Polaroid no longer does Polaroids

Well doesn't OutKast look silly now. The brand synonymous with instant film is killing off the Polaroid film format and attempting to reinvent the brand so it "lives on for the next 30 to 40 years." In the short term that means closing factories in Massachusetts, Mexico and the Netherlands, cutting 450 jobs, and breaking the hearts of hipster-photographers the world over. Obviously the concept of Polaroids was never going to be much more than a niche in the age of digital photos, and the Polaroid / Zink Digital Instant Mobile Photo Printer is filling the instant development void left behind, but it's still sad to see a format with so much history and fond memories die, especially since Polaroid spends the majority of its time these days slapping its de-valued logo onto rubbish commodity electronics.

[Hans @ Feb 8th 2008 7:31PM]

this is a sad sad day.

[NovaLand @ Feb 9th 2008 12:49AM]

Yeah, there can't be a follow-up to the movie Mememnto

[Kenlad @ Feb 23rd 2008 7:59PM]

Sad day indeed.

I used to work in the now closed scottish factory that made Polaroid Peel-Apart film, sunglasses, and lots of cameras. I seen this coming a couple of years ago, but still cant believe it has actually came to this. No doubt we will still see the classic Polaroid picture ident for many years to come.

Hi to all Polaroid ex-pats reading this.

[Liam @ Feb 8th 2008 7:32PM]

What are photographers going to put in their 'stripped-down, back-to-basics' galleries now?

[Jenny @ Feb 8th 2008 9:04PM]

That's the first thing I was thinking. A Polaroid piece is in my college's art gallery right now.

[Abuzar @ Feb 8th 2008 7:33PM]

It's so ironic! Like Xerox not xeroxing or something.

[Joel @ Feb 8th 2008 8:03PM]

Or Band-Aid not making band-aids anymore!

[Darkroom @ Feb 8th 2008 8:07PM]

lots of photographers / artists (including myself) use polaroid backs on large format cameras to get test shots (lighting, focus, whatever)... it's really too bad Polaroid had to pull the plug, although this was being talked about almost 10 years ago, it's just surprising it finally happened.

[Ignatius @ Feb 8th 2008 8:15PM]

I guess no one has seen the Xerox monitors. They're awesome, just... expensive.

[m @ Feb 8th 2008 9:54PM]

Or IBM no longer... oh right.

[Andrea @ May 4th 2009 5:10PM]

Anyone remember Kodak had a camera that was the same thing and quit making it b/c they got sued? Well, now is the time then for them to bring that back. I've still got mine from back then. LOL A piece of history. (Also aging myself lmao)

[Anthony @ Feb 8th 2008 7:34PM]

I was thinking about the fashion industry. Isn't the Polaroid used to help w/ lighting & quick shots. How're they going to make those people look better than us now?

[Nando @ Feb 8th 2008 8:02PM]

I thought of the exact same thing as you. LOL

[tekdroid @ Feb 8th 2008 8:07PM]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_camera
But instant cameras were found to be useful for other purposes such as ID cards, passport photos, ultrasound photos, and other uses which required an instant photo. They were also used by police officers and fire investigators because of their ability to create an unalterable instant photo. Medium and large format professional photographers have also used the higher end instant cameras to preview lighting before taking the more expensive medium and/or large format photo.
---------
I can't imagine why they can't preview lighting now with a cam connected to a laptop or similar larger display (dunno about the other uses, which i presume have mostly gone digital down to purely cost savings, as most things do)

[F3 @ Feb 8th 2008 11:06PM]

Haven't most studios migrated to digital cameras and backs?

[Jeff @ Feb 9th 2008 12:49AM]

Digital cameras and LCD screens will not show you what lighting is going to look like when a photo is printed, which is the whole point.

Another industry that's going to be hurt by this is the film industry, although maybe not as much. Polaroids have long been used for both location scouting and continuity. A location scout would go out in the morning with an empty notebook and a Polaroid camera and would come back with a notebook full of Polaroids to show the producer and director for locations. Doing that digitally is not such a big deal but it does require the extra step of transferring shots to a laptop, not to mention carrying a heavier laptop around everywhere. It's a waste of time and energy.

Continuity is a little bit harder, although I'm sure there are already systems in place and that the switchover has already started. But again, in the Polaroid days you'd just take a bunch of shots and put them in folders. Everybody could then pull those out and look at them while they were on set to make sure makeup, costumes, etc. were the same from shot to shot (given that many shots that are supposed to take place at the same time in the same scene are often shot days apart). I imagine these days they use a laptop, but they've either gotta go through the time-consuming process of burning a bunch of discs every day so that multiple people can have simultaneous access while working on different costumes, makeup or sets, or they just have to limit access to whoever's around that one laptop. Either way, it's gotta be a pain in the ass compared to using Polaroids.

I doubt anyone didn't know this was coming, though, so I'm sure the industry's prepared for it... but that doesn't mean they're happy about it.

[DarkLightConnection @ Feb 9th 2008 3:00AM]

But you can easily edit the digital photo to fix the details in the final print

[eric f. @ Feb 9th 2008 12:03PM]

I stopped using polaroid 2 years ago when i purchased my digital back. Yes, you see the preview immediately on the computer screen if you are shooting tethered via firewire. What's nice about it is that never again do you lose the "best" first polaroid shot or have to waste time trying to re-create it on film.

I do save about 10K /year by not having to buy polaroid.

