“Instant” 35mm Film
Well, not quite “instant”, but pretty damn close.
I didn’t know this (maybe you did), but Polaroid used to make 35mm film that you could process at home without messy chemicals, in a matter of minutes. The system seems to of had some popularity at one stage, but like other Polaroid products, the profit margin must of been pretty small and the product was phased out. Several types of film instant film were made (all slide film) in both colour and black & white.
The system is based around a hand operated “Autoprocessor”. Into this you place your film and its matching processing unit (single use-comes with each roll of film). You then complete a series of winding actions and hey presto, you’re film is developed in about 2 minutes.
I saw a processing unit and 6 rolls of film going for less than $5 the other day, so thought I’d give it a go. The only thing is, the film had expired in 1984! I was more curious to see if anything would come out at all, and have a bit of fun.
I did get results, but as you’ll see, its pretty rough and insanely contrasty, but surprisingly ok for film that could be over 25 years old! I have a few rolls left, so might shoot them deliberately to bring the most out of the unique aesthetic. I’m kind of thinking of the movie “Metropolis”
5 Comments
Pete
That’s super awesome. Had no idea such a thing ever existed.
Arran
I know, its pretty crazy hey. Wish they still made the film 🙁
the_wolf_brigade
I have a fair bit of the colour stuff that had an original ISO of 40. I shoot it at 25 and it comes out pretty nice – similar expiry date too I think. If you find that the backing hasn’t come off entirely, soaking in fixer for a few minutes makes it soft enough to *gently* remove….
Arran
Mate, thanks for the post. Thats some really useful info there. I’m definately going to rate the film slower, and will try the fixer trick to remove the backing properly next time.. I was soaking it before in normal water i think, and it was pretty hard to get off.
I’m going ot keep an eye out of for more of this film. It’s quite fun to use.
Cheers
Robert Owe-Young
Hi:
I used to use a lot of this Polaroid 35mm instant stuff in my hospital department to make white-on-blue text teaching slides before the days of Power Point: there was a special film just for this. The clinicians would come to me with their A4-printed text (from Word Perfect!) and I’d set up my OM-2 and 50mm/f3.5 macro on an inverted tripod mount and fire away…geez I’m showing my age….early 1990’s I think.
Cheers,
Rob