To promote their new instant camera! Who is going to buy this thing?
Seems like a stuoid move to me-who needs a polaroid camera, in the era of picture cell phones?
And “Lady Gaga”-what deomographic are they appealing to here?
The benefit of a Polaroid is that you have an instant hard copy of the photograph. I think it’s a move to appeal to people nostalgic for the old-school Polaroid cameras.
P-p-p-polaroid, p-p-polaroid.
And who’s to say that Polaroid doesn’t have a digital camera in the works? That would be cool: a digital camera that also spit out a hardcopy on the spot.
Polaroid is bringing back instant cameras due to the success of The Impossible Project recreating instant film. The people behind The Impossible Project have also been the main source for the remaining stock of Polaroid film for the last year or so. I’m sure they have an idea of the market for the film since they’ve been selling it. From what I’ve read, Polaroid had planned to keep making instant film longer than they ended up doing, because the stock of chemicals they had stored for the last few years of production ran out early due to higher than expected sales of the film. The Impossible Project is apparently planning to produce a at least a million packs of their new black and white film this year. Color film will follow, and I imagine they’re planning to produce more of that.
They already have a digital camera that prints hard copies using an inkless color printing technology called ZiNK (ZiNK was developed at Polaroid, then spun out into a separate company): http://www.polaroid.com/category/0/266907/Polaroid_PoGo . Today they announced another instant digital camera that prints bigger pictures than that one. They also announced a new analog instant camera, called the PIC-1000.
There are a lot of photographers, both professionals and amateurs that just really like Polaroid film. We like its unpredictability, its flaws, its immediacy. I still shoot Polaroid film regularly, and am really happy to see it going back into production.
I’ve never heard her sing. Would I like it?
Hipsters. You old fogies keep forgetting about my generation’s hipsters. They stopped making the film and cameras so you had to either already have them or know the place to get them. It’s expensive, outdated, and an art form that mainstream America stopped using; of course the hispters jumped on it and got it brought back.
I’m happy though, I’ve been wanting to replace my old polaroid but didn’t want to deal with the prices or the assumed hipster status in getting one.
Those youngsters who roam around the lower east side and look remarkably fashionable in clothing from labels you’ve never heard of. And everyone who wants to be like them.
Polaroids are really, really useful in costume design when you need easily viewable reference photos from fittings and costume design meetings, so I’m sure quite a few of my former professors are happy about a new instant camera.
Polaroids are essential for continuity in filming.
Nobody else has said it…good job.
What makes Polaroid superior to digital in that respect? I’m just curious.
This is precisely what Polaroid does, indeed, have. They announced it earlier this week. I don’t know if it’s the project they got hold of Gaga for, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Any of the digital instants I’ve seen don’t have pictures as big as a Polaroid.
We still have a Polaroid and a few packages of film from the days before digital, when my wife and I would take naughty pictures of each other. It was hard to find a place that would develop them.
People who like Lady Gaga. They do exist. Lots of things that you don’t understand do.
And a 16x20 Polaroid was a glorious thing to behold.
Analog is cool again, that’s why.
I have an app on my iPhone that is designed to make my photos look like they were taken with an el cheapo film camera… when digital makes everything so crisp and clean, you gain a new appreciation for soft focus, light leaks, vignetting and wonky white balance. I quite like what it does.
In case anyone is curious, the app is called “Hipstamatic”. (and no, it’s not a cheeky reference to hipsters… it’s named after a real camera from the 1980s)
I’ve got a Polaroid Pogo and I love it. It’s a digital camera and takes good, sharp pictures, with nice color resolution. You can upload them to a computer for larger prints or press the button and eject a print out of the camera itself.
The pictures are small, but they develop instantly (and are dry, unlike the old Polaroids). They’re fairly cheap, about 25 cents each. The backing peels off the print, so you can stick it anywhere. Very useful at the animal shelter where I volunteer.
The “Impossible Project” (www.the-impossible-project.com) has announced that it is selling packs of film for the SX-70 camera. $21.00 for 8 pictures, B&W.
I can’t see the market for this, but let’s see what happens!