Re: Polaroid and metering

[Donal Philby <donalphilby@earthlink.net>]

Carl Socolow wrote:
> what has really made a
> difference in getting critical results from my Polaroids is using one of the
> self-adhesive aquarium thermometers attached to the my Polaroid film back.
> Keep it out of direct sun and let it reach equilibrium with temperature
> surrounding Pola back. Then adhere to the time/temp processing
> recommendations on the Polaroid pull tab. You'll be amazed at what a
> difference this makes. For example Pola Pan is nominalized for 30 seconds at
> 75 degrees processing time. Go to 70 degrees and it's 45 seconds, a 50%
> increase. You begin to see my point in how critical processing time is to
> film temperature. Try to find a thermometer with the greatest temperature
> range possible. Hope this helps.

Carl,

Good idea.  I have somewhere in a closet in studio an aluminum device,
two pieces of metal the size of a 669 polaroid, hinged and slightly
curved.  I belive it was designed for shooting polaroid in cold
weather.  You are supposed to put polaroid between layers and slip
inside jacket.  But it would be perfect to attach the aquarium
thermometer to and use consistently for processing.  

My main complaint with polaroid is that the color sensitivity is not
uniform.  Ever tried to test how a purple or lavender filter is
working?  IF you get it looking good on the polaroid, it will brutally
intense in the film.  

Guess we should all move to digital.

And I heard yesterday that the new Leica digital camera is only
US$30,000.  I heard it records 25million pixels, but I don't know if it
is one pass or three.  If one pass, they are on to something.  But I
think they need to hand it to Canon and let them work out the
ergonomics.

Maybe we could all get together and order a dozen and get a price break.

Donal Philby
San Diego