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A ton of content emerged about Polaroid I-2 this week.
Lucky YouTubers, social media personalities, reporters, and bloggers put out reviews and opinions about the camera and the company. And even those who didn’t get to play with an advance copy still posted their thoughts about it (like me, right now).
I want to highlight two of the best pieces of content about the camera from the people who actually used it:
youtube.com/watch?v=3sooI3… (The Verge). Of all the videos I’ve seen, this is the only one that accurately points out the camera’s flaws and talks about its advantages. It’s neither overly critical nor nauseatingly fanboy-ish.
youtube.com/watch?v=3nTs5i… (Polaroid). If you’re in the process of justifying spending $600 on a plastic instant film camera, this video lays out the effort, the technology, and the history behind making this product. It’s well-produced, accurate, and not pushy.
There is so much content about this camera that I can’t possibly review it all. But if you go out searching for more, watch out for the people who have never held this camera (or maybe any film camera) in their hands, dunking on Polaroid for the price tag, small maximum aperture, film quality, and anything they aren’t used to seeing on a digital camera. Others state positive things about this camera that aren’t accurate.
It’s overwhelming. But the camera indeed seems very interesting and I can’t blame anyone for wanting to talk about it.
Oh, but! I want to say something about this camera too. It’s about the plastic Polaroid I-2 lens.
Modern plastic lenses can be incredibly sharp. The flagship $1,000+ smartphones use them. Polaroid’s new I-2 lens is sold as the sharpest Polaroid lens ever made — sharper than the one in my SX-70 camera (which has been considered to be the sharpest lens up until now on this type of a camera since the 1970s when it was released: analog.cafe/r/polaroid-sx-…)
One video even showed a comparison between the two cameras (youtube.com/watch?v=kBJzE6…) Of course, those were not scientific measurements and Polaroid hasn’t shared any of their technical data.
I am sure that the new lens is sharper, but that is not what makes a camera lens good (unless you’re just starting with photography and that’s all you know, which is unsarcastically great!) But the character of bokeh, vignetting, contrast, and other distortions are a huge part of the experience — and no review put out thus far has mentioned any of these. And of course, I’m curious about durability.
I’ll keep an eye out for more feedback and deeper dives into this camera. Polaroid didn’t send me mine so that’s all I have for now, unless the blog does really well this fall/winter and I end up purchasing one to test and maybe keep for a very long time.
This is obviously a huge milestone for Polaroid, formerly Impossible Project. 🎉
YouTube Video