AND WE’RE BACK
again with another nifty-thrifty find! Not too long ago I got my hands on this Polaroid Spectra, and like a lot of my finds at my local Goodwill, I wasn’t sure if the camera worked or not (which means something is definitely off with my risk-reward center in this brain of mine)
The Polaroid Spectra System
was released back in 1986, introducing a new line of Polaroid film to the market. Spectra film (aka 1200 type film) differed from the existing 600 type film by stretching the iconic square shaped borders into a rectangle, resulting in a wider landscape image!
The camera comes with a bunch of cool features like sonar autofocus, exposure compensation, a nice bright flash (that’ll hit like a full-strength Neuralyzer from Men in Black) and a big bright viewfinder that is super easy to look through.
Spectra film was originally discontinued in 2008, but the Impossible Project resurrected its beauty with its Polaroid Originals series, allowing for film lovers to experience the nostalgia once again 🙂
But unfortunately, like a lot of these stories, 2019 came around and Polaroid announced the discontinuation of Spectra film. Their statement was:
“Since 1986, Spectra played an important role in Polaroid’s film offering ad in the world of analog instant photography. With three decades behind them, these wide format cameras are now coming to the end of their useful lives. Jamming and frequent breakdowns are now affecting the majority of these cameras, and unfortunately, this is not something we can influence with our film”
Which brought me to a bit of a pickle.
See, what I didn’t know when I took this thing home with me was that the batteries to operate the camera, were in the film cartridge itself…
A film cartridge…for a film that isn’t produced anymore.
So naturally, I had no way of turning on the camera. I instantly surfed the web to see if I could find a pack, but instantly wiped out when I saw people were selling this film for $50 a pack (which caused me to reflux some acidic gastric juices).
Convinced that this camera was now a paperweight, I lost hope and discontinued my 10 minute search.
HOWEVER, my luck would soon turn! While visiting my family over the holidays, I checked out this vintage shop to browse for some cool things. I asked the clerk if they had any film-
he pulls out two packs of Polaroid Spectra film (one black and white, one color) and I ninja-starred my debit card at him.
Once I got back to Jersey, I popped that monochrome pack into the camera and smacked that shutter button down. The sound of the machinery instantly caused a release of dopamine-
But then, nothing came out.
“Great, here we go again with the Bull-“
Something was up with the roller of the camera, I manually pulled the image out, and was witness to the unimaginable.
It was a horrendous mess of chemicals and nothingness. Then it clicked in my head, that a lot of these cameras had roller issues. The roller mechanism is an essential part of any polaroid camera, as it spreads the chemicals evenly across the image after exposure.
I once again hopped onto the great vast interwebs and found a video that solved the issue!
It was time to shut the lights and get romantic. I opened up the camera to pull out the film pack and had to rip off this small strip of material that was causing the jam.
Flipped the lights back on and it was time for round 2.
I fired a couple shots and, well this was the “best” image:
Yeah, that’s me- back in 1952.
Now it was back to utter disappointment. I had one more pack left, and I don’t know if the issue was with the camera or if the film was just, wompy.
I cautiously threw in the new color pack, and asked one of my foomies (family roommate) if I could test a shot with her. She agreed, I fired away and set the film down to allow for proper development.
After 10 mins, I flipped it back over, and here’s what resulted!!!
A deep sigh of relief leaves my body, as I can finally rest from this emotional rollercoaster.
Or so I thought…
With the remaining couple shots of the color pack, only one of them came out with good overall exposure, the next two managed to capture image but had either weird color shifts, weirdly spread chemicals, or both, and the last two-
well, y’all can see how those turned out.
Flexing my nails hard in this one
Sometimes the chemicals have their own plan
With the pack being expired, it was hit or miss with some of these frames, but that ones that hit, I really enjoyed 🙂
I’m not quite sure what I’ll do with the camera now that I know it works. Getting its specific film is a hassle and definitely hurts my bank account. I’ve seen people fitting current Polaroid films in the Spectra cartridge, and I’ve also seen people fitting 4×5 film in this camera with a little bit of rigging!
I may try this out sometime in the future, but if not, I’ll probably just keep it as a cool paperweight ^_^