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polaroid land 250


dougs

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They are automatically set by the light meter. You have no control over the speeds and no way of knowing what they are.

 

http://polaroids.theskeltons.org/d250.htm

 

The 250 is one of the BEST Pack-film cameras ever made. It takes all the different speeds of Polaroid films and has a real singe-window viewfinder/rangefinder made by Zeiss Ikon.

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you gotta order special batteries, (or build your own AAA battery pack) and then you get to enter the fantastic world of polaroid pack-film cameras. between Polaroid and Fuji there are like 9 different films to try, all of them slightly different.

 

These things are the real hidden treasure of the polaroid world. tons of films and many of the pack-film cameras have very sharp lenses. check out the landlist.org for details on the cameras before you buy, because a few of the pack-film cameras have plastic lenses and some of them are limited to only 2 film speeds. you have 4 different speeds of film available from Polaroid right now!

 

Polaroid:

 

664 - B&W - ISo 100 - Polapan Pro - for 1/10sec or faster

 

665 - B&W - ISO 80 - Positive/Negative

 

667 - B&W - ISO 3000 - high speed film

 

669 - Color - ISO 80 - Polacolor ER - daylight balanced - 1/125th sec... color shifts in each direction

 

672 - B&W - ISO 400 - Polapan 400 - fine grain

 

690 - Color - ISO 100 - Polacolor Pro - integral development

 

Fuji:

 

FP-100C - Color - ISO 100 - Professional Instant Color Film

 

FP-100B - B&W - ISO 100 - Professional Instant B&W Film

 

FP-3000B - B&W - ISO 3000 - Professional Instant B&W Film

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Yes, the adjustment ring around the lens is for exposure compensation.

 

The 250 takes a 4.5 volt 531 battery, whereas many of the other packfilm cameras take a 3-volt 532 battery. I prefer the 3-volt cameras (such as the 350), since it is easy to make your own battery, provided you have an old one on hand.

 

Take an X-acto knife and carefully cut the terminal ends off the old battery. Then solder them onto a 123 lithium battery. Be careful! Too much heat may cause the battery to explode, so don't overdo it. I use Radio Shack's Low Heat Soldering Tape for this.

 

Of course new 531 and 532 batteries are still available, but the lithiums are pretty cheap and last forever. The last 532 I bought lasted maybe 6 months. And the 123 lithiums are physically the same size as the 532s, so they fit the battery holder like a glove.

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Coincidentally I bought a 250 very recently on the auction site - a 250, portrait kit, and flash-bulb attachment for US$30 :)

 

"Official" batteries, the 531 or its clone the PX19, as mentioned, are available, but are somewhat rare. For me in Canada, shipping makes them more expensive. What I've done is taken 3 x "N" type batteries (1.5 V alkaline), taped them end-to-end in series, and taped the leads from the camera to it. It's not pretty, but this actually fits as-is into the existing battery holder, and the compartment door actually closes properly :) I've pointed it at a darker area of the room, followed by a light source, and the shutter fires at different speeds for each, so I think this is actually working.

 

I've just got some 667 film, but haven't used any yet - I'm trying to decide on what makes a good representative sample of test pics.

 

My only issue is the flash bulbs - I've just picked a quantity of older ones, again, from the auction site (hopefully they work), but as I understand it a regular x-sync flash won't work properly (or according to the Land List above *might* work in some situations). If anyone has a flash-based solution I'd love to hear it.

 

Also, I believe from the film list above the 665 is no longer available (the one that also produced a negative). From what I've read the 667 does produce a paper negative of some sort, which can be used for artistic effect as well, though.

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I too wondered about flashes after reading the Land List's section on using electronic flash. I found this out:

 

For the 250, 350, 450, etc.-- you will notice the flashgun on these cameras plugs into a regular PC socket and simultaneously into a small right-angled slot adjacent to the PC socket. The right-angled slot, when occupied by a flashgun prong, tells the camera when a flash is attached.

 

What I did was to cut the right-angled tab off of a flashgun plug with a hacksaw:<div>00NSIK-40039584.jpg.2b70220cba29e2891e605e9a3a29dc25.jpg</div>

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Now for the most important part: the size of your flash!

 

The camera is truly X-sync when it comes to opening the shutter, but it uses the metering cell on the front of the camera to know when it has received enough light to close the shutter. In other words, this is just the way the metering system works at any other time (see the Land List for a good explanation).

 

So you will need a good-sized flash to pump out enough light! I experimented with different size flashes and realized you need something which has a flash roughly equal to that of a flash bulb. Big. I use a flash that has a guide number of 36 (in meters) or 120 (in feet). The key is to use the flash in manual mode only! Just blast away, and let the camera handle the metering.

 

Hope thats somewhat clear! It's a fun rig when it all comes together.

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Glenn, the whole great thing about 667 is you dont need no stinking flash. Thats 3000 speed film there dude!

<br><br>

And yes, it does make a "paper negative". All of the peel-apart films do this, but most of them fade instantly into black as soon as light hits them. Some of them take several minutes to do it. The coolest thing is that the 667 negative takes a minute to cure. In that time you have a chance to expose it to light... this causes the unexposed areas of the negative to solarize. You can then scan the neg (when all the goo is good and dry) and reverse it in Photoshop and add contrast, makes for an awesome image!

<br><br>

<img src="http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b15/patrickjdempsey/Mamiyaroid%20C660/mamiyaroid667_04.jpg">

<br>

Original photo (using red filter over lens to get more contrast, and allow me to shoot 3000iso in daylight)

<br><br>

<img src="http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b15/patrickjdempsey/Mamiyaroid%20C660/667negative_04.jpg">

<br>

The solarized negative.

<br><br>

<img src="http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b15/patrickjdempsey/Mamiyaroid%20C660/667negative_04reversed1.jpg">

<br>

The reversed and contrast added image.

<br><br>

And dont even ask what camera I used... thats a WHOLE DIFFERENT TOPIC!

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  • 1 year later...
  • 7 months later...

<p>I just got mine today! I am trying to get it up and running asap. I have a few questions, hopefully they aren't repeats. I skimmed the thread and didn't saw the same topics but not what I am looking for specifically, so sorry if I missed something!!<br>

The bellows won't open. Is the battery required for this?<br>

Do you know if you can buy the batteries in the actual store at Radioshack? <br>

Annnnd...are the films mostly only available online? how much is too much to pay for them? I am willing to pay the price, but I don't want to get ripped off!!</p>

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