Last Updated on 03/10/2016 by Chris Gampat
It’s a known fact now that Fujifilm has discontinued pack camera film; and so those of us with Polaroid Land cameras are sitting here wondering what we should do about it.
One of the closest films in terms of size format is Fujifilm Instax Wide, but adapting it to work with a Polaroid Land Camera isn’t simple. However, a couple of years ago J Caldwell from Snap It | See it found a way to do it.
The problem: it’s not at all simple.
Mr. Caldwell basically says that you’ll need to go into a darkroom with a full pack of Instax wide and an empty pack of Fujifilm 100C or 3000B, Then you’ll need to transfer the Instax into the empty pack, shoot, then go back into the darkroom and pull the shot, pop the pod of developer chemicals, spread it evenly through the image, and there you go.
Not at all simple, right? The reason for this is because of the placement of the developer chemicals. Peel apart Pack film had it all over and the rollers spread it out evenly. Instax wide has it near one of the long edges and as the image comes out of the rollers the emulsion is spread evenly.
Trust me when I say that this doesn’t sound fun or efficient. And if the Instax wide came out of a Polaroid Land camera roller, only one side may have the emulsion evenly spread due to the design.
Your best bet to anything closely related? The Lomography Lomo’Instant Wide is actually a very solid option. To that end, Instax Wide film is actually better than 100C in some ways.
Still though, it’s quite a sad time for many of us.
