The Polaroid Totally Works!

In my last post I mentioned picking up a Polaroid 1000 Land Camera at the King's Day flea market for a whopping two euros. Of course, there was no guarantee it would work at all, but at that price it would be worth it just to have it as a display piece.

But it totally works! My boyfriend and I went to the dunes around Schoorl a while back, and when I inserted the film pack, the camera sprang to life and dutifully spit out the darkslide.

Given that it was my first time shooting these, a few of them are definitely duds. The dynamic range on instant film is.. uhh.. nonexistent. Still, quite a few turned out really nicely!

Amusingly, the cost of a single photo is higher than the price I paid for the camera. I suppose, given the film prices, the great deal on the camera doesn't matter very much. That said, if I hadn't found it at a flea market for two bucks, I probably wouldn't have bought a Polaroid in the first place, so it succeeded at getting me interested in the first place.

Modifying the Polaroid 1000 to take 600 film

The Polaroid 1000 takes SX-70 film by default, which is unfortunately quite often out of stock. The other film Polaroid makes, 600 film, is also used in their newer i-Type camera's, and therefore seems to be produced in higher volume and with fewer stock issues. Luckily, it is quite easy to modify the 1000 to take 600 film, and I love tinkering with things, so I immediately took the opportunity to open up the 1000 and mess with it .

The process I followed is taken from this LiveJournal post. Essentially, you just have to remove the face plate, and turn a small gear which is part of the light meter assembly. The gear is attached to a set of neutral density filters, which are in front of the photocell that determines the exposure. The window contains ND filters of different strength (it is intended to function as a calibration tool, set at the factory), and we are moving it so that the lightest ND filter is in front of the photocell. That way, the photocell will always underexpose SX-70 film, and conveniently correctly expose 600 film, which has a higher ISO of 600 (as implied by its name).

I've included a few photos of the process below.

I've done a few tests with 600 film, and the mod seems to work fine! If anything, the camera is now somewhat prone to underexposure, so adjusting the exposure up a little is probably a good idea. The higher ISO of 600 film also theoretically makes it possible to use the 1000 indoors, although you will probably still want to use the flash, or better yet, just go outside...