Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

"Polaroid also has a wide-frame camera" is actually the title of putting the cart before the horse, because Polaroid launched a wide-frame camera as early as 35 years ago, but this series has been regained, but it has been won and lost again. Now people only know Fuji breadth, but in desperation, we can only take this title.

The picture above on Polaroid Spectra is a classic part of Stephen Chow's movie "domestic Lingling paint". I said a long time ago that if this Polaroid photo could be preserved, it would be of great value. Of course, since it's a movie, I guess I took a lot of pictures.

This is a wide-width Polaroid photo paper shot with a wide-width Polaroid camera, which is the kind of camera that appears in the movie. This system is called spectra system, and it is called IMAGE in the United States. In addition, Minolta in Japan has also cheated on this system.

I wrote this article because someone left a message saying, "I'm surprised that Polaroid also has a wide width." Polaroid is not only wide, but also much earlier than Fuji INSTAX.

Polaroid wide width system was born in 1986, slightly later than the 600 series photographic paper. Polaroid 600series photo paper and the original SX-70 paper sensitivity is different, the formula is different, but the picture is the same, are 79mmX79mm square, the total size of the paper is 88mmX107mm rectangle.

Here, I would like to mention that the size of the Fuji width is 99mmX62mm. From the imaging area, the ordinary Polaroid is a little larger than the Fuji width. Fuji is 61.38 square centimeters, while Polaroid is 62.41 square centimeters.

The wide-width Polaroid is even larger, with an area of 92mmX73mm, reaching 67.16sq cm. It is about 10% larger than the Fuji width. Polaroid wide spitting paper used to be the largest spitting paper with the largest imaging area.

However, under the size of Polaroid wide photo paper, there is still a secret, which can better reflect the power of Polaroid!

Although the imaging area is rectangular, the paper itself is close to square.

The reason for this design is that wide width is bound to encounter the problem of horizontal and vertical beats that square paper does not have, because medicine bags are stored in the paper, so it must be one more, so the vertical beat will be very sudden.

On the other hand, Polaroid makes the photographic paper as a whole close to square, which can alleviate this outburst visually. Therefore, the vertical shot of wide Polaroid is much more natural than that of Fuji.

In addition, in order not to make the picture abrupt, the aspect ratio of wide Polaroid is also very small, but it can make you see that it is not square paper.

The wide range camera has a very unique shape and a high degree of recognition, and it is generally believed that it is more professional than the 600 series of its contemporaries.

Very late 600 series cameras borrowed from the Spectra system camera in operation and layout. Because some of the cameras in this series are called 1200, and the later photo paper is called 1200, it is also called 1200 camera.

There are also many kinds of Polaroid wide-format cameras, basically developed from the original wide-format cameras above, and later machines are more or less the same, and later added a stylish LCD screen.

This series of cameras are basically folded, with sonar focus, three structural lenses with a 125mm / 10, and functions such as adjustable exposure.

In the 1980s, when the wide range was launched, the Polaroid 600 series cameras were mainly the kind of cameras that turned on the flash. Some of the 600 cameras have sonar, but most of them don't. 600 cameras with sonar belong to 600 miles of advanced computers.

In terms of specifications, the wide-width camera was launched in 1986, it can be said that after the SX-70 and 680s, the new Polaroid paper flagship series is not too much.

Let's take a closer look at an early Polaroid wide-range camera.

Because it uses an overall folding rather than the fake folding design of the early 600 series, the camera is easier to carry, although it is still relatively large.

Operation buttons are in the rear of the fuselage, using a very simple lever operation, in fact, that is, the basic functions are integrated.

The Polaroid wide-width system is not a SLR viewfinder. It has a viewfinder window that can be seen from the front of the fuselage. The operation of the fuselage is still fully automatic, just as Polaroid introduced the original intention of spitting paper.

One camera in the wide Polaroid is extremely impressive, and that is the Pro Cam.

This camera was launched in 1996. It opens horizontally and has a very strange shape. This camera also uses a different lens from an ordinary wide-format machine, using a 90mm lens with a 10-aperture lens with a slightly larger angle. Even the viewfinder is hidden in the fuselage, and the fuselage is more concise. And it also has an LCD screen that can display time information. It also retains the important sonar focusing function.

