Polaroid Automatic 215 land camera-late 60s??

mguerra620 · Oct 27, 2024

Anyone know anything about a Polaroid Automatic 215 land camera?? I came across one today in perfect condition and I'm trying to find out more about it! I tried loading photos but it says they are too large

mguerra620 · Oct 27, 2024

There we go! Had to resize the photos

Don_ih · Oct 27, 2024

Uses peel-apart film like Fuji FP100C, which has not been made in too-many-years-to-buy-some (you can buy some old packs, if you want to spend a lot of money). And Polaroid branded peel-apart hasn't been made in 20 years (I think?).

So that camera is a paperweight. It also uses a battery you can't buy - you'd need to adapt something else to power it's automatic exposure shutter.

Chan Tran · Oct 27, 2024

Being an automatic it's not as useful as a manual one. If you have something like the model 150 you can put a sheet of 4x5 in there and make the shot.

BrianShaw · Oct 27, 2024

That looks very much like the Polaroid kit I recently gave to Salvation Army donation center. All of the same accessories and even a Polaroid carrying case. The collection folks were fascinated by it. For me, though, it was just clutter for all of the aforesaid reasons. Somewhere I still have a 350 that I need to donate…

For background: that model came out in 4 series: 100-series, 200, 300, and 400. I’m sure there’s information on the internet to help determine the age.

My memory of my Dad using that camera is what helped build my knowledge is curse words. He was a gentle soul but when frustrated he swore like the Sea Bee he was. When disposing of his earthly possessions, there were lots of Kodachrome slides and not a single Polaroid image.

BAC1967 · Oct 27, 2024

They were great cameras when you could get film. I'm still holding onto one for some reason. You can get batteries for them but they are kind of expensive. You can also do a battery hack to make them work.

More info here http://www.landlist.ch/landlist/landdcam-pack.htm#215

mguerra620 · Oct 27, 2024

Don_ih said:
Uses peel-apart film like Fuji FP100C, which has not been made in too-many-years-to-buy-some (you can buy some old packs, if you want to spend a lot of money). And Polaroid branded peel-apart hasn't been made in 20 years (I think?).

So that camera is a paperweight. It also uses a battery you can't buy - you'd need to adapt something else to power it's automatic exposure shutter.

So basically useless these days...still pretty neat. I was excited to come across it

MattKing · Oct 27, 2024

Welcome to Photrio.
I've moved this thread to the Instant Cameras sub-forum, as it probably is most comfortable there.
These cameras are fascinating to look at now.
For many of us, they bring back interesting memories as well.
Besides commercial and business use, they were great at parties as well!

Don_ih · Oct 27, 2024

mguerra620 said:
So basically useless these days...still pretty neat. I was excited to come across it

With a battery, it can expose single sheets of film put in the back. That's about it, without doing something drastic to the camera. I'm sure someone could hack a roll-film holder into the back of it. For the most part, though, there's no good reason to do those things. The lenses were not exceptional, since the idea was the photo would never be bigger than the 3x4 instant film it used.

You kit is in very nice condition, so it has that going for it. Check to see if there's a battery leaking away in the holder - you'd probably want to get rid of that.

Paul Howell · Oct 27, 2024

Some of the bottom level Poloids used plastic lens? I think you can buy batteries for these, and yes with a bit of machine work you can put a roll back on one, advantage is that be would be a rangefinder with auto exposure as long as you use fast film, like Delta 3200. Polaroid film, was a fast film that was developed in a monobath. As it was only the size of the film, sort of a contact print grain was not an issue.

Don_ih · Oct 27, 2024

Paul Howell said:
that be would be a rangefinder with auto exposure as long as you use fast film, like Delta 3200.

These cameras all switch between the fast setting (for b&w) and a slow setting. Colour was iso75 or 100. There was also an iso100 b&w film (I have a few packs of it).

mguerra620 · Oct 28, 2024

I've got another old camera of some kind I'll share tomorrow. I've had it for many years and I'm not entirely sure where it came from besides my moms house

xya · Oct 28, 2024

If you want more information about these cameras, there is a site http://www.landlist.ch/landlist/landdcam-pack.htm There was a guy who created it, but he's gone since many years. And then there was a courageous Swiss guy, who retrieved all the information and put it back on the web again at his expenses. I thank him a lot...

Paul Howell · Oct 28, 2024

Don_ih said:
These cameras all switch between the fast setting (for b&w) and a slow setting. Colour was iso75 or 100. There was also an iso100 b&w film (I have a few packs of it).

I don't recall which models had which speeds, the one I had but tossed years ago had 2 ASA setting, B&W and color the B&W was 3000 or so, but the color would be much slower. I do have for display 2 boxes of the old roll film, expired 1963. The black and white is listed as ASA 3000 the color insert has the speed as ASA 75. So I guess with testing on the color setting you could shoot Tmax, Deta 100, or PF 4, That gives a user a choice of Delta 3200 or Tmax or Delta 100. Hum, wonder how the negatives would enlarge. And the user would need to make a mask for the viewfinder, 6X7 or 6X9 depending on the back.

Don_ih · Oct 28, 2024

Paul Howell said:
wonder how the negatives would enlarge

Not great.

BrianShaw · Oct 28, 2024

The exposure control on the automatic Polaroid cameras like this one was rather sketchy and finicky.

Donald Qualls · Oct 29, 2024

Paul Howell said:
I do have for display 2 boxes of the old roll film, expired 1963. The black and white is listed as ASA 3000 the color insert has the speed as ASA 75.

Black and white in ISO 100 and 400 came along during the pack film era. The higher end pack film cameras accommodated all of those speeds, some of the lower end ones only had 75/100 and 3000.

Jimskelton · Dec 11, 2024

The 215 is one of the low end pack film cameras with a 2 element plastic lens and only 2 apertures: f/8.8 and f/45. The plastic lens is surprisingly sharp but is not as good as the 3 element glass lenses in other models such as the 250. The biggest downside of the 215 is the "imagesizer" viewfinder, which connects the focusing mechanism with an arrow that points to a distance scale in the viewfinder. At f/8.8, it is quite difficult to achieve accurate focus with this system. Most other pack cameras have a split image rangefinder which works well at achieving accurate focus.

Pack cameras can be modified to use a variety of film formats such as Instax wide, Polaroid i-type, 120 6x6 and 6x9 format, 100mm wide 35mm panorama, 3x4 sheet film in film holders, as well as 4x5 with some vignetting. They can also be modified to use manual shutter speeds. Files and instructions are at http://polaroids.theskeltons.org/conversions.htm

Polaroid Automatic 215 land camera-late 60s??

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