[Thomas Hoard @ Feb 26th 2008 11:54AM]

Hmmm, the Polaroid thing has a friend in a bit of a tizzy. He has collected and iventoried 250 SX-70s and something else. His problem, what to do with them now. I would imagine that Polaroid would abandom its propriety information to allow third party vendors, but who knows. Any ideas?

[Evan @ Feb 8th 2008 7:34PM]

I R TEH POLRSAD NOW...

[Nathan @ Feb 8th 2008 7:37PM]

This ought to teach those pop-stars not to get behind products with less than 100 years of existence!

How's it feel OutKast! How's it feel!?!?!?!

On the other hand, "shake it like a Polaroid picture!" is a lot more catchy than "Shake it like a MicroSD solid state flash storage device!"

[austin @ Feb 8th 2008 9:46PM]

win

[NovaLand @ Feb 9th 2008 12:43AM]

I bet ppl know that even tho solid state memories can handle G-forces, it doesn't mean it necesarry HAVE to be shaken. They could always take on with spraycans, asthma-inhalers.. or your friends can of coke.

Shake it like an asthma inhaler.. *sexy*

[r3loaded @ Feb 8th 2008 7:42PM]

"Shake it like a microSDHC card" anyone?

[dramamoose @ Feb 8th 2008 9:19PM]

Ooh. Five minutes cost you rankings.

[austin @ Feb 8th 2008 9:47PM]

fail

[skulldriveshaft @ Feb 8th 2008 7:46PM]

OutKast doesn't look silly, they're gonna be remembered as the last band that mentioned Polaroid before Polaroid film went out of production.

"Shake it like a Polaroid picture."

Polaroid couldn't have been handed a better marketing line associated with a hot pop act at the time, did they sign them up for marketing at all? I'm pretty sure even with a slight push Polaroid could have sold out product because there was so much hype around OutKast at that time.

Those freakin ZINK concepts better get to market!

[Geoffrey Sperl @ Feb 8th 2008 8:58PM]

I remember a press release or an interview or something.

Polaroid did mention that their sales shot up after the song was released. Then they had to remind everyone that shaking a developing shot did not do anything to help it develop faster, thus proving they had no real idea why it was in the OutKast song in the first place or how to capitalize on it.

[skulldriveshaft @ Feb 9th 2008 2:06AM]

shoulda just said "you can shake it if you wanna"

[Marvin Quach @ Feb 10th 2008 9:25AM]

Shake it like an Etch-A-Sketch!

[skulldriveshaft @ Feb 10th 2008 12:09PM]

@Marvin

You mean they're disappearing? so mean

[Andrew @ Feb 8th 2008 7:55PM]

Title of the article should have been: You Can No Longer Shake It Like a Polaroid Picture...

[Brian @ Feb 8th 2008 9:27PM]

The boys over at ZINK have revolutionized this piece of the industry. I say this as a silver-halide fan-boy from way back, before th term fan-boy existed. Watch these guys and gals at ZINK, some good things are a comin'!

[james.engadget @ Feb 8th 2008 8:14PM]

Yeah, like I'm going to keep a digital camera and printer in the trunk of my car in the event that someone runs into me. Derrr.

[Mike @ Feb 8th 2008 10:41PM]

I'VE SEEN THE XEROX MONITORS

They are the sweetest things in the world, but you're quite right...their high end ones cost nearly triple what normal high end monitors cost :/

[Toadlet @ Feb 8th 2008 8:33PM]

As long as I can keep shaking my monitor to make pictures load faster, I'll be okay.

[Thunderbuck @ Feb 9th 2008 3:21AM]

Funny, when I shake my tablet, the pictures disappear...

[Sabrina @ Feb 8th 2008 8:33PM]

now i'll have to go buy a million polaroid film cartridges. my hipster-id demands it of me.

[Grant @ Feb 11th 2008 9:55AM]

If only you actually COULD stockpile Polaroid film, Sabrina. Alas, the film goes bad after something like 18 months.

[C.K. @ Feb 8th 2008 8:34PM]

and some day in the future we'll learn the news that "Windows no longer does Windows".

[Geoffrey Sperl @ Feb 8th 2008 8:59PM]

Your Windows does windows? What version of Vista has that option? My dogs are always leaving marks on my windows I would love to have a computerized solution to that issue.

[Vince @ Feb 10th 2008 2:29AM]

Sorry, that wasn't funny at all, Geoffrey.

[Angie @ Feb 8th 2008 8:41PM]

The first time I ever posed nude for a camera, it was a polaroid. They were a great thing for that. You did not have to worry about showing your bare booty to the geeks at the photolab.

[Matt @ Feb 8th 2008 8:49PM]

The first time I ever took naked pictures of Angie was through the viewfinder of my Polaroid. It was great.

[Geoffrey Sperl @ Feb 8th 2008 9:02PM]

Care to share with the class?

[austin @ Feb 8th 2008 10:34PM]

wtf?
why did you share with the class?

[Hoof Hearted @ Feb 8th 2008 8:55PM]

Now future generations aren't going to know the answer to the joke, "What do Eskimos get from sitting on the ice for too long?"

Truly the end of an era.

[KC @ Feb 8th 2008 9:02PM]

Just like how Apple is no longer a fruit.

[Joel @ Feb 8th 2008 9:09PM]

Steve Jobs didn't invent the fruit, though.

[deadpool @ Feb 8th 2008 10:40PM]

No way!