For those interested in Alex's thesis work on Polaroid preservation, check out his site! He's also looking for more samples, and information around older polaroids film types to grow this resource: www.polaroidpreservationproject.com/
Something worth mentioning is that Ansel Adams _loved_ the Polaroid type 55 stuff - he used to shoot it all the time when it was available and raved about it in his retrospective print collections and certain editions of his "The Camera" series. He thought it was fantastic that he could visually see if his exposure was accurate right out in the field, and having a real negative plus an instant print was something very endearing to him.
Not only did he love it he was actually part of the reason it existed. Like most photographers of the time, he used Polaroid as a proofing medium but wished there was a way you could get an transparent negative from it since he was primarily a darkroom artist. He approached Polaroid about this and ended up being an integral part of the r&d for this film.
My parents and my grandparents never used Polaroid cameras but they were a lot of fun growing up when I ran into them. I’m hopeful as I start my journey into 4x5 and beyond that some of these products are still around. Large format is so cool; I want to take someone’s portrait at the park, sign it, and give it to them.
That would be pricey altruism! It’s not impossible to find original Polaroid 4x5, but late dated film is getting more and more difficult to find - and more and more expensive…. I would stay away from any opened packs, and anything older than about 1999 (the box design in this video). The stuff you REALLY want is 2006/7/8 dated boxes. Be prepared to pay $300+ for those…
Aww I miss those lovely days gone by. Shooting pack film. The sun always shining, the air filled with the fishy odour of caustic goo. One flap of wind and the negative has stuck to you. I never shot 4x5. It looks so good. I love the colours. If you ever need flash cubes I have 100s.
Polaroid film expired super quick back in the day. When it was around, few people refrigerated it because the boxes were huge! You would need to dedicate a refrigerator to just holding Polaroid. So they mostly sat on a shelf until you could use them. They deteriorated very quickly, usually in less than a year. Type 54, a very common B&W polaroid, had trouble with the print surface sticking to the negative as you peeled it away. Type 55, although hailed as wonderful, was difficult stuff to work with. Not only was it sticky and the prints required coating with a special chemical brush, but you had to expose different depending on whether you wanted to prioritize the print or the negative. And the print didn't look that great even at its best. Type 54 made a gorgeous print though. Typically, one would shoot Type 54 for client approval, then shoot typical sheet film for the final shot. The ancient boxes still on ebay are very tempting, but I know that they just won't work. Polaroid doesn't work after a year at room temperature. After 25 years? I'm surprised you are seeing anything.
i miss those polaroids! As a pro, we used it to test the light for correct exposure by shooting polaroids first before shooting film. Nowadays, we just look at the back of the screen to see if the exposure is good or not to make corrections.
@@monkeyass for example, when you're dealing with high contrast scenes like a landscape, there isn't really a 'correct' exposure. when you meter for the grass, the sky might be blown out or some shadows might be too dark. you decide where your 'midpoint' is gonna be and therefore what areas are gonna be within your dynamic range. It is possible to meter for that as well but using a polaroid or a digital camera makes it easier to visualize. I'm not sure if I'm right tho but I think it has to do something with that.
@@monkeyass we did use a lightmeter along with those polaroids. Polaroids gave us the extra safety net just in case. When we had an important photoshoot or a big budget shoot with our clients, we needed to be precise with correct exposure on film. If you mess it up, thousands of dollars could be lost on a project. Nowadays, if we mess up, we could easily fix it in photoshop. But not back then.
Cheers Noah. It was typically used a a proofing tool to check exposure & composition. It was a very disposable product and the waste was incredible. It wasn’t cheap, even back then, but the client was always charged heavily for each Polaroid used.
