This makes me want to cry.
no seriously. cry.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/02/p ... nds-i.html

Time to stock up instant photography fans.

fuck digital.

arrgghhh..

i work in a photo library/archive & this has been a noticable trend the past three years...

digital is taking over

i will not lose my job because we simply have colourmatchprints from the digi files,,but it is still not the same...

although,,we still get some polaroids from shoots,,sometimes the massive 8" x 10" polaroids,,pretty killer...

i imagine they must cost a bucket per polaroid,,wonder if this means the pro ones will be obsolete too??

fuck digital,,,true!!!

http://flickr.com/photos/missymazzaferr ... 231473664/

my polaroid sets on flickr.

instant (tangible) photography will never die!

while it sucks, buying a cartridge of instant film for 15 bucks or so really is a rip off

i stopped using my polaroid because it was just too pricey

This is the part I liked best...
" ...cutting 450 jobs ...down from peak global employment of nearly 21,000 in 1978."
Yay Technology! I know I'm a hypocrite(as I type this on the Internet), but damn...Same as in the music industry, there are less & less places to get good quality analogue tape to record on.

developers & Chemicals cost money. I considered this a necessary evil back before digital. now we are all spoiled by digital camers. Not to say I don't use mine all the time, but I would never consider it a replacement for good old "1 minute developing" polaroids.

i don't think its too much money to spend. you have it in a minute.

please send any unused polaroid film to me.

I probably have a camera that takes it. (stares longingly at my 4 polaroid models on the shelf)

unfortunately i used up my last cartridge one day when my polaroid decided it best to eat the pics instead of spitting them out. that was a big waste

pretty sure i chucked that camera

if polaroid stops making the film, i imagine there will be some company somewhere that will pick up small time production of it. i mean, there's a company out there that makes viewmaster reels still

viewmaster never really stopped being made, they company shifted hands several times, but they never really ceased production. (ironically there is also a stack of about 100 viewmaster reels just a few feet away from me too) hah

This statement is what has me worried.

"Polaroid has, in the past, been aggressive about defending its patents, taking down Kodak in the 1980s when it tried to muscle in on instant photography. Fujifilm makes instant film compatible with Polaroid Type 100, however -- if it can turn a profit on this stuff already, maybe it'll step in to cover more of the Polaroid range."

what is wrong with fujifilm?? are they a particularly corrupt company ??

nothing is wrong, but they only make one kind of pack film. (compatible with only one kind of polaroid i think). I actually just emailed them to encourage them to consider picking up the lines that polaroid just dropped.

yeah, i'm that bummed. haha.

I feel for ya missy. This was inevitable but still.

When I was a kid I had this really nice Bolex 8mm camera with several lenses. I used it for stop-motion claymation. It was pretty easy to mail off the canisters of exposed film to Kodak, and receive a printed reel of film back a week later. By the early 80s, I had to go to places like Leo Diner to pay way too much to get them to process the film. Then they stopped accepting 8mm. Then Super8mm. My interests changed so it wasn't so bad, but I felt awful for my friends who were making Super8 and 16mm films when the prices started going nuts and the houses that would process the film started vanishing.

I loved my Polaroid SX70. You could apply pressure to the photo as it developed and create all sorts of colorful distortions. Simple pleasures from a pre-digital age.

well, like a paranoid dad before a tornado, I just bought 4 packs, probably more after I get home from CA, but those 4 were $50. ha.

Whenever I read news about film related stuff like this I get really upset. I remember freaking out about how many photos are lost when people using digital just delete while they are still in the camera without really ever looking at the photos. Also, how much has been lost because people find it hard to transfer from medium to medium all the time and just throw everything out instead and so on. Fuck, digital is a curse in a way.

this blows chunks considering I finally plopped down and bought me a polaroid and 3 packs of film. I was going to take pics of people at the Nekro show with the giant skullbrain on in various positions like the old days. Remember when you went to carnivals and paid to take pics in some sort of whack airbrushed background?

I better save these.

before anyone stocks up, polaroid film doesn't hold up so well either. I had a package from costco I bought after about a year the remaining 6 or 7 I had left all went to crap. The pics stopped developing at the halfway point.

Really sad, now is the time to stock up on polaroid film art books though, since it is soon to be extinct.

I have two boxes of spectra image film if you really want it, I got it from my friend who was throwing it out hoping that some day I'd get around to getting a palariod camera, but thats not gonna happen now Does film expire???

Damn you modern technology!!! Wats next, the pencil and paper???

Andy Warhol is spinning in his grave right now. And he's pissed off too!

Doesn't Fuji still make polaroid type cameras?

http://www.fujifilm.com/products/instan ... ax200.html

Yep, and they say they're still making them (and film) even after Polaroid's announcement:

http://www.thinkcamera.com/news/article/mps/uan/693

They are a different shape & Size than polaroids-but I don't *hate* them
http://www.flickr.com/photos/f777/250355543/
See here for what I mean. They also develop differently, and seem to come out less clear than the classic 'roids

It just sucks that I shoot on a lot of older cameras, and will have to slowly retire them. See a thread I just made in October about my "Big Shot"

http://skullbrain.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=15031

I wonder whether this film will be produced elsewhere to supply a niche market? My brother in law is a photographer and works with a whole range of old printing methods - gum bichromate, cyanotype, lith film etc. On seeing the materials that he needed slowly disappearing he did a lot of research into whether they would actually be gone or simply produced elsewhere. In a majority, if not all cases, he ended up being able to find what he needed. That said, some of this stuff is now incredibly expensive.

my whole family worked for polaroid for a long time, and while it's sad to see the end of an era so to speak, it's not hard to believe.

they have become the worst type of corporate bullshit conglomerate in recent years, and really screwed a lot of people (including my mom) out of their retirement benefits.

anyway, i have fond memories of polaroid growing up as a kid, but i think Dr Land would be sad to see what it has become.

As a memorial: My life in polaroids:


2nd Grade Halloween. I'm the one with a mouth full of juice. This one has seen better days.


izone fun with friends (and a giant salt water taffy mascot!)


expired izone film at the beach, check the lip ring! hah


with my BFF at Christmas


looking pasty with the big shot

ps: Monsters look extra scary on expired film!

There is a great place in SF called Adolph Gassers that sells all kinds of hard to find film, I am not sure about mail order though. I used to buy Polaroid film there all the time.

I still have two of them. I used a dental tool to manipulate the emulsion before it set up. I just found some old polaroids from the early 90's that I did, I forgot how much I missed working with them. Image transfer with Type 559 film was fun too!