Last Polaroid cameras and film to be sold at Urban Outfitters tomorrow

We've had a hole in our hearts ever since the original Polaroid company stopped manufacturing instant film, filed for Chapter 11, and sold off its brand name, but it looks like those crazy kids at The Impossible Project are making some small moves to turn things around after picking up the pieces last year: they'll be selling the remaining stock of cameras and film at Urban Outfitters starting tomorrow. Sadly, that's not much, as there are only 700 hand-numbered kits containing a deadstock Polaroid ONE600 Classic camera and a pack of Type 779 film available, but at least there's more film to go around if you already have a camera -- additional 779 packs will also be on sale until stock runs out. We're not sure if this plan will raise enough cash to start the factory up again -- or if anyone else even cares about Polaroid anymore -- but you know where we'll be standing in line tomorrow morning.

[Via OhGizmo!]

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 22nd 2009 2:21AM]

C'mon, hipsters! Instant photography hasn't gone away...the film manufacturing is just being done across the Pacific. As someone else mentioned above, Fujifilm is still making peel-apart instant film that's perfectly compatible with the old "packfilm" Polaroid cameras (under license, presumably, though I don't know who's still around to cash those checks!). Go to a garage sale, thrift store, Ebay, or an older relative's closet -- Polaroid made millions (yes, literally millions) of packfilm cameras. If you pay more than $20 for one, you're a sucker. The Model 100 cost $165 in 1963 dollars. It is beautifully constructed and includes a large glass high-quality lens. You want retro cool? Most of the '60s models feature collapsible bellows and use flash bulbs. By the '70s, the models were getting cheaper and had less-impressive optics. For $40 or less, you can get a whole '60s kit that would make Inspector Gadget jealous -- a push-on lens kit for portraits, an orange filter to make the clouds pop, a flash unit, a Wink light, maybe even some postcarders to turn your pics into post cards -- all enclosed in a quality leather (or, later, cruddy plastic) carrying case.

Fuji makes 100-speed color and black-and-white film, plus 3000 ASA black-and-white (like the old Polaroid 667). The film is about $10 a pack online.

You won't be able to watch the photo develop before your eyes. Instead, you'll need to wait 15 seconds to a couple of minutes and then peel the disposable backing from the print. It's like opening a fortune cookie -- you never know what you'll get. Especially with the black-and-white film, the picture quality can be as good as with a 35mm camera.


A list of all the compatible cameras is here:
http://www.rwhirled.com/landlist/landdcam-pack.htm

And Fuji's page about the film:
http://www.fujifilm.com/products/film_camera/instant/#content2b
(the last 3 films -- the ones that start with "FP")

Quick, go buy an old Polaroid and start buying Fujifilm to keep their sales volume high enough to keep manufacturing the stuff!