Impossible Project

Spectra Donuts

Spectra
Polaroid Spectra, Polaroid Image Softtone film (expired Oct 2009)

I purchased a Polaroid Spectra camera off eBay recently, they run pretty cheap these days.  This is a big case of tail-wag-dog as I ordered some of the last batch of genuine Polaroid Spectra film from The Impossible Project first.

It was a blast shooting the Spectra, especially since it has the most manual controls (notably flash and AF disable switches) of any Polaroid.

I love the wide image format (compared to the square SX-70 and 600).  And what’s not to like about a camera favored by Shaun The Sheep?

However the expired film didn’t perform well, showing a heavy shift towards red/brown and poor contrast on every image. The battery didn’t even last all ten shots with the shutter failing on shots 8 & 9 and the camera failing even to eject the 10th print.

Nonetheless shooting with the Spectra was a fun experience and I am tempted to get some of Impossible’s Silver Shade B&W film for it next.

And by the way, don’t pass up Stan’s Donut Shop in Santa Clara, CA.  They have the best classic glazed and maple bar donuts we have found yet!

Polaroid One Step Flash

  GoldBorder
Polaroid One Step Flash, The Impossible Project PX 600 UV+ Silver Shade Gold Edition

We made an impromptu visit to our family in Southern California this past weekend.  We realized that a planned vacation next week wasn’t happening, so we decided last minute to pull off a quick weekend road trip.

My mother-in-law had recently given me a Polaroid One Step Flash camera so I figured it was a good opportunity to try it out. I bought two packs of The Impossible Project’s latest films, the PX600 UV+ Silver Shade (black & white) and PX680 Color Shade.

The camera worked perfectly fine. Or perhaps I should say it worked as designed since the One Step Flash is a rather run-of-the-mill Polaroid. The always-fires flash was somewhat annoying and resulted in at least one completely blown-out exposure outside.

The Impossible film is coming along but nowhere near the quality of the original Polaroid emulsions in their heyday.

I liked the Silver Shade black & white film a lot as it was fairly contrasty and the 8-pack only resulted in one image with a tiny undeveloped patch. Their Color Shade on the other hand seemed quite washed out, and about half of the pictures had fairly large undeveloped patches.

For instant color photography I think I will stick with my trusty Polaroid Automatic 100 Land Camera and Fujifilm’s excellent FP-100C film.

Perhaps the best thing to come from the Impossible film was a golden dark slide that came on top of one of the packs. This is a Willy Wonka-esque gift certificate to The Impossible Project’s store.

Based on a whim I used it to order some original Polaroid Spectra film which Impossible recently put up for sale.

Do I have a Spectra camera?… Not yet, but I’m working on that!