Oh fuck. Say goodbye to your polaroids.
 

Polaroid Technology Fades Out


By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 9, 2008; Page D01

When Polaroid users pulled a picture out of their cameras, an image would slowly appear before their eyes. Now, like the process in reverse, the image of the Polaroid instant camera -- dimming for years -- has finally gone black.


Polaroid, based in Waltham, Mass., is shutting down factories in the United States and abroad as the company abandons the technology that made the instant photo possible, the Boston Globe reported yesterday. The company will cease production of its film by next year.


The artsy, instantly gratifying Polaroid images, reeking of processing chemicals, have finally been done in by endless Flickr Web pages full of digital images, flawlessly produced by cameras that do not require film, emulsion or anything bigger than a shirt pocket to carry them around.


full article

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fuck. i liked those. so shitty, they were good.

just because they stop making it doesn't mean it will disappear overnight. eastman kodak stopped manufacturing iso 25 rated technical pan film around 1994, stopped selling it around 2003 and you can still buy bricks of 20 rolls straight from someone's cold storage on ebay.





..think i might pick one up, now that i think about it.

yeah. time to stock up & speculate?

though im thinking, there's gotta be a photoshop filter that reproduces the polaroid look...

Does anyone remember, right before digital cameras were invented, where you could get film with little fortunes on the back? Like you would take a pic, and then pull off the tab on the back and it would have a fortune on it?

never saw those... sounds cool though.

I hope this doesn't happen, being an avid Polaroid user. Film is already very expensive here.

Kind of lame how the article blames Flickr! I'd bet Flickr has probably done more to promote sales of polaroid film and cameras than hurt it. It's not like there aren't several polaroid groups on the site, and in general a huge amount of people into film cameras to be found.

I for one was doing strictly digital stuff until Flickr got me interested enough Holgas to have to get one. I'm sure that's happened for polaroid shooters as well.

In a best case scenario Polaroid would sell the rights to some craft manufacturer to make the film, but there's no telling that they'd actually be reasonable enough to do that.

yeah i don't take any sides, i was just notifying. it happens that i read the washington post and i'm pulling an all-nighter at work.

i need a nap...

Yes, it'd be a major shame to see the film defunct. There's no need. I mean, Polaroids have become very popular within the last year or so.

...i honestly don't think the availability of polaroid film will diminish at all. film, whether it's polaroid or 35mm, is manufactured in 40' or 50' wide rolls - like textiles - containing thousands and thousands of square yards of film. unlike fabric though, it isn't sold by the yard, but by the millimeter. 35mm for still, 70mm or wider for movies, and then some 4x5 and 8x10 sheet film, and for polaroid - a little square with a paper border and a pack of chemicals built in. this allows film manufacturers to produce 2 or 3 large rolls in one go (several years worth of stock, even for a large distributor) and then freeze them. they can then change up the machinery to manufacture a similar batch of another film stock. whenever they need to "make" more of a specific format film stock they sell - say 35mm rolls with 36 frames on a roll - they slice a piece off of the 40' roll in storage, cut that into 35mm wide strips, punch the sprocket holes, and load the strips into the little metal canisters you buy at the store.

eastman kodak did not even announce anything to the public in 1993 or 1994 when they made the final batch of technical pan film. when they announced in 2004 that they would discontinue selling the product, they admitted that they hadn't even made any in around ten years. had the company instead decided to just cook up a new batch, the public would have assumed that production had never stopped.

the same is true of polaroid. just because they shut down the factory does not necessarily mean that the film itself will not be sold anymore. it could easily be on the market from polaroid for another several years, and at least for another decade from places like ebay.

sure but its not like picking it up at the drugstore like i used to do

I just read, though I don't know my source's source, in one of my Flickr groups that Fuji is already looking at producing this film. So you may be able to get it in a drugstore after all.

As much as I hate to say it (and I really do -- I'm a dinosaur who loves casette tapes, VHS tapes, old cameras, and I fucking HATE the way digital film/pictures look)...
....you can probably just take a picture with a digital camera and use effects and stuff to make it look like a Polaroid picture.. I know that's obvious and it takes away some of the, um, "coolness" of Polaroid cameras, but fuck who DIDN'T see this coming?
Still sad though.
They make these non-digital cameras similiar to Polaroid cameras in Japan that are just AMAZING.. I wish I could remember the name of them.. but they're super tiny and super cheap.. hmph.

That's sad.

The '90's really are gone.

yep, and so are the 80s, the 70s, and the 60s... and every other decade before that.

it's 2008, woman! get a grip. is called tiem... :D

there are other brands making instant film.

I just can't let go!

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people who use polaroid have known this for years. There are a lot of scientific uses for polaroid technology, and no doubt the film will at least still be produced for this reason. There are places... where you can get a lot of polaroid film types and will continue to be able to.


some of us just dont tell. heh.

There is only one polaroid type product I still want to buy, a slide->polaroid replicator. We have one at school but I want one to be able to use after I leave.

digital film?