Film and Analog

Vintage Camera Review: The Polaroid SX70

Chris Gampat
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01/04/2018
3 Mins read
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The Polaroid SX70 is one of the most iconic and well known analog film cameras ever made. It was designed to be simple to use, compact, yet versatile. In today’s culture, it is a camera often associated with the hipster culture, and many people don’t even know that film is still made for it. Using film from the Impossible Project and Polaroid originals, your Polaroid SX70 is an option bound to not only look great on a bookcase, but also will be fun to use. Many companies tend to buy them up, refurbish them and then flip them for sale.

Polaroid SX70 Tech Specs

If you want to read more about the Polaroid SX70, you’re best off just heading over to Camerapedia.

Ergonomics

The Polaroid SX70 is very much unlike anything else out there. It’s an SLR–there is a mirror, it reflexes, and it uses a single lens. The lens is permanently attached to the Polaroid SX70 and depending on what version you’ve got it can either autofocus or manual focus.

Here’s what the Polaroid SX70 looks like when it is in the shooting configuration. This version has an autofocus module attached–that’s the really big thing up top of the SX70. The red button is used to take a photo and the black part is tied into a dial that lets you shoot with exposure compensation.

To open up and load the Polaroid SX70, you press a button on the side and then simply slip some film into it.

Build Quality

Now, when you use the Polaroid SX70 you should know, due to them being such old cameras, their build quality may greatly vary. They’re not designed to be used in the rain because they have electronics inside. They’re also not designed to be roughed around a whole lot either. Big problems that tend to plague the Polaroid SX70 have to do with the battery. The Polaroid SX70 shoots what’s called integral film–which has the batteries in the film pack itself. When someone doesn’t use the Polaroid SX70 for a while, the batteries die and decay. Then the acid inside spills all over the internals and destroys the motherboard, amongst creating other problems.

But if you get a camera that has been refurbished, then you’re in better luck. Expect to pay a pretty penny due to how much work goes into them and how rare they are.

Ease of Use

The Polaroid SX70 can be a bit difficult to use if you’re unfamiliar with these cameras. Unfolding it is pretty simple and just requires gentle pulls on the right spots. Focusing is easy enough as you look through the viewfinder. Loading is pretty simple too as is folding the camera back up for travel. But you should really know how to do all this to begin with before you go about using the camera. There are more than enough videos on YouTube that will teach you this.

Image Quality

We tested the Polaroid SX70 with Impossible Project film. And I’m really happy to report the autofocus is really good. This focusing module uses sonar to focus, and so in low lighting it won’t really have any sort of trouble. But if you’re trying to focus on something through glass, it will be a different issue. Overall though, the Polaroid SX70 still shoots sharp photos that look great even today.

Conclusions

There are lots of shops that can do refurbishing. Now, before you go ahead and purchase one though you should know about the variety of other options out there. The Mint Camera SLR670 has attachments that will let you use flash and have shutter speed control, for example. Those are perhaps the most famous. Other cameras have their own variations and uses. Personally, I like the Polaroid SX70, but I prefer the manual focus options just a bit more as they give me control over the shutter speeds.

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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.