Love your podcasts. I had my Polaroid 1oo Land Camera reconditioned recently and have been shooting over the last couple of days. I’m new to it and been having both good and bad results. I was hoping you may be able to answer a few questions for me?
My first question – is it possible to have the lens changed on the 100? I’m finding that it’s really not possible to do any close up work.
My other question is what setting do you recommend when shooting with manual off-camera flash? I have a Nikon SB-28 flash and have been going through a lot of trial and error trying to get the flash exposures correct. I’m setting the aperture on the flash for f/8 and the focal length for 85mm, and then setting the ASA accordingly. I’ve been trying both direct and bounced flash. I don’t mind the trial and error stuff, but it’s seems so wasteful and a little costly to keep going through all of this film.
Any info would be much appreciated.
Thanks, Scott
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Hi Scott!
Thanks for writing to me at the FPP!
Polaroid 100 Lenses
No, unfortunately you can not swap out lenses on the Polaroid 100 although Polaroid did make accessories like the Portrait and Close-Up Kit. You can try some DIY approaches. For example, holding a Cokin 2x close-up filter or Wide-Angle adapter over the lens.
Here is an example of using the Cokin 2x Close-Up Lens Adapter with the Polaroid Colorpack II Camera. Images are quite sharp and you can achieve similar results with the Polaroid 100 Automatic Land Camera (with some practice):
Off Camera Flash
I usually set my Starblitz Pro-5000 GTZ-Twin flash to the setting 3 – 10 feet / 50mm. Experiment with your Darken/Lighten setting as well. The only way to “get comfortable and confident” is to keep shooting. It may seem like a waste of some film but you’ll learn quite a bit in a very short time!
Below: Starblitz “off camera” with my Polaroid 215 Automatic Land Camera
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_jpfgCr0Zo
Best, Michael Raso
Please check out our fortnightly Internet Radio Show – The Film Photography Podcast! I’m always happy to answer more questions, which you can direct to me at Podcast@FilmPhotographyProject.com
Best,
Michael