Fun video. Nice to some results in hand. i've seen some at elderly folks homes as they turn 70, 80+ or 90 and then move into assisted living in boxes. I never saw a mobile phone with password taped on the back or an active cloud account with password written down in a a photo an otherwise empty album
I used a lot of type 55 and type 52 in the old days with my Toyo View camera. Type 55 yielded both a positive and a negative, but the negative was more like 25 ASA while the positive gave decent prints at ASA 50. It is a shame that Polaroid went the way it went. I am more sad that the film pack 41 or even the Fuji equivalent have all bitten the dust.
i had several varieties of these, worked for few labs, an college photo dept, so think used for some special shots/portraits, and maybe hundreds of student portraits? i bot old pac of sumptin for my graflex to revive hoby to do . ol tyme one hour portraits with 4x5 film and develop in tent. thanx for memories.
I have an old 545 holder and bought a few packs of the film. I wound up having the fridge I had them stored in tripping a breaker and it ruined the film. I was so disappointed. I only managed to use a couple of shots before that happened. Wish they still made that film. that was over 20 years ago though maybe 1998 or so.
Awesome! BUT Alex pulled those B&W out wayyyy too fast, probably the pod didn’t break. It’s totally possible when you pull too fast that the pod does not break fully. Otherwise, Awesome shots!
Before the turn of the century (1990's) I worked for a photo studio that used Polaroid 4X5 for immigration photos. Other than that, the only Polaroid film used was 100/660-series peel-apart pack film. Do I miss those days? Only when I get the urge to use 100/660-series pack film in a adapted Polaroid 110A camera. Oh well, stranger comebacks have happened.
I don't know how the situation is up in Canada but here in Europe/ Germany analog film became quite expensive 10-12 euro for a kodak color plus 36ex. What do you guys think, when will the prices drop again and what caused this increase? It was pretty hard for me to find information about this on the internet.
I can’t imagine a world where I would be burnt out on shooting peel apart. I could shoot this stuff every second of every day and never get bored of it!
Came here to say the same thing. Since the sheets are packaged in the box in alternating orientation the pod puts more pressure in that area on the sheet below it. We usually call it the pod stripe. It is less noticeable when you’re shooting in direct sunlight or using a high key lighting setup with strobes.
I found this tintype kit that I'm interested in trying and thought it might be something you'd be interested in trying and could possibly make a video about it. It's the Rockland Colloid Tintype parlor kit
A friend of mine shot Fuji peel apart film and experimented successfuly with saving the negatives, then life got in the way and he ended up selling his remaining stock to a friend.
I really support what Famous Format is trying to do but I tried to order (and paid for) their monobath which is still listed on their web shop. When I asked about my order I got a really vague e-mail about it. I think others have had similar issues. I get it, they have a huge hill to climb and I'm all about helping them out but that can't be an excuse for a bad customer experience. It's a bummer and I really hope they're successful ultimately but they have a long way to go I think :/
Yeah, I ordered some of their 1SHOT Ready Loaded 4x5 Sheet Film (not instant) back in May, got an email acknowledging the order, nothing since. Emailed a few times, no response. Diusappointing.
@@moldyapples Hi! I heard back from them and apparently, on top of all the typical challenges, one of the primary owners/operators is ill. Sending my best to them and hope we can all be patient in light of this.
Tim, I've heard back and one of the primary operators is ill and they are in a very difficult situation. In light of this news I hope we can all be patient and hope for the best for them.
Will Alex post his thesis on-line so we can read it? I would love to. Nice shots... Off all the things I used to shoot but now cannot... Kodak Kodachrome Super8 is number one... but Polaroid peal-apart is a close second.
Hey Noah, did you ever hear of the Newland camera project? they are great guys which who an adapter to use modern polaroid originals film on Land polaroid series
Hey do you know anything about the Polaroid Badge Making cameras? I’ve bought a Polaroid lot on eBay and it includes one of these guys. Was this the one that the DMV used?
Single shot peel apart film seems like the way to go in the future. New55 and one instant seem to have that down pretty well. I just wonder if Polaroid themselves would ever try to attempt 4x5 peel apart film.
I've talked about it more in the past but there's probably no chance of modern Polaroid pursuing any sort of peel apart film. They just don't have the capability to do it anymore after original factories were closed and the instant film market is so different from what it was 20 years ago.
I feel that you don't talk much about what's really interesting with this film, and that's the negative and what you can do with that after you scanned it =)
In terms of packaging, envelopes, unusable negative material and chemical pods, these formats definitely have an enormous amount of actual waste for a single picture!
