Fine art and portrait photographer Edouard Janssens — the man behind the 1 to 100 years project we featured some time ago — recently decided that he wanted to begin using large-format instant film to shoot an art series of “eerie” portraits. In order to do this, he had to painstakingly acquired several pieces of expensive gear, and during this search he stumbled on one very special find: a box of 8×10 Polaroid instant film that had expired in October of 1978. Read more…

San Diego-based photographer Tim Mantoani, the guy who shot giant Polaroid photos of famous photographers holding their works, recently got his hands on Lot #1 of The Impossible Project’s new 8×10 instant film. To test it out, Mantoani busted out his large format camera and 8×10 processor, and then visited a local surf shop to create a multi-shot panorama.
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Guess who’s back? Back again. 8×10 instant film’s back. Tell a friend.

After successfully reviving various lines of instant film for Polaroid cameras, The Impossible Project announced today that they’ve created a new line of 8×10 instant film for large format cameras.
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Photographer Mitchell Feinberg wanted to continue shooting 8×10 large format once his Polaroid stockpile runs out, so he decided to create his own 8×10 digital back. He spent over a year looking for a manufacturer and designing the back, and shelled out enough money to buy a good-sized house:

The development and production of two backs (I wanted to have a spare) was equal to the cost of a good size house – before the housing crash. I know it sounds insane, but the financials on it are not so bad: I used to shoot on average 7.5 Polaroids per photo, and I shoot between 400 to 500 images a year. That’s at least 3000 Polaroids. At 15 bucks a pop. Or about 50K per year, minimum. Polaroid was at one point my highest single cost.

Now he’s the owner of the world’s largest color capture back (two of them, in fact), which shoots 10MP photos. He uses it to shoot test shots before using film for the final captures.

Mitchell Feinberg’s 8×10 Digital Capture Back [A Photo Editor]

Image credit: Photograph by Mitchell Feinberg and used with permission

This foam core 8×10 camera was created by Daire Quinlan, the same guy that attached a 90 year old lens to his camera with homemade bellows.

The lens is an Industar 37 Russian large format 300mm designed for their FKD cameras. The shutter is a Sinar, takes standard 8×10 film holders.

Quinlan exposes onto photo paper instead of film, and focuses the camera by sliding the rear box forward and backward.
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