35mm Polaroid, a.k.a. the "Minoltaroid Spirit"

I just spent the last couple days modifying and remodifying a hybrid

SLR/Polaroid. I took a 1979 Minolta xg7 and stuck it onto a hacked apart

Polaroid Spirit 600. I had to rewire the motor, and leave all the gears and pin

intact so I could power out the polaroids with a 9volt battery. You can see the

polarities on the sideview pictures below. The results were pretty interesting,

and I was wondering if anyone else had tried this same experiment, I'd love to

see some other photos. <p>

Minoltaroid Spirit 1 a.k.a. "the Tank" <a

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Example shot <a

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Minoltaroid Spirit 2 <a

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Example <a href="

First off... there are two professional setups for using polaroid backs with film cameras and both of them are for Nikons. The NPC Polaroid back uses a fiber-optic reciever lens to transfer the image from the film plane directly to the polaroid film behind it. This camera produces an image the size of the 35mm negative on a blank sheet of Polaroid film. The second back is called the Speed Magny. The Speed Magny is a huge thing with two prisms and a lens built into it that reprojects the image to get it to cover the entire Polaroid sheet and to get proper focus.

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/nikonf4/filmbacks/index1.htm

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/nikonf2/filmbacks/index2.htm

Richard Oleson decribes how to take a teleconverter and rebuild it to allow it to project the 35mm lens large enough to cover 6x6:

http://members.tripod.com/rick_oleson/index-151.html

Lastly, Ive done some experiementing in this area myself and Ive found two alternative solutions. The first solution is a modification of the method Rick Oleson uses. I found that cheap teleconverters that have 4 elements in them have spacers in between the elements. Moving these spacers around allows you to change the positions of the elements inside the teleconverter. The basic idea works the same as a simple zoom lens, moving an internal element to create a zoom factor. Last night, I ran into another possible solution, which is to take a tripet lens from a medium format camera and use the center (negative) element. Placing this behind the 35mm lens will project it back larger and allow for focusing. These elements are very thin and one could be mounted inside of a 10mm or 12mm extension tube to lengthen the back-focus of the 35mm lens.

You can compensate your exposure by changing the ASA on your camera. Measure the distance from the film plane on the camera to the Polaroid. Every 1" you add 1 stop to the exposure... more or less. If there is a mirror, you measure from the film plane to the mirror, and then down to the film. Then you just adjust your ASA, since its 600 speed film, if your setup is 1" longer then you set the camera ASA to 250, for 1.5" set to 200, for 2" set to 125 etc, etc. If you use a modified teleconverter between the lens and the body of the camera, be sure to measure the teleconverter and add that to your final exposure.

This is a really fun project, cant wait to see more!