldn't work properly. Now it's April and I tried it again. I've realized that it's best to take all the eight shots you got in a film pack at a single blow. If you leave some shots in the camera the quality of the film deteriorates. The typical brown spots appear where the emulsion didn't work out.
The only thing that really annoys me about the Impossible films are these brown defects often located at the upper frame. I have several pictures where the defect covers the face of the person I portraited.
There are three things you should consider when taking polaroids with Impossible film:
1. Immediately shield your photos from sunlight when they get ejected from the camera! Some people use a darkslide to cover the photo, I made a little cardboard box I shoot into.
2. Keep the temperature in mind. It's like developing photos in a darkroom. The higher the temperature the quicker the exposure. My film didn't really work at temperatures below about 15 degrees of Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit).
3. Shoot all the pictures in a film pack at once. This prevents the left photos from losing quality when remaining in the camera.
And last but not least - ENJOY!