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Some people are also spending huge amounts of money on uncoated, 100 year old lenses with horrible chromatic aberrations and other design flaws - just to achieve a certain 'look'. What's wrong with shelling out vast amounts of money to achieve a 'vintage Polaroid' look, if you desire? In the end, nobody forces me to buy their products.Quote:
Originally Posted by akfreak
Cheers,
Andreas
The problem is not with their proposed materials, or the chocolate or blue-tinted attempts at making Polaroids, or any of their ideas... the problem is that so far they haven't made anything that works very well. The film is defective, faulty, buggy... it develops with splotches, gaps, and dirt - and they try to pass this off as "charming" and "art-like" rather than admitting that it's a problem. Some of their film isn't even instant, I bought an expensive pack of their faux SX-70 film and had to eject the film into a dark box in order for it to develop at all.
I could understand that reinventing Polaroid is challenging but they want us to pay 4x the original prices for an experimental and defective product. And they sugar-coat it with some very slick marketing and graphic design work to make us think we are getting something of value.
This is all very similar to the Lomography business, which uses slick marketing to resell inexpensive Russian and Chinese cameras at higher prices. But at least the Lomo stuff actually works!
When I would get defective Polaroid, which was no uncommon, I could pack up the faulty packs and return it for a credit on new film. These guys won't do that, they'll tell you messed up film is an "improvement" haha.
As for selling old dried-up 8x10 for $43 per sheet, let the buyer beware, you're stupid to buy it but that's your business.... It's their NEW products that are the real rip-off.
Tough audience.
http://new55project.blogspot.com
Well said frank
When I saw the thread I got all excited. In my mind, I had already resolved to keep my 8x10 processor and film holder ( I used up my last two boxes of 809 last week on image transfers).
Back to reality. I'll hold on to the gear just in case there is a demand for it but I think I'm done.
I attended the Impossible Project's product launch press conference in March of 2010 in New York. They are essentially 3 individuals from Europe who felt there were enough Polaroid cameras sitting around collecting dust to make it profitable to re-introduce Polaroid style products. They said they spent $1.3M to purchase, ship, and refurbish Polaroid's manufacturing equipment for integral films, and to establish factory space in Europe to begin production.
They never once lied about the difficulty involved in this endeavor. Quite the contrary; they gave a really long powerpoint presentation about the architecture of Polaroid film and how it took years to perfect (it supposedly has something like 30 layers). They then admitted they had no dyes for the film, they had no reliable formulations to make the dyes, and that the traditionsl supplier of primary chemicals for these products was no longer a viable source. They were basically starting from scratch.
I gave them a lot of credit for trying this project, but all they managed to produce at that time was a weak sepia colored product with very low d-max, very low sharpness, no long term image stability, and no reliability that it would even process properly at all. They eventually managed to produce a color integral film, but from examples I have seen the color does not match the old Polaroid, its' reliability to produce a flawless, cleanly processed print is non existent, and it is horrendously overpriced.
Just my 2 c.
If I recall correctly there is a group of photographers using the 20x24 Polaroid cameras who are producing the material they need. It has been pointed out that since the negative and the paper with the chemistry pods are separate from each other, the production could also accommodate the 8x10 version. Perhaps I dreamt it.
I really liked the Polaroid 8x10 stuff. Man, I was crying about the 149.00 a box I was paying. I bought the machine for 100.00. I miss the polaroid stuff so much.
I thought everyone renting the 20x24 camera had a limited amount of old stock and when its exhausted there is no more.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renato Tonelli
Knowledgeable audiences come in with the most hope, because they understand the potential of what is being promised, and the greatest potential disappointment, because they cannot be fooled when that promise is not delivered. A business that targets knowledgeable customers will have more work to do up front, but will end up with a stable revenue stream that does not depend on customer turnover to stay in business.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobCrowley
Rick "hoping the new55project folks understand that" Denney