Today is a very special day for various reasons: not only has my Polaroid 600 Extreme camera arrived (the one I bought for £2.50 off eBay). Also, both me and my wife are off together – it rarely happens these days. That alone was reason to celebrate.
But more importantly: The Impossible Project have today released their brand new PX600 Silver Shade Instant Film which is made for just these cameras! I put an order for 12 packs in immediately and can’t wait to give it a try.
In the meantime however, I pondered over the question “does the PX100 work in Polaroid 600 cameras” or rather “does an SX-70 film work in a Polaroid 600 camera” as discussed in my previous post.
I’m happy to say that YES IT DOES – with a minor modofication to the camera.
Let me show you the results and talk you through my experiences with this exciting new material.
The Polaroid 600 Extreme
As I said, £2.50 for my very first Polaroid camera was a bit of a bargain. It even came in its original box and looked brand new to me – even though the rollers inside gave reason to believe it’s seen some use in its time. According to the box it was built in February 1998 in the UK (Vale de Leven, Dumbarton in Scotland to be exact) under license by the Polaroid Corporation in Cambridge, MA (USA).
It’s much bigger than I remember my parents’ Polaroid and I can’t help but feel reminded of my Holga cameras: we’re dealing with a pretty ugly hunk of black plastic here, cheap plastic lens, ridiculous “close-up” slider and a lighter/darker feature which obscures the light meter with a piece of striped plastic (or doesn’t – depending on where you slide it).
I think the seller told me it was £29.99 when it came out so that’s pretty much the price of a Holga too. Great – I love it already, and it’ll feel right at home in my collection!
PX100 Silver Shade First Flush Edition
Trouble is that the Impossible film pack I’ve bought the other day is not made for this camera, but for Polaroid SX-70 models. From what I’ve learnt however the only difference is the film speed: PX100 has 100 ISO and my camera is expecting a 640 ISO film.
Easy solution: tape a piece of ND filter over the light meter and be done with it. I’ve used one that darkens incoming light by 2 stops. That should do the trick.
All that’s left is to pop the film in and see if it fits. Listen carefully:
YES IT DOES!
The limited edition darkslide pops out just as expected, so the camera works too. That’s another load off my mind. Just one more thing perhaps: I’m shooting on First Flush batch no. 43 here 😉
Next thing to do of course is hand the camera over to my wife and have her take a picture of me (see below).
Let’s see some pictures
Be my guest! I only had one single pack of PX100 because I didn’t know if anything would come out, so 8 exposures were all we had to test this puppy. On a fairly sunny day with spots of overcast-ness (if that is a word) we took a stroll in the afternoon through the hood and here’s what we shot:
Very nice! I noticed on some of these you said the flash was off. I don’t think there’s an option for me to turn off the flash on my 600 camera :/ Can I just cover it with electrical tape?
Thank you!
Taking a picture without flash is even easier than using electrical tape (which I wouldn’t recommend btw):
There are actually two buttons where the shutter button is. The red one at the front, and a black one behind that. If you press the first one, the flash fires (which in turn presses the second one to take the picture and eject it). If you just press the second button, you take a picture without the flash.
Hey There!
Just want to say – thank you for your experiments and your blog. I have had a polaroid 600 for quite some time. I bought it back in the 90’2, made a really cool series of portraits of a friend of mine and then glued them in a book for a school project (so now they are thick with silly paper stuck to the back, but thankfully saved! – I was 16!) Anyways, I planned a trip to Paris a few weeks back and thought ‘oh, I should get out my polaroid, went to the local photo lab and they laughed in my face when I asked if they still sold polaroid films. After going online I found it had been discontinued etc and was VERY dissapointed. Anyways, literally 2 weeks later, the same shop had a sign in the window proudly saying hey sold sx70 film, so I bought a roll. The same guy who had laughed at me warned me I couldn’t use it in my 600 camera, but I ignored him, put it in, used your advice and made some GREAT shots of Amsterdam (where I live!) Just wanted to say a big thanks for your blog, ‘cos I could only find how to put 600 into sx70 and not the other way round. So my love of polaroid has begun and now I can’t stop! I also have a lomo diana camera, but I’m still waiting for the first lot of photos to come back from the printers! OK, well gonna go now! Just wanted to say thanks! Joseph, Amsterdam
Hi Joseph,
thank you so much for your comment! I’m glad you got it working – I remember when I bought that SX70 film the shop assistant was saying “nonono, it won’t work in a 600 camera” – and I nearly gave in. Glad I didn’t 😉
I’ve just tried some PX600 and it’s even NICER than the PX100. I’ll post the results soon.