@@tomjanowski8584 Twisting the words in my mouth here brother. I was not talking about experimentation. That part is awesome. I was talking about a lot of paper, plastic and goo of chemicals and you are smart enough to know that. That this stuff is discontinued is not AAALL bad.
Believe it or not Polaroid’s popularity in the 60’s especially as a medium to shoot vacation photos and family snapshots produced so much litter in national parks it was enough for First Lady Ladybird Johnson to take notice and issue a call to action to Polaroid to create a product that left less waste. This was one of the motivating factors behind the development of integral film and the SX-70.
For those interested in Alex's thesis work on Polaroid preservation, check out his site! He's also looking for more samples, and information around older polaroids film types to grow this resource: www.polaroidpreservationproject.com/
the website is down D:
hey the website is down. will it ever come back??
Parts of it are stored on the wayback machine.
Link is dead what’s his ig?
Something worth mentioning is that Ansel Adams _loved_ the Polaroid type 55 stuff - he used to shoot it all the time when it was available and raved about it in his retrospective print collections and certain editions of his "The Camera" series. He thought it was fantastic that he could visually see if his exposure was accurate right out in the field, and having a real negative plus an instant print was something very endearing to him.
Not only did he love it he was actually part of the reason it existed. Like most photographers of the time, he used Polaroid as a proofing medium but wished there was a way you could get an transparent negative from it since he was primarily a darkroom artist. He approached Polaroid about this and ended up being an integral part of the r&d for this film.
My parents and my grandparents never used Polaroid cameras but they were a lot of fun growing up when I ran into them. I’m hopeful as I start my journey into 4x5 and beyond that some of these products are still around. Large format is so cool; I want to take someone’s portrait at the park, sign it, and give it to them.
That would be pricey altruism! It’s not impossible to find original Polaroid 4x5, but late dated film is getting more and more difficult to find - and more and more expensive…. I would stay away from any opened packs, and anything older than about 1999 (the box design in this video). The stuff you REALLY want is 2006/7/8 dated boxes. Be prepared to pay $300+ for those…
Aww I miss those lovely days gone by. Shooting pack film. The sun always shining, the air filled with the fishy odour of caustic goo. One flap of wind and the negative has stuck to you. I never shot 4x5. It looks so good. I love the colours. If you ever need flash cubes I have 100s.
Polaroid film expired super quick back in the day. When it was around, few people refrigerated it because the boxes were huge! You would need to dedicate a refrigerator to just holding Polaroid. So they mostly sat on a shelf until you could use them. They deteriorated very quickly, usually in less than a year. Type 54, a very common B&W polaroid, had trouble with the print surface sticking to the negative as you peeled it away. Type 55, although hailed as wonderful, was difficult stuff to work with. Not only was it sticky and the prints required coating with a special chemical brush, but you had to expose different depending on whether you wanted to prioritize the print or the negative. And the print didn't look that great even at its best. Type 54 made a gorgeous print though. Typically, one would shoot Type 54 for client approval, then shoot typical sheet film for the final shot. The ancient boxes still on ebay are very tempting, but I know that they just won't work. Polaroid doesn't work after a year at room temperature. After 25 years? I'm surprised you are seeing anything.
i miss those polaroids! As a pro, we used it to test the light for correct exposure by shooting polaroids first before shooting film. Nowadays, we just look at the back of the screen to see if the exposure is good or not to make corrections.
why didn't you just use a lightmeter...?
@@monkeyass for example, when you're dealing with high contrast scenes like a landscape, there isn't really a 'correct' exposure. when you meter for the grass, the sky might be blown out or some shadows might be too dark. you decide where your 'midpoint' is gonna be and therefore what areas are gonna be within your dynamic range.
It is possible to meter for that as well but using a polaroid or a digital camera makes it easier to visualize. I'm not sure if I'm right tho but I think it has to do something with that.
