Polaroid instant cameras | Articles | Photo, video, optics

The first instant cam­era was released in 1948 and became a real sen­sa­tion all over the world. Every year and every new mod­el, instant cam­eras are gain­ing more and more pop­u­lar­i­ty, but the rapid­ly devel­op­ing seg­ment of dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy almost oust­ed instant pho­tos from the mar­ket and in 2008 the com­pa­ny Polaroid was declared bank­rupt.

Jan­u­ary 2009 Polaroid returned to the mar­ket deter­mined to revive the love and pop­u­lar­i­ty of instant pho­tog­ra­phy. In 2010, the famous singer Lady Gaga was invit­ed to the post of cre­ative direc­tor in the com­pa­ny, and already in 2011 the first prod­ucts cre­at­ed with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the singer were pre­sent­ed: the Polaroid Gray Label line, which includ­ed such prod­ucts as an instant print­er, a dig­i­tal instant cam­era and glass­es.

To date, the range Polaroid in Rus­sia it is rep­re­sent­ed by three main areas: glass­es, instant cam­eras and action cam­eras for sports and tourism. In this review, we will take a clos­er look at mod­ern instant cam­eras from the leg­endary Amer­i­can com­pa­ny.

POLAROID PIC300

The PIC 300 is a direct suc­ces­sor to the Polaroid 600 series instant cam­eras pop­u­lar in the 80s and 90s of the 20th cen­tu­ry, it is a com­plete­ly ana­log cam­era.

The design of the PIC300 is bright and unusu­al, avail­able in 4 col­ors and 2 basic com­bi­na­tions: blue or black with gray trim and red or pur­ple with white trim.

The cam­era runs on four AA bat­ter­ies, but bat­ter­ies of the appro­pri­ate type can also be used. If the Polaroid 600 print­ed square pic­tures 90x110 mm in size, with a print field of 75x80 mm, then the PIC300 prints pic­tures in a small­er size, they turn out almost like busi­ness cards: the size of the entire pic­ture is only 53x86 mm, and the print field is 45x60 mm. But such a pho­to is con­ve­nient to car­ry with you.

The PIC300’s lens focal length ranges from 60mm to infin­i­ty, so it’s suit­able for most scenes. The cam­era is equipped with a flash and has sev­er­al modes for shoot­ing: sun­ny weath­er, cloudy, indoors, in day­light. Once you’ve tak­en a pho­to, it will print with­in 45 sec­onds and will devel­op in about a minute or two after print­ing. But the pho­to will acquire full sat­u­ra­tion and clar­i­ty in 5 min­utes.

An ana­log snap­shot from the PIC300 has a spe­cial atmos­phere, warmth and ten­der­ness that is inac­ces­si­ble to mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy.

Car­tridges for PIC300 are now avail­able for 10 and 20 frames. Polaroid PIC300 is a good gift for a teenag­er or a child, although the mag­ic of instant pho­tog­ra­phy will not leave indif­fer­ent even an adult.

POLAROID Z2300

This mod­el is already dig­i­tal, but it has the abil­i­ty to print snap­shots, or rather, you your­self can choose which pic­tures you want to print.

The cam­era has a CMOS matrix with a phys­i­cal size of 1/3.2” and a res­o­lu­tion of 5 MP. There is a built-in flash and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of macro pho­tog­ra­phy. The focal length of the lens (in 35mm equiv­a­lent) is 46mm.

Z2300 does not have the abil­i­ty to man­u­al­ly adjust the shut­ter speed and aper­ture, burst mode. The cam­era shoots video with sound in max­i­mum qual­i­ty 1280x720 and 30 frames per sec­ond. There is a tri­pod sock­et, sup­port for microSD mem­o­ry cards.

The Polaroid Z2300 has a 3 inch LCD screen which makes it easy to view the pho­tos you have tak­en and edit them before print­ing. For pho­to edit­ing, there are not only all kinds of fil­ters, but also fun­ny frames, among which, of course, there is a white rec­tan­gu­lar frame — the hall­mark of any Polaroid. And if you want, you can print a black and white pho­to or sepia.

The print­er in this mod­el is already notice­ably dif­fer­ent from pre­vi­ous instant machines, the tech­nol­o­gy is sim­i­lar, but dif­fer­ent. The Z2300 uses ZINK print­ing tech­nol­o­gy, the essence of which is that the ink for print­ing is already inside spe­cial paper, and not bulky car­tridges are insert­ed into the cam­era, but sim­ply sheets of spe­cial paper made using ZINK tech­nol­o­gy. After print­ing, the pho­to is sim­ply print­ed and does not require wait­ing time for devel­op­ment. The image size of the Z2300 is 54x76 mm, but with or with­out a frame, it’s up to you. An inter­est­ing fea­ture of the paper itself is not only that it already con­tains paint, but also that pho­tos tak­en on the Z2300 can be stick­ers, they have an adhe­sive base. At the same time, 30 sheets can be loaded into the cam­era, in fact, so much is sold in one box.

Such a cam­era will real­ly appeal to young peo­ple and will be rel­e­vant at par­ties, thanks to its catchy design and bright rain­bow stripes on the body. Upon pur­chase, you can choose black or white body col­or. In our opin­ion, white is the most suc­cess­ful and looks bet­ter, but the black body is also not with­out its charm, in this col­or scheme the cam­era turns out to be more restrained, stricter and more ele­gant.

POLAROID Z340E

Polaroid Z340E is the flag­ship mod­el among dig­i­tal instant cam­eras. It, like the Z2300, is a dig­i­tal cam­era with the abil­i­ty to print pho­tos, but it has many more fea­tures and set­tings.

Matrix type in Z340E CCD, its phys­i­cal size is 1/2.33” with a res­o­lu­tion of 14 megapix­els. The ISO range of the cam­era is from 100‑3200 ISO units, there is also Auto ISO and the abil­i­ty to set ISO6400. The cam­era has an adjustable white bal­ance, sev­er­al flash modes, the abil­i­ty to macro, set the timer, focus on the face and aut­o­fo­cus illu­mi­na­tion. It is pos­si­ble to record video with sound. Sup­ports SD mem­o­ry cards up to 32 GB and can be mount­ed on a tri­pod.

Print­ing pho­tos in the Z340E is not instant, you choose what and when you print. The cam­era uses ZINK tech­nol­o­gy, that is, the ink is con­tained in the paper itself, which makes it pos­si­ble to insert just pieces of spe­cial paper into the cam­era, rather than a large car­tridge.

The design of the Polaroid Z340E is designed to be mod­ern while retain­ing the rec­og­niz­able lines of 60s-80s cam­eras. The cam­era is only avail­able in stark black and fea­tures a 2.7‑inch pop-up LCD screen. Polaroid Z340E will appeal not only to young peo­ple, but also to the old­er gen­er­a­tion. It is styl­ish, inter­est­ing and unusu­al. You won’t sur­prise any­one with an ordi­nary com­pact or an expen­sive DSLR, but such a cam­era will def­i­nite­ly arouse atten­tion and inter­est.