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Testing an SX-70 with 600 Film
Day 82 / 2022 Photo Project365
I love to find, buy, and use old cameras with new film. It’s especially fun when the camera is a Polaroid SX-70, manufactured roughly 50 years ago, and I don’t know if it will work at all. After the basic cleaning of rollers I always do, it may work perfectly, allow me to shoot a pack of film and delight me as each exposure develops, or it may be dead and waste the whole pack.
Often, an old SX-70 (if not recently serviced), will either have a “sticky shutter” resulting in blurry exposures, or the film will jam and not eject properly, requiring manual intervention, resulting in uneven developer spread, roller marks, fold lines, etc. No idea what will come out of the camera, but the results can be unique, bizarre, and beautiful!
Today, I had two Polaroid SX-70’s from an auction, which I got for a very good price, so I had pretty low expectations. Checked the frig and found I didn’t have any SX-70 film for testing, then found some fresh 600 film which is the same size, but with higher speed and sensitivity. Good enough for a camera test-experiment, as long as I was willing to risk wasting some film! The first camera was a little cranky, as if waking up after a long sleep, but it finally spit out a couple of good exposures, which I’m happy to share with you…
Camera: Polaroid SX-70 Classic (vintage)
Film: Polaroid 600 Color instant film (new)
Photographer: Russ Murray (vintage)
Location: Stamford, Connecticut
