Ever wonder how photographs magically appear on Polaroid pictures? Photojojo offers a simple explanation of how the process works:

[...] your instant camera ejects the picture in between two metal rollers. The rollers pinch the chemical packets on the bottom of your film, break them open, and spread the developer chemicals all over the surface of your image. [#]

They also have some other interesting “photo science” explanations here. For a more in-depth look, check out this HowStuffWorks article on instant cameras.

If you’re the proud owner of a Polaroid 600 camera (and have deep pockets), this news will be music to your ears: Impossible has launched its new PX 680 Color Shade First Flush line of color instant film to replace the popular Polaroid 600 color film that was discontinued back in 2008. In addition to Polaroid 600 cameras, the film is also compatible with SX-70 models as long as you use a neutral density filter. It seems like Impossible is getting better and better at resurrecting Polaroid films — these new sample photos look much better than the shots we saw last year of its PX100 film. Each pack contains eight shots and costs $22 from the Impossible shop.

Image credits: Photographs by Brandon Long and Patrick F. Tobin

If you have an instant camera, have you ever tried taking digital photos of the prints right after you made them? For his series titled “Instax Windows“, Shawn McClung carries around a digital camera and snaps a digital photo of his Fuji Instax prints right after they’re taken, with the scene in the print lined up with the real world.
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The “Flutter in Pinhole” is a beautiful concept camera that combines a cardboard pinhole camera with instant film to make sharing memories a breeze, and could be the high-tech postcard of the future.
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Sarah Ann created this beautiful full deck of 52 playing cards using Instax Mini instant film prints. Each card is a unique, and is a photograph of the card it represents.
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Meet the 20×24 Polaroid Land Camera, a mythical beast in the world of large format photography. Polaroid’s founder Edwin Land created only seven of these 235-pound cameras over thirty years ago, and only six exist today. Two of them are on display at Harvard and MIT, and only four are in use commercially. According to Forbes, buying prints created with this beast cost $3,500 a piece, while renting the thing for a day costs $1,750 and $200 for each shot. Back in June, an Andy Warhol photo shot with the camera sold for a quarter of a million bucks.
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Polaroid stopped making instant cameras back in 2007, and ceased production of instant film two years later. Before Polaroid pulled out completely, the Dutch-based Impossible Project purchased Polaroid’s old equipment and factory in the Netherlands in an attempt to save Polaroid film from going extinct.

The company successfully re-engineered the film, and launched the new line of instant films a couple months ago. Recently they even opened up a storefront in New York City.

In the meantime, Polaroid found a new owner, and recruited Lady Gaga as the Creative Director and face of the company. Last week Polaroid announced a new instant film camera, the Polaroid 300, which looks remarkably similar to the Fujifilm Instax Mini 7.

According to Amateur Photographer, The Impossible Project isn’t very happy with the new camera, since they were expecting Polaroid to announce a new camera that would accept their 600-type film. Polaroid had showcased such a camera back at CES 2010 earlier this year.

A spokesperson for the company was quoted as saying,

The management of the Impossible Project finds this confusing and clearly wants to state that the Polaroid 300 is not the camera that has been announced in Polaroid’s press release from January 7 2010.

My guess is that we’ll be seeing Polaroid’s real announcement coming soon. If you’re a fan of Polaroid photography, hold your horses — good things come to those who wait.

On a semi-related note, Wikipedia has a pretty interesting summary of how The Impossible Project came to be:

Austrian photographer Florian Kaps, the owner of the largest online vendor for SX-70 films and organizer of the web-based instant photo gallery Polanoid.net, had bought the approximately 500,000 film packages that were on stock. He teamed with André Bosman, a former head of film production in the large Polaroid film factory at Enschede, designed a plan to redesign the SX-70/600 film system in collaboration with Ilford Photo, and convinced the Polaroid owners to participate. Plans for a relaunch under the Impossible label were announced in January 2009. Buildings in the Enschede plant, which had produced 30 million film packs in 2007 and 24 million in the first half of 2008, were leased to the company created by Kaps, who by May 2009 had raised $2.6 million from friends and family for what he had named The Impossible Project.

500,000 film packages? Wow…

Instant film is trying to make a comeback, and Polaroid wants in. Two years after calling it quits on instant film, the company has just announced the Polaroid 300 camera, which uses real self-developing film rather than the printer-in-the-camera thing they’ve been trying lately.

Polaroid’s Creative Director Lady Gaga supposedly helped with the design of this “next generation” Polaroid camera. However, we couldn’t help but notice the camera’s striking resemblance to the Fujifilm Instax Mini 7… How similar are the two cameras? Judge for yourself:

So basically, it looks like the new Polaroid 300 is simply the Fujifilm Instax Mini 7 rebranded. What’s interesting is that you can purchase the Instax Mini 7 for $69 on Amazon, while the new Polaroid camera costs $90. Film is roughly the same price for both cameras, at around $1 an exposure.

Now we know: the Polaroid brand name is worth $21 more than Fujifilm’s on an instant camera.

The Impossible Project’s new instant film for Polaroid cameras will go on sale later this week, but the British Journal of Photography has already gotten their hands on a pack of PX100. They were mailed a comprehensive press kit that included a box of the black and white film, and promptly exposed the film with a SX-70, publishing the results on their blog.

Of the eight exposures they had to play around with, only a few of them produced semi-recognizable images. Olivier Laurent writes,

But my initial impressions are that PX100 behaves like a expired pack of 669 or Time-Zero. You’re never sure of what you will get. To be fair, Impossible did warn us about this during its press conference yesterday. A slight change in temperature or pressure can ruin or enhance your image. One thing is sure, do NOT use this film outside in the winter or early spring, when there is still a cold breeze. Also, in some situations, you will need to keep your ND filter on.

Apart from some disappointing results (especially when shooting outside), it feels good to load a SX-70 with some new film.

$21 a pack means this is some seriously expensive experimentation. However, lets wait until the film is in the hands of the masses before coming to a verdict on this new film. Here’s to hoping the film is a success!

Image credit: Photographs by 1854.

Time to dust off your old Polaroid cameras. The Impossible Project has just unveiled its new PX100 and PX600 instant films for Polaroid cameras, after a three year effort to save Polaroid photography from extinction. The $21 packs, available starting Thursday, will each provide 8 black and white images. Color film packs are also expected to be released sometime this summer.

PX100 film is for the SX-70 Polaroid camera from the 1970′s, while PX600 is for more recent cameras that take 600-series film. While the new film will not carry Polaroid branding, new Polaroid instant film cameras that use the film have been announced. The company plans to produce more than 1 million packs in the first year.

Do you love Polaroid enough to pick it up again for $2-3 a shot?