I think some of us might be missing the point , for the vast number of users 10x8 Polaroid was used for testing exposure and composition before shooting film, and for that it will be perfect, even if it is reversed
I think some of us might be missing the point , for the vast number of users 10x8 Polaroid was used for testing exposure and composition before shooting film, and for that it will be perfect, even if it is reversed
I wouldn't use any instant film for exposure testing... It's too unpredictable. It pains me to say it, but a DSLR is the perfect tool for understanding and managing exposure.
Hate to break it to you but it was the rock solid professional proofing method for over 30 years. You could judge it to a tenth of a stop, from shot to shot... in the studio. Sure doing a one off in mid winter isn't proofing, but if you shot them consistently then the Polaroid and Fuji stuff was very trustworthy.
A DSLR is a great tool for proofing, but as someone who shot thousands of 8x10 color polaroids there was little alternative when doing a still life and you wanted a TTL, that is exact camera POV to be able to study the finer points of the image prior to film. Some still lifes were so precise that to be a half a degree off optical line the lighting could appear very differently. And BTW I still have my 8x10 polaroid processor, tray and holder.
8x10 polaroids did however require a certain amount of experience and interpretation when it came to tonalities and exposure though. But after a few hundred you got the knack. People now though don't have the patience to learn and master these tools, they want it fool proof from the get go.
And as Frank stated, it was THE proofing system for many, many years.
The last 15 years of Polaroid they finally films that came close to matching chrome film, 100 ISO, decent color and sharpness. As long as you were at a reasonable room temperature and it was still in date, it worked very well.
Playing around with this Impossible Project stuff that is all over the place really makes you appreciate how tight Polaroid got it.
If you think Polaroid had it all tightened up, Fuji easily had a much tighter and better process with FP-100C than polaroid ever had with their peel-apart films. FP100C is the film polaroid should have been making all along. Sadly now it seems fuji has given up on 4x5 FP100c.
IP is making 8x10 stuff since that is the only other machinery they were able to salvage from the old polaroid factory. They don't have the 4x5 machinery. They'd probably prefer to make 4x5, all things considered, given that it's a larger market. New55 looks promising if they can ever get past the prototype stage into production.
The New55 project is stuck in a Catch-22. They can't move forward with production until they have money, but they can't make money until they have a product to sell. Bob has mentioned that he doesn't want to do Kickstarter for some reason, so short of divine intervention, I'm not sure what the plan is.
Honestly, if he just got a better website instead of a Blogspot blog, they could probably raise enough money via preorders in under a week. Time to pay a college kid $2000 to make a nice eCommerce site.
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