So what we now know is that polapremium.com is run by unsaleable.com and will be a place to buy cameras and accessories related to Polaroid. Nothing new about that. However, the exciting part is that it looks like unsaleable have struck a deal with Polaroid to make large quantities of film before the factories shut down in Mexico and Enschede in Holland.
The following statement is from the Polandoid website.
We are very proud to inform you about the fact that we could persuade the Polaroid management to produce an outstanding amount of breathtaking film, before closing down their factories.
Many of these films are completely new products, never produced before, high quality material, hand assembled during the last production runs in Mexico (last packfilm factory) as well as in Enschede (last integral film factory). All these film as well a a wide selection of Polaroid cameras, books and accessories will be presented and celebrated at www.polapremium.com, the new home of Instant Photography.
This is an exciting turn of events for people who’s Polaroid film stocks are dwindling or have disappeared altogether.
My only fear is that when the site launches (in 547,954 seconds according to the website), there will be a rush on the film leaving those who are online for the openeing in the same boat they are now.
Maybe this is a time to go into the refridgerated storage business.
Update: Some internet sleuths have tracked down the owner of the website to the same company that owns Unsaleable.com. Hopefully it’s not another attempt to pass off the PoGo digital printer (aka Zink) as a Polaroid film replacement. More likely Unsaleable have gotten their hands on a new run of film. The excitement is building.
Update (11-20-08): I got an email from Unsaleable today confirming that this is from them.
My complimentary copy of the Lomographic Society’s LOMO LC-A book arrived today and I have to say it is very impressive. It is huge with over 660 pages and more than 3000 photographs.
I quickly browsed through it and found four of my photos included (although one of them is a small one on the back cover.)
The book is on sale for $100 and I have to admit it is probably worth it. A lot of work went into the production of the book.
In the photograph here, the cityscape (bottom left) is mine (click through the photo to see the others).
Picnik.com is an online photo editing website. You can upload the photos from your computer or pull them in from Facebook, Flicr, Photobucket etc. The site is free to use but there is a “premium” version that costs $24.95 a year for some extra features.
I had a quick browse this evening and was immediately drawn to “Create” section. Being a user of both Holga and LOMO cameras, I was very interested to see a “Lomo-ish” and “Holga-ish” button. It takes a lot of skill to create a good looking vignette and this programs fails at that (although the “Holga-ish” fakes didn’t look too bad I suppose.)
However, I then noticed a “HDR-ish” button and said to myself “I have to give that a try”.
Five seconds later after I bumped up “strength” to 600% I had the most hideous HDR photo imaginable.
OK, so it’s not the most hideous HDR photo imaginable. There are way more hideous ones that this in Flickr Explore right now along with hundreds of views and loads of “Wow - awesome HDR” comments. But this one is pretty well up there in the hideousness scale.
Of course, this isn’t real HDR. Even if I knew what I was doing, I couldn’t create a real HDR photo using any tool. But based on what I see on Flickr, this effect seems to meet the requirements for what a lot of people think HDR is.
Anyway, I’m not sure I’ll ever have the need to use Picnik but for people with no Photoshop or other editing software, this could be useful.
The Olympus 35 RC camera has a fairly fast lens (f/2.8). This means that when using 400 ISO film, it can be difficult to expose correctly in bright light without the use of a neutral density filter.
The problem with the 35 RC is that the filter size is the difficult to find 43.5mm.
The solution is to use a step up ring to a regular filter size but where do you find 43.5mm setp up ring? Well, at CameraFilters.com they have a great selection of filters and step up rings. I went with the 43.5mm to 46mm step up ring and then use a Hoya 46mm ND (x2) filter.
CameraFilters.com also sell a lens cap for 43.5mm filter sizes so if your 35 RC is missing it’s cap, this is the place to go.
A while back I signed up for Photojojo’s Photo Time Capsule. What this does is twice a month mail you photos from your Flickr account that you uploaded a year ago.
It’s a nice way to remember what you were doing twelve months ago as well as jog your memory on what style or cameras you were shooting back then.
As an example, here are photographs I posted to Flickr a year ago. The first two were actually taken during the previous winter in Stateline, Nevada but I guess I only got around to developing the film 11 months later. These were shot on a Yashica Mat 124G.
The other 3 photos were taken with my newly purchased Diana+ which had been released by the Lomographic Society a few months earlier. (The tell-tale square frame reflections give it away that this is a Diana+). I remember taking these in Shoreline Park in Mountain View, California.
So check out the time capsule and send photos to your future self.
Got an email saying one of my LOMO LC-A photographs has been chosen to go into the LOMO LC-A book being published by Lomographic Society International. Here is a short (and fast) preview of the book.
