Polariod 545i and Readyloads

[violin]

Has anyone run any Readyloads through the Polariod 545i filmback, do they work?, any problems?...

Cheers

[Scott Walton]

I cannot tell you about the new singles but the doubles work good in a 545 holder.

[werps]

I've had some trouble using the Readyload backs. I've never had any trouble using Readyloads or Quickloads in my Polariod back.

[Scott Ollett]

I just ran 15 E100VS Readyloads (single sheet) through my Polaroid 545i holder for the first time. I didn't have any problems inserting, exposing, or removing the film packet from the holder, just followed the instructions. The developed sheets had excellent results - no problems at all.

[Gavin Walker]

Scott - good news! I've just got a couple of boxes on Readyload and was planning to run them through my 545 Pro. Bit more confidence now. Fuji stuff seems to work fine, and both Kodak and Fuji provide instructions on using their film with Polaroid holders, so you should be able to expect successful results.

[David Bradley]

You might want to sacrifice a sheet of film to check for film flatness with Readyloads in your 545i. I put a Quickload (not a Readyload) in my 545i without attaching it to the camera so that I could get a "lens eye view" of what was happening. Using this approach I was able to see that the film bowed up about 1/8 inch in the middle. The same piece of film was perfectly flat in Fuji's Quickload back. Based on this little experiment I would never use a 545i for Quickloads. Of course Readyloads might work better.

[Ellis Vener]

The problem I noticed when testing Fuji Quickload and Kodak Readyload films in a Polaroid 545i holder was not the center being out of focus but the edges. The dedicated holders had a clear edge in terms of sharpness (I was testing with a 210mm lens and my target was a brick wall and both standards were carefully aligned to each other and the groundglass camera was very carefully checked to be parallel to the wall, camera was placed eight feet from the wall) from f/5.6 to f/22 once past f/22 the lack of sharpness at the edges on the long side of the film became acceptable to negligable by f/45. Using the dedicated Fuji and Kodak holders film was crisp edge to edge and corners to center at f/5.6, though of course resolution got better as I stopped down, being optimum in the f/16 to f/22.5 range. My controls were a series of exposures on standard cut film in standard holders I'd already tested and okayed for film flatness and film plane alignment to groundglass position. So my conclusion is: If you like working at f/32 or smaller apertures with a normal lens at moderate to normal working distances go ahead and use the P'roid holder for all of your QL and RL film.

Probably at longer subject to camera distances the threshold of acceptable sharpness drops to f/16. likewise i'd expect the threshold to possible be lower for wide angle lenses and higher for longer focal lengths, But these possibles and probables are mere speculation on my part.

Now I don't know about you, but for me the expense of shooting large format in both money and time led me to the conclusion that the particular dedicated Fuji holder was a good purchase so I wrote the check. I was never able to make the old style of Kodak Readyloads --the two sheets per packet version -- work without 25-30% ofthem failing because of light leaks, and I tried three iterations of the older design holder.

The purpose of my tests by the way was to prove that I didn't need the Fuji or Kodak holders and that the Polaroid 545i was fine for use with these films.

BTW: Alignment between film plane and groundglass placement for the Kodak and Fuji holders , and the Polaroid holder (when tested with the Type 55 negative was unformly excellent.