When Polaroid, under the control of Thomas J. Peters of Petters Group Worldwide, announced that the corporation would cease to produce analog instant film products and filed for bankruptcy in 2008, Austrian photographer Florian Kaps, the owner of the largest online vendor for SX-70 films and organizer of the web-based instant photo gallery Polanoid.net, set out to revive the product.
Teaming up with André Bosman, former head of film production at the large Polaroid film factory at Enschede, in the Netherlands, Florian established a company called The Impossible Project, leased a building called Building Noord, formerly part of the Polaroid plant in Enschede, and purchased Polaroid’s production machinery for US$3.1 million.
The Impossible Project developed new instant film products for use in several existing Polaroid cameras, before the company announced in 2012 that it and Polaroid would launch The Polaroid Classic range, a range of collectible products that originate from different periods of Polaroid's past.
This month, The Impossible Project graduated to making its own Polaroid-type camera, the I-1 600-type instant film camera.
The I-1’s photos are analog, with a small nod to the digital era. It features minimal on-camera controls; a shutter button, a dial for exposure compensation, and a very approximate focus selector. The built-in ring flash uses an ambient light sensor and the focus distance to brighten up the subject.
The digital twist comes in the form of an app that allows users to adjust aperture, shutter speed and flash via Bluetooth, and features camera effects like double exposures and open-shutter, as reported by bloomberg.com.
The vintage-look camera uses a battery that can be recharged via USB.
The Impossible Project’s I-1 will be available starting May 10 at a starting price of US$299. (kes)
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