Speaking of Polaroid....

[AndyH]

I'll admit it, I've totally lost track of instant film of the peel-apart pack variety. I used to have 4x5 backs and pack backs for my 4x5 gear, and see them readily available for Rollei, Mamiya, Hasselblad, and other formats. Quick googling still shows old film available, but it appears that the format in general disappeared somewhere in the first decade of the new millennium.

Can anyone give a short history of what happened to the Type 100 films? And why Original Polaroid or some other maker hasn't made an attempt at reviving them? There must be a camera base of hundreds of thousands of Polaroid cameras taking this film, as well as a number of pros and advanced amateurs using high end gear. As I recall, it was fairly cheap to manufacture, compared to the sealed images of the SX-70 and later formats, and someone must own the patents.

Anyone want to fill in the gaps in my photographic education?

Thanks in advance.

Andy

 

[xya]

when polaroid went bust, fuji had finally no obstacles any more to market its fp-100 film, a progress in quality and handling as it was self-terminating. so no watch out for development times any more. 5 years ago they decided to stop b&w peel apart film as there were less sales than for the colour film type. we should have been warned. only 2 years later they stopped colour film as well. fuji also makes instax film which sells by millions world wide. there were no other reasons than sales numbers to stop peel apart. as you say, peel apart film was easy to make, but it didn't sell by the millions.

there is a revival project, but their first batches sell 28€ for 3 (!) photos. that might not be a success.

within the next few weeks there will be an instax square back for mamiya RB67 by a company called coyote. that might be a solution...

 

[Oren Grad]

Casual amateurs who are interested in instant film long ago gave up peel-apart film in favor of integral film. In today's instant film revival they use mostly Fuji Instax. The grillions of old pack film cameras floating around don't represent a substantial market opportunity because hardly anybody actually wants to use them - compared to integral cameras, handling is relatively clumsy, and dealing with the chemical-contaminated trash on the fly is a substantial nuisance.

With the casual user long since having moved on, residual demand for peel-apart film collapsed when (a) studio pros moved to digital and no longer needed instant film for exposure tests, and, at the very end, (b) passport and ID photo services too moved to digital.

Finally, a key reason Impossible (now Polaroid Originals) didn't even try to revive peel-apart film, even for a niche market, was that the necessary production equipment was destroyed during the Polaroid meltdown, and trying to rebuild it from scratch was not economically viable.

FWIW, on a much smaller scale, Sam Hiser is still nursing along the New55 project - you can follow progress here:

http://famousformat.com/

 

[ic-racer]

I only have 5 boxes of FP100 left, but I have unlimited Instax! For the last few years I shoot Instax like sheet film and process it in the Instax camera. A huge advantage of the film holders is that they place the Instax film in the correct location so both the ground glass back and the rangefinder provide correct focus.

 

[ic-racer]

I'm also experimenting with spent FP100 cartridges and loading them with a single Instax film and using the Polaroid back film rollers to do the processing (manually pulling, rather than motor)

 

[AndyH]

Thank you all!

Somehow , this all makes me incredibly sad . I used to shoot the packs as exposure tests, but the quality of the “Polacolor” had an intrinsic appeal.

Andy

 

[Oren Grad]

I tinkered a bit with Fuji FP100C before it went away, had some fun, wish it were still around - but alas, occasional users like me don't add up to nearly enough demand. My instant film tinkerings are all Instax now.