@@monkeyass we did use a lightmeter along with those polaroids. Polaroids gave us the extra safety net just in case. When we had an important photoshoot or a big budget shoot with our clients, we needed to be precise with correct exposure on film. If you mess it up, thousands of dollars could be lost on a project. Nowadays, if we mess up, we could easily fix it in photoshop. But not back then.
Cheers Noah. It was typically used a a proofing tool to check exposure & composition. It was a very disposable product and the waste was incredible. It wasn’t cheap, even back then, but the client was always charged heavily for each Polaroid used.
Would love to check out that thesis!
I’ll post some info for it once Alex has it available!
Fun video. Nice to some results in hand. i've seen some at elderly folks homes as they turn 70, 80+ or 90 and then move into assisted living in boxes. I never saw a mobile phone with password taped on the back or an active cloud account with password written down in a a photo an otherwise
empty album
I used a lot of type 55 and type 52 in the old days with my Toyo View camera. Type 55 yielded both a positive and a negative, but the negative was more like 25 ASA while the positive gave decent prints at ASA 50. It is a shame that Polaroid went the way it went. I am more sad that the film pack 41 or even the Fuji equivalent have all bitten the dust.
The first 1,000 people to use this link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/analogresurgence09211
i had several varieties of these, worked for few labs, an college photo dept, so think used for some special shots/portraits, and maybe hundreds of student portraits? i bot old pac of sumptin for my graflex to revive hoby to do . ol tyme one hour portraits with 4x5 film and develop in tent. thanx for memories.
Wonderful experiment and process. Really enjoyed the video.
THESIS IS COMING!
I have an old 545 holder and bought a few packs of the film. I wound up having the fridge I had them stored in tripping a breaker and it ruined the film. I was so disappointed. I only managed to use a couple of shots before that happened. Wish they still made that film. that was over 20 years ago though maybe 1998 or so.
I was a major fan of type 55!!! The regular print only stuff was amazing too ... I miss those foil wrapped boxes!!!
Yoo! I thought I recognized that park, just saw your PO box. Thanks for sharing this! That's so cool!
Awesome! BUT Alex pulled those B&W out wayyyy too fast, probably the pod didn’t break. It’s totally possible when you pull too fast that the pod does not break fully. Otherwise, Awesome shots!
Polaroid type 55 was the best film ever made, it gave you a working negative!
Before the turn of the century (1990's) I worked for a photo studio that used Polaroid 4X5 for immigration photos. Other than that, the only Polaroid film used was 100/660-series peel-apart pack film. Do I miss those days? Only when I get the urge to use 100/660-series pack film in a adapted Polaroid 110A camera. Oh well, stranger comebacks have happened.
I don't know how the situation is up in Canada but here in Europe/ Germany analog film became quite expensive 10-12 euro for a kodak color plus 36ex. What do you guys think, when will the prices drop again and what caused this increase? It was pretty hard for me to find information about this on the internet.
I can’t imagine a world where I would be burnt out on shooting peel apart. I could shoot this stuff every second of every day and never get bored of it!
The bar across each photo is from the pods pressing down on the neg/pos over the years. The first photo of a pack doesn't usually have this problem :D
Oooh that makes so much sense
@@AnalogResurgence I see you hold the film with your thumb in the middle of the sheet, don't do that. Hold the film at the side.
Came here to say the same thing. Since the sheets are packaged in the box in alternating orientation the pod puts more pressure in that area on the sheet below it. We usually call it the pod stripe. It is less noticeable when you’re shooting in direct sunlight or using a high key lighting setup with strobes.
I found this tintype kit that I'm interested in trying and thought it might be something you'd be interested in trying and could possibly make a video about it. It's the Rockland Colloid Tintype parlor kit
A friend of mine shot Fuji peel apart film and experimented successfuly with saving the negatives, then life got in the way and he ended up selling his remaining stock to a friend.
gets pretty magical at 4:58!
