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The “Paperoid” is a DIY instant camera uses an e-paper display instead of film

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Polaroid cameras and photographs played a significant role in the development of photography. When they were first released, they were an instant hit because of the “instant” nature of the cameras themselves. You’d point it at your subject, and within minutes you’d have your fully finished print right there in your hands. It’s that same instant gratification that’s driven digital photography, too. But it’s not quite the same.

This is a pretty neat project by “Cameron” that kind of combines the two, allowing you to create a sort of temporary Polaroid of your scene. It uses an e-paper display – which retains its image when power is removed – to show your photograph. This display can be taken off the camera and attached to your fridge or wherever you want to display it without requiring a power source. Then when you want to shoot another picture, you just put it back on the camera.

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How I hacked Polaroid Big Shot to shoot Instax film

Released in 1971, the Polaroid Big Shot was a funky, green plastic camera that was built for one thing: portraits. The plastic behemoth is simply designed, using a fixed focus 200mm, single element plastic meniscus lens. The grip has a stereoscopic rangefinder integrated in it, which makes framing and achieving focus easy. Focal length is fixed at approximately three feet, emphasizing the portrait centrality of this camera. The shutter speed is a static 1/52 second, combined with an adjustable aperture of f56, f36 or f24. A small aperture and rather slow shutter speed meant most “normally” lit photos would be underexposed, especially indoors, so most photos would require the use of a flash.

For the flash the Big Shot uses Magicubes, which are an explosive, four use, disposable flash cube. There is a large Fresnel diffuser for the flash that is built into the front of the camera, which softens shadows and makes the flash much less harsh. A favorite of Warhol, he used the camera to shoot dozens of portraits, often using the resulting Polaroids as basis for his screen-printing art.

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This 24K gold 50th Anniversary Edition Polaroid SX-70 can be yours for a mere $999

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It’s the 50th anniversary of the Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera and to celebrate, Retrospekt has released a 50th Anniversary Edition Gold SX-70 Instant Film Camera. It’s an extravagant collector’s item that’s fully functional, built from original components from vintage Polaroid SX-70 cameras. The original chrome plating, however, has been stripped and replaced with 24-karat gold plating.

This is a very short run of only 50 cameras total – makes sense – and each camera features fully refurbished internals. New genuine leather coverings have also been applied and embossed with the anniversary emblem and individual unit numbers. As all of the parts are genuine components straight from vintage cameras, some of them may even be as old as the original release in 1972.

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This adapter lets you use your old 100-400 Polaroid Land cameras with modern instant film

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With the discontinuation of Type 100 film by pretty much everybody, with the final nail in the coffin coming from Fuji in 2016, finding film for your old Polaroid 100-400 Land Camera became pretty impossible unless you wanted to spend an absolute fortune on eBay. There has been at least one attempt to revive the format, in the form of One Instant, but it’s also pretty expensive and appears to have been sold out for quite a while now.

A newly developed product by Clément Grosjean and his team, however, takes a different approach to keeping these older Polaroid cameras alive. Instead of releasing Type 100 film, they’ve designed an adapter that lets you use your Land camera with either SX-70 film cartridges or i-Type film without a battery. It’s called Newland and it’s launching through Kickstarter.

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Four ways to fix a shiny polaroid print

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If you’re like me, you largely prefer matte prints over glossy ones. And if you use an instant camera, you’ll get the super-shiny prints that you wish were matte.

Dave Knop a.k.a. knoptop will help you to make your wish come true. He suggests three methods for mattifying your shiny polaroid prints, with one of them being pretty unordinary. And as a bonus, and I’ll also suggest one of my own ideas.

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Spice up your bathroom with this 3D printed Polaroid toilet roll holder

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The Polaroid camera remains a popular favourite since analogue photography started making its big comeback a few years ago. And what better way to pay homage to the format than to have one right next to you while seated on your throne? Oh yes, that’s right, this is a 3D printed Polaroid toilet roll holder, sure to add a bit of instant spark to any photographer’s bathroom.

It was designed by the user Christoferespinozat on Cults3D, where it’s available to download. It will cost you $2.12 (plus the cost of the filament) but that’s a pretty low price to pay to have this beauty in your bathroom.

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These CT scans reveal fantastic engineering inside instant cameras

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Anything can be an artistic tool if you’re creative enough. While CT scanning is usually used for medical purposes, guys at Scan of the Month have used it for something completely unordinary.

In their latest series of scans, the team has performed CT scans on different types of instant cameras. Other than revealing the engineering behind each piece, the images look almost magical.

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This realistic LEGO Polaroid camera even has a functional film tray

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We’ve seen our fair share of LEGO gear, both working and just for playing and decoration. But if you’re into instant cameras, you’ll absolutely love this one!

LEGO enthusiast Minibrick has built a super-realistic Polaroid OneStep SX-70 out of everyone’s favorite bricks. He paid so much attention to detail that the camera even has a viewfinder and a functional film tray.

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What do the Polaroid Now+ filters do to your photos?

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Earlier this year, Polaroid launched the Now+, optimistically dubbed as the company’s “most creative camera yet.” It comes with a bunch of filters, and if you’re new to film photography, these may confuse you a bit. If this is the case, Sweet Lou Photography has a video for you. With some great humor and plenty of examples, he’ll show you what these filters do for color and black and white photos in different lighting conditions.

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Polaroid wants to make instant photography more creative with the Now+ camera

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Polaroid has launched a new instant camera, Polaroid Now+. As the name suggests, it’s an upgraded version of the Polaroid Now announced last year. With the “plus” version, Polaroid adds more creative options, trying to make instant photography more versatile and creative.

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