Polaroid 440

Trying out the Polaroid 440 and Fuji FP-100C film.

I've always had the desire to shoot more Polaroids but pretty much gave it away when it looked like film supplies were about to dry up, (in both senses of the word).     With the Impossible Project getting up and running with their range of film types plus the good old peel-apart 100 series film still being made by Fuji, I feel it's time to give these wonderful cameras another go.    

I have a preference for the bellows models and the peel-apart film which gives you both a negative, and a positive to play with.

Looking for a quality image I chose a model 440 with it's 3 element glass lens.   As the original batteries are extremely hard to find AND very expensive, I converted it to take 2 x AAA's which is a pretty straight forward task.   (There's plenty of YouTube videos available to see how this is done).

With these older cameras you almost always buy them untested so there is an element of risk that it may not work.   One of the main things to look out for is corrosion in the battery compartment which can render the camera useless.    If you're buying online, it pays to contact the seller and ask for an assurance that there is no corrosion.

Here's a pic of the 440 and it's first image.     Apart from the processing chemicals not spreading correctly in the top corner probably due to using a long expired film pack, I'm extremely happy with both the image sharpness and the colour reproduction.

Time to get arty-farty!