Yay Alex! 2:55 you know he's right
I really support what Famous Format is trying to do but I tried to order (and paid for) their monobath which is still listed on their web shop. When I asked about my order I got a really vague e-mail about it. I think others have had similar issues. I get it, they have a huge hill to climb and I'm all about helping them out but that can't be an excuse for a bad customer experience. It's a bummer and I really hope they're successful ultimately but they have a long way to go I think :/
Yeah, I ordered some of their 1SHOT Ready Loaded 4x5 Sheet Film (not instant) back in May, got an email acknowledging the order, nothing since. Emailed a few times, no response. Diusappointing.
@@moldyapples Hi! I heard back from them and apparently, on top of all the typical challenges, one of the primary owners/operators is ill. Sending my best to them and hope we can all be patient in light of this.
Tim, I've heard back and one of the primary operators is ill and they are in a very difficult situation. In light of this news I hope we can all be patient and hope for the best for them.
The artifact in the center is from the pods. Someone explained it to me awhile ago but I can’t remember the specifics.
I know where that music in your intro comes from!!!
Will Alex post his thesis on-line so we can read it? I would love to.
Nice shots... Off all the things I used to shoot but now cannot... Kodak Kodachrome Super8 is number one... but Polaroid peal-apart is a close second.
Alex's thesis can be found here: www.polaroidpreservationproject.com/
The end of production of Polaroid 4x5 film made the world a worse place.
Great episode. Just curious... did you extend developing time because of the age of the stock, or did you use standard times?
Hey Noah, did you ever hear of the Newland camera project? they are great guys which who an adapter to use modern polaroid originals film on Land polaroid series
Amazing video as always!
Is there any more recent news of 4x5 peel-apart sheet development anywhere?
Hey do you know anything about the Polaroid Badge Making cameras? I’ve bought a Polaroid lot on eBay and it includes one of these guys. Was this the one that the DMV used?
I'd be really interested in reading Alex's thesis if it gets made available!
I'm nobody of significance & I approve this message
It should be available soon! I’ll post information for it once it is!
Alex's thesis can be found here: www.polaroidpreservationproject.com/
What is your friend’s thesis titled and can I read it anywhere?!
He should be putting up a website soon about Polaroid where you can read the thesis, I'll post about it on the channel when he does!
Kind of sad thinking that I'll never shoot that format. But never say never!
Single shot peel apart film seems like the way to go in the future. New55 and one instant seem to have that down pretty well. I just wonder if Polaroid themselves would ever try to attempt 4x5 peel apart film.
I've talked about it more in the past but there's probably no chance of modern Polaroid pursuing any sort of peel apart film. They just don't have the capability to do it anymore after original factories were closed and the instant film market is so different from what it was 20 years ago.
Hi. Could you please tell me where I found Polaroid 59 films? I
Bro thank you
Great
today children we are shooting on outdated Polaroid film the results of which let you experienced Andy Warhol's psychedelic days.
I feel that you don't talk much about what's really interesting with this film, and that's the negative and what you can do with that after you scanned it =)
I never clicked on a video so fast.
Can Kodak just take over this market please
"Kodak"? The Ghost of Rochester is (nearly) just as dead as Edwin Land's company.
@@Otokichi786 damn my heart can't take much more of this
You should do discord
Boy, better bring a big garbage bag to the shoot. I get that people miss that stuff but that's a lot of waste.
Experiementation and trying is never a waste.
In terms of packaging, envelopes, unusable negative material and chemical pods, these formats definitely have an enormous amount of actual waste for a single picture!
@@tomjanowski8584 Twisting the words in my mouth here brother. I was not talking about experimentation. That part is awesome. I was talking about a lot of paper, plastic and goo of chemicals and you are smart enough to know that. That this stuff is discontinued is not AAALL bad.
@@ChrisMarxen open to interpretation
Believe it or not Polaroid’s popularity in the 60’s especially as a medium to shoot vacation photos and family snapshots produced so much litter in national parks it was enough for First Lady Ladybird Johnson to take notice and issue a call to action to Polaroid to create a product that left less waste. This was one of the motivating factors behind the development of integral film and the SX-70.
The real polaroid was a great company.....not the same now....#fakepolaroid
Your, rollers need, cleaning.
Rollers were cleaned!
Why do you think this? The rollers look like they’re fine to me