Polaroid ColorPack II and Polaroid Blue

Recently rescued a few vintage cameras from my mother's house. One of the useable ones is a ColorPack II model that takes type 100 film. The ColorPack II has the following specs.

• Lens: 114mm, f/9.2 3-element glass or plastic.
• Shutter: Electronic; range about 10 sec. - 1/500
• Flash: Built-in flashcube socket; flashcube automatically rotates after each exposure
• Automatic exposure system similar to the folding pack cameras.
• Settings for 75 and 3000 speed films. (fixed aperture for each)
• Has simple "face sizer" focusing aid for 5ft. setting only.
• Has metal "spreader bars" instead of rollers.

specs taken from rwhirled.com/landlist.

I always thought of these hard plastic models as being a cheap, inferior, bulky versions of the range finder pack cameras (250 for example). I found it to be surprisingly light (it is plastic after all) to carry. The exposures seemed to be pretty accurate as well. The lens seems pretty sharp, I think this one has the glass lens. Focusing is a bit difficult since you have to guestimate with a scene selector, but with a little practice I think it would be easy. I would definitely bring this along instead of a regular bellows pack cam for any kind of camping/hiking purpose since its so light weight and simple to operate or for questionable weather conditions.

I've only shot some Polaroid Blue film through it so far. I initially got the Blue as part of the Triple Dip deal from Impossible, one Chocolate, one Blue and one Sepia. I'd been curious about the Blue film for some time and having a now empty and available camera to use it with I loaded it up. The film seems like its missing the yellow portion of color spectrum, but even though its a wonderful blue color (and a nice range at that), other colors due come thru depending on the color balance. Red's come thru as do some greens and skin tones. One of the other unique things about this film is that it has a silk textured surface to it. A blue version of the 125i silk perhaps. Sometimes I really like the look and texture of silk films and other times it really bothers me. Appears to work really well with the blue. Polaroid always seems to have done blue really well. Has a lot of potential, stylized options with it depending on the subject matter. Since this is a expired film and limited, it may soon be difficult to find this film. The Impossible store still has some in stock, but supplies were looking low. I say check it out while you can!

An Afternoon at Venice Beach & Abbot Kinney

I've lived in LA for about 10 years now and there are still so many areas that I have barely explored. This time around, my friend Julia and I went down to Abbot Kinney and Venice Beach (which is very close). Its a cool and funky area with lots of shops and places to grab good food and drink. Plenty of people watching as well as interesting things to photograph. Originally I had intended to try to get some people pictures and ended up not getting much in the way of people at all, more atmospheric. Venice Beach is always an interesting scene with many many different kinds of characters, performers and musicians. It was a bit overwhelming though, to much activity and people. I've decided that next time I'll need to really hang out for the day and people watch and just take my time. A revisit sometime over the Winter could be interesting.

I usually carry more then one plastic camera and in this case had both of my Holgas, Black Slim Devil and a Polaroid SX-70 Sonar.

  

Polaroid SX-70 Sonar, ATZ Edgecut film.

Holga 120CFN Fuji NPS160

Holga 120CFN Fuji NPS160

Holga 120CFN Fuji NPS160

Holga 120S Ilford HP5+

Holga 120CFN Fuji NPS160

Holga 120CFN Fuji NPS160


Black Slim Devil Kodak Gold 200

Holga 120CFN Fuji NPS160

Black Slim Devil Kodak Gold 200

Holga 120CFN Fuji NPS160

A Summer afternoon around Abbot Kinney and Venice Beach during Labor day weekend. Its strange, I shot these images a little over a month ago and yet it feels like its been longer then that. Time, always messing with me...

Gonna Take You Down To Chinatown

Spent the afternoon with my friend Julia wandering around Chinatown here in Los Angeles. For one reason or another I'd never gotten around to really checking it out. I definitely found myself inspired. Obviously all that red had something to do with it, the architecture, street musicians, food and overall it was just pretty cool. Its not a huge area, but had a lot of activity going on with lots of people walking around, shops and musicians playing traditional Chinese guitar type instruments, made it feel a little less L.A. like. After we were done shooting, we had a great late lunch at Via Cafe. You can check out my food blog for that. Gave me a chance to test out some Polaroid ATZ edge cut film and another new film, Fuji RXF400 chrome which I cross processed and pushed and some expired Fuji NPS160 color neg film that was processed +1/2 and C-41. Its interesting with the cross processing of Fuji chrome films how they all seem to go to a different color dominant shift. Astia went green, RDPIII went more yellow, Sensia went yellow/green and the RXF had a blue/cyan shift. The older the film the greater the shift. 

 

 

Holga 120CFN. Fuji NPS160 color negative and Fuji RXF400 Chrome film 

cross processed C-41.

•

I really like the quality of the ATZ edge cut film, instant vintage. Suddenly it felt like a different time. This film really performed well for something that used to get tossed out by Polaroid. Unfortunately there were very few packs made available for sale and its all gone. I still have 2 packs remaining.

Polaroid SX-70 Sonar, expired Artistic TZ edge cut film.