Polaroid SX-70 Sonar Reskin

My trusty Polaroid SX-70 Sonar was a little beaten up when I bought it off of Amazon a few years ago and was in need of a new leather reskin. With the new lower price of SX-70 film available from Polaroid Originals, I have a new fondness for the Sonar. The camera works well, but the leather had scratches and dents, so it was time to give it a fresh look. I was originally going to send the camera to an online shop to be refurbished and reskinned, but my wallet said I needed to tackle this job myself.

I found a very helpful video on YouTube by Analog Things on how to remove the old leather and started gathering what I needed to get started. I went to HugoStudo.com to find a nice selection of SX-70 skins to choose from, thinking that I would give the old sonar some bling with a color skin. But I eventually decided on a $20 classic black leather skin to restore it to it's original look. The skins are made to fit your specific SX-70 model and have adhesive on the back for easy installation.

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I used cotton swabs, nail polish remover, a small bottle of low odor paint thinner, a utility knife, an x-acto knife, and some elbow grease. Removing the old leather and putting on the new skin took about two hours and looked so good that it now needed a classic leather SX-70 camera strap to complete the makeover. I picked up a black Impossible SX-70 strap from Focus camera for $19.99 with free shipping. B and H Photo had a used Mint SX-70 lens adaptor set for $59.95 that included a ND filter, close up lens, fisheye lens, and a couple of other filters, for about half the price of a new one, so I ordered that. I've been thinking about getting the Mint flash bar as well, but I might pick up one of the vintage SX-70 electronic flash attachments instead for a fraction of the cost from ebay.

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So far, I've upgraded my Polaroid SX-70 Sonar for about a $100, with the flash attachment likely to cost an additional $27. The success of this project lead me to purchase a sorry looking Polaroid SX-70 Model 3 from ebay for a few dollars which will be my next camera restoration project.

Polaroid OneStep 2

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I usually find out about new cameras from several blogs that I follow and from Kickstarter campaigns that I back, but I was caught off guard when Polaroid announced the OneStep 2. Being the camera addict that I am, and also that it was a new instant film camera, I couldn't restrain myself from pre-ordering one. I signed up for the newsletter which gave me a 10% discount on the camera and the initial purchase of film that I made.

The Onestep 2 looks much like its predecessor, the iconic Rainbow Polaroid OneStep, with the addition of an on camera flash. I have one of the original OneStep cameras, a Sears Special version, with a very large attachable flash unit. I took the OneStep off my Polaroid camera shelf and put a pack of the new Polaroid Originals film through it in anticipation of receiving the OneStep 2.

After waiting impatiently and emailing Polaroid Originals about the delivery of the OneStep 2, I finally received it a couple of days after the launch date of October 16th. I just assumed that when you pre-order a new camera, that it would be delivered before it was actually available on the store shelf to other customers. 

Nonetheless, I am extremely happy with my purchase of the OneStep 2. I only think now that I should have gotten the graphite color to be less conspicuous when shooting photographs on the street and to better hide the eventual spots of dirt.

The camera operation is pretty straightforward - point camera at subject, press red button. The flash can be turned off if desired, but the flash is recommended. There is also a timer. That's about it for features. 

In my experience with the camera so far, I need to get better at framing my shots for the parallax correction.  The minimum focusing distance is two feet, with anything beyond that being in focus. 

The new Polaroid Originals I-type film performs well, only that I found the need to set the exposure to the minus side on the OneStep 2. Love the camera and the new film!

26 Instax Packs - #26

26 Instax Packs - #26 - Candy Pop Instax Mini Frame in Diana F+ with Lomography Instant Back using Splitzer attachment. It took me a few tries to figure out how to use this attachment, it was kind of confusing trying to get the effect I wanted with two halves facing away from each other. I also experimented with double exposures. I should have changed the aperture setting to cloudy as several of the photos came out way underexposed. The frame is very cool though, I would like to get more. This concludes my six-month #26 Instax Packs project, but I will continue to experiment and use more of the unusual Instax Mini frames available.

26 Instax Packs - #16

26 Instax Packs - #16 - Fuji Instax Black Frame in Diana F+ with Lomography Instant Back. Shot around Lake Marburg and Downtown Hanover.

26 Instax Packs - #11

26 Instax Packs - #11 - Pinhole photography with Diana F+ with Lomography Instant Back using Fuji Instax Monochrome film. I was in the mood to shoot some instant film and decided to set up a couple of shots around the house with things from my collection - a skull model that I just finished building, a troll from my mother's troll collection, and a dragon that Alan made from clay when he was growing up.

I made a few adjustments to my method of making pinhole photos with the Diana F+ from the last attempt that I made on Pinhole Photography Day. The previous photos had turned out very blurry due to the camera shaking when the shutter button would release after a long bulb exposure. This time I used the shutter stop to keep it open in the bulb position after placing a piece of electrical tape over the pinhole. This way I could make the exposure without activating the shutter button, and causing camera shake.

The results from this method worked much better. After shooting a few photos out in the grass with my skull and troll (I don't know what my neighbors think I'm doing) I went inside to experiment with taking pinhole flash photos. This was very interesting as I had not thought of doing this until I heard about it on a photography podcast. I like the effect that I got with the skull and dragon with the troll in the background with glowing eyes, caused by the flash. I should mention, this photo was taken with the Diana lens on the camera using the Pinhole setting, which turned out a little sharper than the Diana without the lens using the pinhole.

I was pleased with the results from this pinhole photography experiment and would like to try flash photography with my Ondu MKII 6x6 and Holga WPC. 

26 Instax Packs - #10

26 Instax Packs - #10 - Skyblue Instax Mini Frame in Diana F+ with Lomography Instant Back. Wanting to shoot a pack film, but not knowing what to take photos of, I spent and hour or so at Codorus State Park on a pleasant Saturday afternoon with my Diana camera. I still need to work on getting the right expsosure and composition with this camera, but I do like the photos they look pretty sharp when they're right.

26 Instax Packs - #3

26 Instax Packs - #3 - Diana F+ with Instax Back using Fuji Instax Mini Monochrome at Gettysburg National Military Park in early evening. The exposure was a bit unpredictable and hard to get right, but there are interesting effects on the corners of some of the prints.