Project Polaroid - Image / Spectra Film

In the first post I talked about the recent history of Polaroid and the reasons behind this project.

The second post looked at which new (old) camera I decided to purchase, and where to buy them from.

But there is no point in buying a film camera without considering the film itself.

Polaroid Spectra film was also called 1200 or Image film in some markets. Early Spectra cameras (like mine) have a counter that when a film cartridge is entered counts down from 10 to zero. Later film cartridges contained 12 films instead of 10, with newer cameras having a different counter.

I can use the cartridges with 12 shots, but I'll only be able to take 10 and 2 will be wasted. This is assuming you can find the film.

Film manufacture ended back in 2008 and the final expiry date on these films was October 2009. You can still find these films for sale on Ebay, but you don't know how well they have been stored and if they will still work. It is a lottery and the films aren't cheap - starting at about £15.

There is an alternative.

As the video clip in my introductory post explained, The Impossible Project are having to invent a new developer formula.

Starting from Scratch

Due to the fact that the original Polaroid color dyes are not available any more and that there is no chance to reproduce them, the Impossible Project had to start from the very scratch. The Impossible team had one year to completely reinvent a new photographic instant system. Impossible? Almost. But after thousands of experiments and after a million of small steps and a lot of blood, sweat and tears (not to forget the support of many excellent partners) we managed to develop a new Impossible film system.

During the last three years they have been refining the recipe. But even they say their films are experimental, can be tempremental and sensitive to light and temperature.

At this time The Impossible Project sell three films suitable for Spectra cameras:

• PZ 600 Silver Shade UV+
• PZ 600 Silver Shade UV+ Black Frame
• PZ 680 Color Shade

The only difference between the silver shade monochrome films are that one has the traditional white border around the photograph, while the other has an interesting black border instead.

We will cover the issues with PZ 600 & PZ 680 film in a subsequent post. However I should point out now that these film cartridges only hold 8 exposures and if you order from The Impossible Project website they cost £17.50 plus postage.

The video below, shows how to load the film cartridge into a Spectra camera and take a photograph.