Before the digital age, Polaroid was once the "trend" of the mid-to-late 20th century, and it was as popular as today's iphone products, and even artists and photographers such as Ansel Adams, Walker Evans, Andy Warhol, and Nobuyoshi Araki used Polaroid to create.
In its heyday, Polaroid was the world's second largest producer of Polaroids, second only to Kodak, and its influence was no less than that of Coca-Cola and Ford Motors, but after the advent of the digital age, it experienced two bankruptcies and three sales, until it was completely acquired by TIP (The Impossible Project) and renamed Polaroid Originals, and the original Polaroid no longer exists.
Most of the original models, including automatic organ machines, professional tear-off machines, SX-70 series, 600 series, 1200 series wide format machines, etc., are active in the second-hand market, according to their state of preservation, rarity, the price of a single machine generally ranges from 600 to 5000 yuan, more as a collectible, and has little to do with ordinary consumers.
Some of these models were reproduced after the Polaroid was acquired, but there may be slight differences from the original models, such as the SX-70 series paper has been increased from 125 to 160, the 600 series paper has a higher 640 sensitivity, and some new models have eliminated the battery in the paper.
SX-70 Series:
SX-70 series folding machine is the classic pioneering work of Polaroid automatic spinning machine, most of them are split image screens, using SLR structure, what you see is what you get, there is no polaroid parallax problem similar to the design of the rangefinder camera, and the leather cavity body can be folded into a flat box size, easy to carry. Although the body is plastic, some high-end models will use the brushing process to make a metal-like texture.
This series of folding machines opens the camera by pulling up the top of the viewfinder until the support bar jams the side. When taking photos, adjust the exposure compensation according to the actual situation, especially in cloudy days, nights or indoor environments, you need to be equipped with a flash and a tripod, after focusing well, press the shutter, and let go after hearing the motor turning sound and wait for the film.
In the SX-70 series, the Original is the most classic, but the motor shaft collapses from time to time, and the subsequent Alpha 1 optimizes the internal parts, reduces the failure rate, and adds strap hanging holes and tripod ports in the fuselage, which is more worth buying. If you have a good budget, you can buy the series of "Jiwang" SLR680 or SLR690 in one step, the price is 5000 yuan, the classic design of Polaroid, with the sonar focus of the previous generation Sonar machine, and the addition of built-in flash, the use of high-sensitivity 600 series photo paper, can adapt to more photographic environments.
The rainbow machine belongs to the SX-70 series of fixed low-end models, the plastic body can not be folded, equipped with a pan-focus lens, it is easy to lose focus when shooting at close range, because it is used with low-sensitivity photo paper, the film effect is worrying, so it is not recommended to use it in indoor and other low-light scenes, but it is fashionable and exquisite, black and white with rainbow bar design, as a collection to appreciate is not bad.
600 Series:
Also suitable for collection is the 600 series, with more than 300 styles and colorful styles, including many cartoon cooperation models, transparent shell cameras, flat whale machines, etc., which are also excellent for giving as gifts. The 600 series also has complete functions, easy to operate, using 600 series photo paper with high light sensitivity, the shutter speed can be improved, and the distance of more than 1 meter is maintained when shooting, and if the exposure is normal, it is enough to deal with most scenes, and there will be basically no waste films, which is suitable for portraits and landscape subjects.
1200 Series Wide Format Series:
Although the series uses wide-format photo paper, although it does not have the classic folding SLR framing design of the SX-70, it is powerful, with its own flash, providing a variety of shooting modes, suitable for portraits, landscapes, night scenes and other subjects, and there are many models to choose from, including the unique shape of the "dentist" Macro5 SLR, DSLR framing, macro shooting.
It should be mentioned that due to the aging of the machine and the jamming of the wide format camera, it is difficult to adapt the reproduced photo paper to it. As a result, Polaroid Originals discontinued the production of Spectra/Wideformat films in October 2019, which means that the 1200 series using these papers will face difficulties in buying and increasing the price of photographic papers, so please buy carefully.
Polaroid Originals时期
In addition to selling some of the reproduction models in the 600, SX-70, and Spectra series, the new Polaroid Originals also launched new digital analog instant products such as Snap Touch, Onestep2, Onestep, and Polaroid Lab, which cost more than 1,000 yuan, and use the newly developed i-Type battery-free photo paper, which is developed within 15 minutes, which is not compatible with the old Polaroid camera.
Among them, Snap Touch supports 1080P full HD video recording, and records the captured image through Zink sublimation printing technology, but the function is similar to that of the integrated printer, the imaging effect is average, and it is not recommended, it is recommended to choose Onestep2 and Onestep, the appearance continues the classic rainbow machine shape, the appearance is high, and the operation is also convenient, suitable for novice photographers to shoot outside.
The Onestep2 has a timed selfie function and a variety of colors, but in terms of function use, Onestep is even better, and the gameplay is similar to the impossible I-1 launched by TIP, which can be connected to a smartphone APP app via Bluetooth to achieve double exposure, light and shadow graffiti, control camera settings, voice-activated trigger shutter, remote control group photo, 25-second timed selfie and other rich functions. There is not much difference in price between the two, so the highly playable Onestep is worth getting.
The Polaroid Lab is the latest product to be launched, and the appearance is somewhat similar to TIP's instant lab, users can choose their favorite photos from the mobile phone, create up to 9 frames of collage in the app, put the phone on the machine platform, and get Polaroid photos with Polaroid texture through digital and analog conversion, with a novel experience.
