First Flush: I’ve shot some PX100 in my new Polaroid 600 camera

- by

Today is a very special day for various reasons: not only has my Polaroid 600 Extreme camera arrived (the one I bought for £2.50 off eBay). Also, both me and my wife are off together – it rarely happens these days. That alone was reason to celebrate.

But more importantly: The Impossible Project have today released their brand new PX600 Silver Shade Instant Film which is made for just these cameras! I put an order for 12 packs in immediately and can’t wait to give it a try.

In the meantime however, I pondered over the question “does the PX100 work in Polaroid 600 cameras” or rather “does an SX-70 film work in a Polaroid 600 camera” as discussed in my previous post.

I’m happy to say that YES IT DOES – with a minor modofication to the camera.

Let me show you the results and talk you through my experiences with this exciting new material.

The Polaroid 600 Extreme

Camera: £2.50 - Film: £20 for 8 exposures. Ouch!

As I said, £2.50 for my very first Polaroid camera was a bit of a bargain. It even came in its original box and looked brand new to me – even though the rollers inside gave reason to believe it’s seen some use in its time. According to the box it was built in February 1998 in the UK (Vale de Leven, Dumbarton in Scotland to be exact) under license by the Polaroid Corporation in Cambridge, MA (USA).

It’s much bigger than I remember my parents’ Polaroid and I can’t help but feel reminded of my Holga cameras: we’re dealing with a pretty ugly hunk of black plastic here, cheap plastic lens, ridiculous “close-up” slider and a lighter/darker feature which obscures the light meter with a piece of striped plastic (or doesn’t – depending on where you slide it).

I think the seller told me it was £29.99 when it came out so that’s pretty much the price of a Holga too. Great – I love it already, and it’ll feel right at home in my collection!

PX100 Silver Shade First Flush Edition

Trouble is that the Impossible film pack I’ve bought the other day is not made for this camera, but for Polaroid SX-70 models. From what I’ve learnt however the only difference is the film speed: PX100 has 100 ISO and my camera is expecting a 640 ISO film.

Light Meter gets ND2 shades

Easy solution: tape a piece of ND filter over the light meter and be done with it. I’ve used one that darkens incoming light by 2 stops. That should do the trick.

All that’s left is to pop the film in and see if it fits. Listen carefully:

YES IT DOES!

The limited edition darkslide pops out just as expected, so the camera works too. That’s another load off my mind. Just one more thing perhaps: I’m shooting on First Flush batch no. 43 here 😉

Next thing to do of course is hand the camera over to my wife and have her take a picture of me (see below).

Let’s see some pictures

Be my guest! I only had one single pack of PX100 because I didn’t know if anything would come out, so 8 exposures were all we had to test this puppy. On a fairly sunny day with spots of overcast-ness (if that is a word) we took a stroll in the afternoon through the hood and here’s what we shot:

Julia took this first shot of me proudly holding my first ever Limited Edition Darkslide. Shot with flash in front of a sunny window.

My first shot, flash fired, close-up lens used. It's indoors without artificial lights. I think some Flash wet wipe cleaner was still on the rollers hence the smudge on the left. Dark parts of the picture have turned orange, which didn't come out in the scan. Interesting!



If you enjoy my content, please consider supporting me on Ko-fi. In return you can browse this whole site without any pesky ads! More details here.

Leave a Comment