Testing & Having Fun with Polaroid Cameras

In this video I will test if my Polaroid Close Up, Polaroid Time Zero, and Polaroid SX-70 work, and then I shoot with them with some Polaroid Originals film.
My videos are to help fellow vintage camera enthusiasts to do certain things in the hobby. I especially like to encourage others with disabilities and illnesses to keep practicing with cameras even though their limitations may keep them from doing a lot of aspects of the hobby. I hope I can inspire others to keep going with their passion despite pain and limitations.
If you love photography and/or vintage cameras and are doing it despite limitations please share your story with me in the comments. Even if you're not dealing with limitations, but just love vintage cameras and photography, share your experiences with me.
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[@amandacreamer05]

Enjoyed your video, Aly! And the bloopers were fun! 😉

[@AlysVintageCameraAlley]

Lol thank you. That’s one of the first videos I made :)

[@neptunimas4736]

I was able to pick up a SX-70 for a decent price and have film on the way, I'm hoping that it works but even if it doesn't it's still an neat camera!! That's a neat little trick with the spent cartridges!!! Great video!! Keep up the good stuff!!

[@AlysVintageCameraAlley]

Thanks so much. Enjoy yours!

[@mar4kl]

Thanks for another terrific trip through the virtual Way-Back Machine! My siblings and I were mostly documented on our father's Polaroid Model 100, a late 1960s model that used the older Type 108 film. Polaroid cameras (I never heard them called "Land cameras", because while all Polaroid cameras displayed the name of the company's founder, the company was "Polaroid Corporation", and everyone just called the cameras "Polaroids".) were popular among parents from the 1950s through the 1970s, because everyone wanted quick pics of their kiddos, but conventional film development was expensive when done locally or took up to 6 weeks when mailed out. Actually, if you were a purist and always sent your film to Kodak to be developed, it could be both expensive and time-consuming! Anyway, if you needed instant pics, Polaroid was the only game in town for most of those years. Dad never stepped up to the SX-70, but my younger brother got a Pronto! model in 1978. The Pronto! seems to be a forgotten model at this point, but it filled the gap between the fully-featured, expensive SX-70 and the much less expensive (but still not cheap) One Step. the Pronto! shared the One Step's rigid, non-folding body, but offered manual focus and some exposure control. All the SX-70 models at that time used Flash Bars when flash was required. All three of those models used the same SX-70 film cartridges. We never considered SX-70 pics to be as good as conventional film - no Polaroid film ever was, but that was not its purpose - but my bro had tons of fun with that Pronto!. Your comments about the film cartridges and creative reuses for them brought back some memories, too. We were adventurous and fairly handy, and loved to find things to add to our informal small electrics kit, so it wasn't long before we decided to ignore the warning label and took to dissecting spent SX-70 cartridges and harvesting the batteries, which were visibly labeled "PolaPulse" at the time. The batteries hardly seemed worth a warning label, at least as long as they were kept sealed, but they were flexible and probably contained a viscous liquid chemical that could cause corrosion and ruin clothing and so on, so I suspect that Polaroid anticipated a leakage hazard. We never cut one of those open to find out, as we had more fun exploring what one could do batteries designed to deliver short bursts of relatively high direct current. We found that PolaPulse batteries had enough reserve power to power the camera for 3 or 4 times as many shots as there were pictures in the cartridge, and as I recall, their power output was comparable to that of a 6-volt lantern battery. I don't remember specifically what sorts of things we built with those batteries - they were all quite ad hoc and temporary - but we sure had fun doing it.

[@AlysVintageCameraAlley]

Oh man now I am going to have to look into a Pronto! LOL our first camera was the Polaroid in the video too. It’s broken now. I wish I knew someone who could fix it. That’s funny you guys played with the batteries. Back in the days when we made our own fun with what we had.

[@MrMarkpoole]

The original SX70 was a higher end camera than the others. The first SX70 is a SLR and you focus through the lens. The likely cause of your camera sticking is the new film is slightly thicker than the original. You can try cleaning the rollers,sometimes that helps.

[@robertknight4672]

I'll keep that in mind if I ever have a camera that has a problem. I have seen three cameras that are in this video in the motor in my Time Zero is quick.

[@jdd53]

I hope to try some of the new film in my SX70 soon. Thanks for the video.

[@AlysVintageCameraAlley]

Thanks for watching!

[@robertknight4672]

I have the same three cameras. Time Zero camera was released alongside Polaroid's Time Zero sx-70 film which was an improvement over the previous version from what I understand.

[@plestj]

Nice comparison, Aly (and very funny bloopers too! ) I have the Impulse ( easiest to hold with the binocular grip), the silver One 600, and the 636 Close Up similar to your 600 camera. Mine are all 600 film cameras. I’m seeing the same results from all 3 cameras. Colors not really saturated. Was wondering if you feel the SX-70 film at 100 ISO has more saturated colors? Thanks. Anthony.

[@AlysVintageCameraAlley]

Thank you. I’m glad you like the bloopers. People rarely mention them and they’re my favorite part to share LOL I think SX70 film has a different look than the 600. I’ve noticed it tends to have a more artistic and unpredictable nature than the 600. I don’t think they’re more saturated though.

[@cristelanavarro6945]

What type of film does the the time zero one step use?

[@AlysVintageCameraAlley]

600 film