Even now, this camera makes people feel avant-garde in shape and greatly inspired by their thinking. However, this is not a successful attempt, this wide open way to hand-held is very inconvenient, the scene is also more troublesome, because the position of the viewfinder is too forward. So Pro Cam is just an attempt by Polaroid.

After talking about the camera, let's talk about photo paper.

Unfortunately, the photo paper of the Polaroid wide width system was completely discontinued in 2019.

Polaroid wide paper has different types in different ages, it is called SPECTRA (IMAGE in the United States) at the beginning, and there are other types behind it, such as the following 990th paper, which can be developed quickly and adopted a new formula.

Wide width has also produced a certain amount of working grid photographic paper, this kind of photographic paper is not known to many people, but also very rare. However, this kind of photographic paper is also available in other specifications, it has a certain practical significance.

In 2009, when Polaroid went bankrupt and all its products were discontinued, the paper fell silent and countless wide-width cameras became furnishings.

Then there was IMPOSSIBLE's resurrection plan, and the wide-width paper was naturally resurrected, which can be said to be lost and recovered.

From the perspective of the formula, there is no difference between wide photo paper and ordinary square paper, with a sensitivity of more than 600 degrees, which seems to be a problem of size. TIP didn't think much about it, and soon the color and black-and-white wide-width paper came back to life with the 600 series.

This is the earlier revived wide paper packaging. I didn't play with it until before 2016, when there was no such packaging. When I played, TIP had not yet acquired the Polaroid brand. I saw more of this kind of black and green mixed packaging. At that time, Polaroid was very expensive, and the most common version cost more than 140 yuan a box, and at that time, there were not all kinds of full reduction activities like now. So now compared with us, not only the quality of photo paper is better, but also the price is cheaper.

TIP bought part of the trademark rights of Polaroid, revived the brand, just revived, wide width is still in production, packaging is also changed to a unified look, SX-70 is red, 600 is blue, ITYPE is yellow, and wide is green, the following is the official publicity map of Polaroid.

There are a lot of new players in Polaroid now, at least many times more than when I played in 2016, and many new friends have never seen this packaging. But friends who have played for a certain year have seen them even if they haven't played much.

But it wasn't long before New Polaroid stopped producing the paper in 2019.

The most direct reason for stopping the production of this photographic paper is that the paper jam is extremely frequent, almost to the point of cartridge cards. So everyone pointed the finger at the quality control of New Polaroid.

Here to introduce a background, the original Polaroid spit paper box of 10 sheets, from SX-70, to 600, to wide, are all 10 sheets. However, the paper spitting speed of Polaroid camera is very fast (much faster than Fuji), which is very demanding for photographic paper design. When TIP resurrected spitting paper, he did not have the ability to make too thin medicine bags, so he compressed the paper to 8 sheets in a box. The paper was also thicker in the front and rear position than the original Polaroid paper, and the paper as a whole was heavier.

Although the new Polaroid photo paper formula has been upgraded many times, but the thickness of the paper has not been solved, and then simply did not solve, just 8 pieces a box, you can't help me.

Due to the increase in the thickness of the paper, many 600 cameras have little impact, but for the wide roller is prone to paper jam, uneven potion filling and so on.

In 2019, New Polaroid announced that it would stop production of this series of photo papers, citing camera problems. They say that 30 years later, these wide-range cameras have reached their useful life, break down frequently, and throw the pot to the machine. In fact, this explanation is also rather pale, because SX-70 is 10 years earlier than wide Polaroid, and it is still used.

In addition, in order to make the explanation more convincing, Polaroid officials said they had conducted six months of testing and made many adjustments to the paper, but still to no avail, so they simply stopped production.

In fact, in essence, wide-width Polaroid does not have much market and sales volume, and the stock and utilization rate of wide-width cameras are far lower than that of square paper, so it did not continue production because of cost considerations.

Come to think of it, there is also some regret.

This article is from the official Wechat account: film fan club (ID:jiaojuanmi), author: Shanghai Old dirty Turtle

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