At the beginning of the summer I got myself a Polaroid SX-70 as a birthday present to myself. I also picked up a bunch of Impossible Project film when they had the super cheap “poor pod” sale.
I’d heard all sorts of stories about how difficult it could be to get a decent image with the experimental film, but I was up to the challenge. I decided to take a picture of all the people I met during my vacation at home.
I’ve been through maybe three or four packs of it now and I gotta say, I’m hooked. It isn’t the easiest film to work with, and not really anything like the old 600 film I have used before, but it works. I can get used to covering the film from light, and even shoving the photos under my arm for the first couple minutes of their life. That’s ok. I can even deal with the photo never really coming out how I pictured it would. That’s part of the fun.
The part I like the least, however, is that some of the films, especially the earliest batches, tend to deteriorate over time. Not necessarily days, but weeks or months after the photos are taken. The silver shade ones especially, tend to drift toward muddy brown. Apparently they sell a dry age kit that consists of a ziplock back and some silica gel (the stuff that comes in new shoes), but I didn’t feel like dropping cash on it. Instead, I’m trying the home-brew method of storing the photos in a (hopefully) airtight box full of rice.
As for the SX-70, all I can really say is wow. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed looking through a viewfinder quite so much before. Everything looks so beautiful through its lens. It can focus super close, has amazing, smooth bokeh, and is bright and clear. Especially after I peeled off the ND filter I had over the lens for the first 3 packs of film. Here’s the thing, you can use px600 and px680 film in the SX-70 no problem if you only crank the brighten/darken wheel all the way to dark. In fact, I find I get much better results doing that than with the ND filter. For starters, you enjoy the luxury of faster film so less nerve-wracking long exposures.
One question I often ask myself, when I feel that my camera addiction gets out of hand, is if I had to chose just one camera to keep and get rid of every other camera, what would it be. It is such an incredibly hard question. But, I can definitely say now that if the film were as affordable and readily available as, say medium format film, then I would definitely choose this camera. Instead, I’m stuck having no idea as my camera collection grows and grows.
