Polaroids are back!

Being that one of my first ventures in to the photographic world was with my Polaroid, this is all excitement to me :P

Polaroid stopped making film packs last year, but just when you think this piece of the industry is fading away, here is its digital replacement.
Polaroid has announced the introducing of the digital Polaroid which produces "Instant" pics, ( you have to wait about the same amount of time for it to develop as you would the old version).

The $200US "PoGo" camera contains a built in colour printer, producing 2in x 3in photos by selectively heating spots on specially treated paper.It has nothing like the old chemical Polaroid process, but the final result will still keep its old pop art charm, remaining grainy and and coloured slightly off!!

This camera due to be realised in late march or early April in the US so it might be a bit till we see it here.

Although it is not a "serious" SLR, it is aimed at people lamenting the loss of the traditional Polaroid and seeks to give them some solace!. the prints can be peeled apart to reveal a sticky side for easy application to ...well....anything.

The PoGo has one great advantage over the old style Polaroids, you can see what your shooting on the back before you shoot, potentially wasting film, and you can also do multiple pics on one print or print something you shot awhile ago.

The paper used is still expensive compared to anklet paper but is about 30% cheaper then traditional Polaroid film.

The PoGo is a great new toy, but as a camera it is very basic. There is no auto focus, you have a choice between infinity and close up, via a switch. The resolution is 5mp, although thanks to the size your printing it wont make a huge amount of difference. It have a substantial shutter lag and the prints are narrower then what you shoot, cropping a decent amount off the top and bottom of the prints and the camera doesn't warn you about this prior to printing, how ever you can crop and zoom in on parts of images but you still can make the original shrink so it all prints.

The battery life, is OK considering the amount of heat needed to run the printer to produce the images but does only last an average of 20 prints.

(The old Polaroid cameras didn't have battery problems, because most of them had batteries built into the film packs - a brilliant design. But enough nostalgia.) - AP SMH

The Pogo uses a SD card , so if you don't like the way the actual camera shoots you can shoot on another camera and move the SD to print on the PoGo.How ever its advised if that's why you are buying the camera you are better off buying the PoGo instant mobile printer which is smaller and connects to your camera via a ASP cable.

Who knows how long this technology will last as polaroid declared bankruptcy in December, but its fun while it lasts.

i would be interested to see if anyone has seen these camera at any expos, and see what they think??

Emily