First Few Pack Films

Polaroid 320, Fuji FP-100C

I finally got the last of my Fuji FP-100C pack of prints from Southern California scanned in.  These include a few more shots from the water park as well as from Legoland (my young sons’ favorite amusement park.) It was only my second pack of film that I ran through my Polaroid 320 camera and so far it is my favorite.

To back up a bit, I tried my first pack ever back in April.  It was some expired Polaroid 100 Sepia pack film (ISO 1500) purchased from Impossible which was a little tough to work with in terms of exposure latitude.  It had a classic B&W look to it but preferred strong light with low contrast.  One or two low-light shots were almost completely washed out and one or two shots with varied lighting levels resulted in clearly over- or under-exposed elements.

This Fuji FP-100C (ISO 100) color pack film definately required strong lighting, but seemed to be much more flexible in terms of contrast levels.  All my shots were in either in direct sunlight or at worst light shade, but every single one came out looking good.  Its color is beautiful and seems both vivid and even tempered.  Its look is very distinct and even when scanned is clearly not from 35mm film or digital capture.

I did start a third pack of Fuji FP-3000B (ISO 3200), however all three shots I tried were complete failures.  I thought this high speed B&W film would allow for shooting indoors but I was wrong. I had major problems with backlighting and even moderate side-lighting from windows.  I didn’t bother scanning these in at all, and will try the rest of the pack outdoors later…

So far my 320/pack film lessons learned are:

• Use strong, direct and even daylight whenever possible.
• Adjust for parallax even when subjects are 5 feet away.  (See my ninth shot which appeared fully centered in the rangefinder.  The right mariachi musician is only half in the print.)
• Do NOT keep the developed prints face-to-face, their emulsions will start to stick to each other and feathering or ripping will occur! (See my tenth shot for some clear feathering on the wall and upper-left transport, in other shots I touched it up a bit in Photoshop.)