Happy Shooting 😉
I have a SX70 and used same film – I got white specks also. Bad film? I tried 2 packs and got the same. Too bad – the pictures are not usable.
Oh that’s interesting about the white spots – maybe it IS the PX100 then. I thought it was my 600 camera, but if you’re getting it on an SX-70 too then it may well be thhis first batch of film.
I’ve just tried some PX600 and DIDN’T have the white spots.
Hello, I stumbled across your blog when I was searching for info on using 100 type film in a 600 type camera on Google 🙂 I read the post in which you were eagerly awaiting the arrival of your 2.50 camera! I enjoyed reading so much and your posts have helped me no end! I was wondering if I could play with the 100 type film in a polaroid 600 – and no matter how expensive – you have convinced me I can! Thank you for an enthralling read 🙂 and round of applause for the Impossible Project! I can’t wait to get Limited Ed. dark slides!
Brilliant blog.
Got the same camera as you but no manual – any idea how to change the batteries?!
Thanks
Thanks Josie 😉
The batteries are part of the film pack, so every time you change it you’ll get fresh power. The battery usually last longer than the pictures you take so even with an empty pack you should get some noise out of your camera.
Thanks!
hope you’re still making COOL shots? i finally loaded up my poloaroids on my site – http://www.joesegaran.co.uk – take a peek!
Hi Joseph,
loving those Polaroids – well done! And I really like your slideshow plugin – which one is it? Oh, and which material were you shooting on?
I so know what you mean about taking cool shots… I really miss doing creative stuff. I’ll take your pictures as an incentive 😉
Hello from Minnesota. Thanks for posting your experience with the PX100 film. I’ve also experienced the white spots using my sx-70. Much as I like the unpredictable nature of these early batched of Impossible film, I’m not a fan of those spots. Glad to know that I’m not the only person that’s experienced that problem.
Love the photos!
Hi Zoey,
glad you like the pictures, and very glad to hear I’m not the only one with a spot problem too 😉 I’ve just returned 5 packets of PX 600 First Flush for a refund because of the Killer Crystal effect.
I have a new packet of PX 100 here and will take some shots with it soon – I’ll see if the spot problem is history now. Watch this space…
Hello, I’ve recently purchased a couple of Polaroid P-series cameras for two of my favourite arty friends to play with. After reading this thread I am fully convinced that if I got them some SX-70 film instead of 600 it would work a treat, especially with the Polaroid TZ Artistic film.
Although, before I buy them some TZ Artistic film I need to find some ND filters.
Everywhere I’ve looked there has been “screw on” ND filters, but from the picture demonstrating how you placed your filter, it looks anything but screw on. I was wondering if there’s a good place to buy the type of ND filters you use, and which type of ND filter is best.
Any help will be VERY appreciated.
Hi James,
I’m sure your friends will be over the moon about those cameras 😉
I’ve seen screw-on filters too, or even stick-on ones that sell for £10 or more. It’s a rip off! Mine are completely home made and do the job just as well (even though they don’t look that pretty). I’m using pieces of standard lighting gels that come in rather large sizes to cover big hot lights. You can buy them as single sheets or as part of a set.
Since you only need a sqaure inch or less, see if you can find a “filter swatch” by Lee Filters or Roscoe – you can pick one up for free in professional photo or lighting stores likes Calumet. A swatch is a sample pack of all the gels they do in a handy pocket size.
I’m elaborating more on this here:
http://www.versluis.com/2010/04/first-flush-polaroid-600-and-the-new-impossible-px100/