Most expensive seiko shutter ever?

[grain]

I only just now became aware of the Polaroid 180. I have owned and used the 250, 350 and 360

models for many years now. I go to the trouble of soldering in the L-123 batteries myself, since the

alkaline bi-post type is really too expensive and short lived. Control of the light intake is pretty fool

proof and I haven't had to touch the L/D dials in years. As far as I can tell, the shutter is the only

difference. The Tominon is coated for color but so are the GE made zeiss clones on the 350 etc. The

synch in the 350 is X, but you have to stuff an angled chunk of stiff paper in the slot next to the pc

socket to fool it into firing-not really a problem. Optical slaves work with the strobe on the 360. My

question is this: What makes that shutter worth many MANY hundreds of dollars? I see auction listings

where the 180 begins at <$500! The most I have ever spent was $35 for the 360 kit with charger, and

a $40 replacement for the Ni-Cad cell within it. So why is the shutter alone worth more than $425? is it

THAT good?

[ben_long]

I had a 180 for a brief time. The body is indeed very similar to the 360, which I also

have. But I was surprised to find that the rangefinder on the 180 was even bigger and

brighter; a real pleasure to use.<p>I don't see the shutter as being the only difference.

The Tominon lens on the 180 is a four element Tessar type; the lens on the 360, etc is

a triplet. How much extra cost is creative control worth? For some people it may be

paramount. With the 180 you have manual settings for aperture and shutter speed,

neither of which you can really control on the other cameras.<p>There is definitely a

"cult" status of the 180 which drives up prices, but that's partly because it's relatively

rare compared to other Polaroids.

[mary fran]

As Ben said, the Tominon is a Tessar-type four element, which commands a premium over a three-element lens. The Tominon seems to be a very respectable performer, with sharpness that exceeds the ability of Polaroid film to record. The B&W film (especially the Fuji 100) offers a much sharper image than the color stuff, which always seems to have terrible color rendition anyway. In addition, the Seiko SLV on the 180 is a leaf shutter (and leaf aperture), much more sophisticated (and expensive) than the simple guillotine shutter found on most other Polaroid models. The Tessar lens and Seiko shutter make the 180 a classic folding camera, designed and produced at the end of the golden age of medium-format folders. And $500 for a 180 seems a bit over the market. I bought mine on the"bay" for $200, and I've seen them listed routinely for $200-$300. I'd keep shopping.

[grain]

I'll stick to my others, since it is so that as sharp as it may be it's not able to resolve due to

the migration process polaroid (now fuji) uses for pack film. Still. I do think it's a cool idea.

If there's a brighter finder than in the 350/360 I'd be amazed. It's a zeiss product on those.

Thanks for the responses.

[savagesax]

There is a guy named David Riddle that converted a mess of the cameras. There were others as well. Anyway all of the questions can be answered by him.

 

He also converted the 110 a anb b. You can google him and call him if interested.

[ben_long]

The finder on the 180 was made by Zeiss too, just a better version.<p>By the way, I did

notice a difference between the Tominon on the 180 and the triplet on the 360 when

shooting the late, great 665 film, which yielded a high quality negative. The instant prints

showed much less difference but the negative was really sharp with the Tominon.<p>I

decided to sell my 180 because I also have a converted 110A and the Rodenstock

Ysarex lens on that camera beats even the Tominon, although the rangefinder is not as

good.