OT: Summer project

To shake things up, I want to do a photo project of my town and it's

people using a polaroid instant camera. The results would be scanned

on a flatbed, enlarged 100% and printed on my C80.

 

 

 

 

The question is, which camera? I'm woefully ingnorant of these

cameras. Do any allow manual focus? Are they just hyperfocal set

lenses? Any exposure control? A quick search of the web didn't tell me

much. Any help would be great.

 

 

 

 

thanks,

Why not just purchase generic disposable camera's? They will offer you the same photographic statement and serve your purpose quite well.

I think we need Phil Kneen to answer this question.

I would get one of the old SX-70 cameras that use time zero, that

are manual focas although the did make an af model, you can

also try your hand at polaroid manipulation with the time zero as

it is quite a unique emultion , there are quite a few web sites on

this subject. good luck with your project. mark...

Hi. If you're serious about it, then get a polaroid 690slr- no longer

made, but available on Ebay. You should get one " in the box" for

about $120-$150. The sx70 can be had in "functioning" condition

for around $50-$70 which seems like a no brainer, except that

sx70 film is $3-$4 a pack more expensive(and harder to find)

than 600 film (which the 690slr uses and can be found in most

grocery stores and in "bulk" form in discount warehouses) The

690 has auto/manual focus, auto exposure(with exposure

compensation) and originally sold for$400.

 

Tom

I forgot to mention the built in flash, which can be used for fill-in.

You can get good results with these( also with sx-70 ).

 

Tom

one more time....<div></div>

If you really want to do this, get something that uses peel-apart film. There's dozens of these around ranging from the cheepo 104s to the Mamiya made 600SE which is very nice indeed. The peel-apart stuff is a lot sharper than the one piece stock in my experience.

 

Mind you, wouldn't a digital attached to one of those tiny HP 6x4 printers do the same thing and probably cheaper, Polaroid material being as expensive as it is?

Three photographers here in the Czech Republic - Jan Maly, Jiri Polacek, & Ivan Lutterer - used a large format camera to make a photographic census of this country's people after revolution. The project seems to have run from 1982-96. They would show up in a town, invite everyone down for a photo, and set up a tent-studio. After each shoot, the subjects would get a Polaroid version of their shot to keep, while the photographers kept the photographic negative. I don't think they used P/N film, but rather a film back and a Polaroid back (i.e like a 545i or something) on a large format camera. Evidently this became quite an event, and the person who gave me a copy of the book that followed, entitled Cesky Clovek (ISBN: 80 900903 4 6) had a wistfully nostalgic look on their face. The photographs are great and really capture a moment of transition for a strong-willed and optimistic group of people.