r/Polaroid

Shot on SLR 680 w/SX-70r PCB

Played around with manually setting the shutter speed; these were the ones I liked the most!

SX-70r, one stop down. I took the same shot on auto and it overexposed the sky (to be expected), these days, if I want a blue sky, I usually crank the exposure down a little bit.

I got my girlfriend her first Polaroid camera, and so far I’m loving the photos. I initially wanted the I-2 but she wanted something easier. We’ve basically been shooting on manual mode and learning how to expose camera better

Hello everybody, I'd like to buy the I-2, but I was wondering how often it goes on sale. I know about the 10% discount for new members, and I know about the coupons you can get with points. But I saw it had a huge price drop on black Friday, so I was wondering on how often this happens.

Pic for attention, shot on Go gen 3 by my gf, I think she did great.

Does anyone know the cause of these dots? Taken with an Impulse AF on Polaroid 600 film with the sun to my back at golden hour. Thought it might be reflections off the jewelry with where it appears near her chin but it shows up in multiple photos. I shared the two photos it’s most apparent in.

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share a recent B&W portrait series I shot with a beautiful model recently. We were aiming for that classic, high-contrast film noir vibe, and honestly, Polaroid B&W film never ceases to amaze me with its moody tones and unpredictable chemistry.

For those interested in the tech specs: I shot this on a I-2 using i-Type B&W.

A quick tip/learning from this session: As many of you know, Polaroid B&W chemistry can be incredibly sensitive to storage conditions and expiration dates. Half of the packs I used for this shoot were slightly past their prime, which usually means a heavy loss in dynamic range or muddy shadows.

Lately, I've been using a clean little iOS app called Film Inventory to keep track of my stash. It honestly saved this shoot—it let me easily filter and pick out the batches with the most stable expiration dates and price points, so I could mix the fresh film for critical close-ups and use the older ones for more experimental, high-contrast background shots. If you’re like me and have a hoarding problem with instant film, it’s a lifesaver for batch tracking without dealing with clunky spreadsheets.

Anyway, would love to hear your thoughts on the tones and composition! How do you guys usually handle expiration dates when planning a B&W shoot?

Cheers!

A few weeks ago one of my clients posted asking for a local repair tech as the SX-70 they purchased from me a year + prior would not reset its mirror anymore. They did not want to have to send it all the way back to me if they could help it.

However, I feared the job would not be a simple one, and that the reason for the failure was a snapped mirror return lever. The mirror return lever is a metal piece that is factory press-fit onto splines and really not designed to be replaced. Fortunately this is an exceptionally rare issue, but if it does occur it will 100% brick the camera.

Such a repair is very complex, and given that it requires a spare lever from a good parts camera, it is quite literally easier to swap the entire chassis over instead of just swapping the part.

So that is what we agreed to do. OP would source a chrome SX-70 Sonar (since they wanted to convert their camera to chrome finish anyway, having grown sick of the black) and I would swap over all the important parts. At the time we organised this, I offered up two spare Sonar/Alpha chassis to use, but since OP stated they would now source a spare camera I used up my personal spare chassis in other projects.

So imagine my surprise when I open the package only to find a single camera... Apparently the chrome spare parts camera sale fell through, and I was left now with a broken black SX-70 Sonar, and no Sonar chassis to swap over.

The only remaining solution? Replace a part that was never intended to be replaced.

Swapping over the lever involved:
- dismantling the camera down to the chassis
- desoldering all of the body flex cables
- removing the entire geartrain
- using a dremel to cut the lever free of the metal splines, taking great care to only cut the lever itself, and not ruin the metal splines
- sourcing a replacement lever from an SX-70 Model 3 chassis
- removing the good lever by prying it free from the old chassis. This is not an easy job, as they are stuck on incredibly tightly, and the act of prying it free will almost always bend/mangle a section of the chassis. Luckily we do not need anything else from the Model 3
- carefully aligning and pressing the new lever in place on the old spline. This requires a surprising amount of force, and must be done without bending the chassis or snapping the lever
- re-installing the geartrain
- re-soldering everything
- re-assembling the rest of the camera

I hope I do not have to do another for a long time.

Shot with an Impulse AF on Polaroid 600.

05/26 batch of SX-70 film shot on SX-70. The batches made this year have been really good.

Around Brum, Polaroid 670 AF

I used one pack of film and surprisingly I’m happy how all 8 turned out lol!

Why purple!