Polaroid Spectra 2, an SX-70, and the Impossible

Several years ago, I bought a Polaroid Spectra on eBay. I ran a pack or two of expired film through it, but all I got was flat gray images. So the camera has been sitting on a shelf ever since.

When Polaroid stopped making film, the Impossible Project acquired one of the factories and picked up where Polaroid left off. At $24 for a pack of 8 shots, it isn’t cheap. But it’s new, and it works. I ordered a pack of color film for the Spectra and waited for it to arrive. I hate waiting.

The photo of my dog, above, is the first shot from the new film. I made sure to shoot in low light so I could find out if the flash still worked. It does.

Flash forward to today. I jumped on the Impossible Project’s website to pick up a few more packs of film, only to discover that the color film was out of stock. I poked around their site a bit, and discovered that there were local dealers (wish I had known this before I ordered that first pack of film.)

One of the places that carries Impossible Project film is Blue Moon Camera & Machine in St. Johns. It’s one of those places I’ve been meaning to check out for the past 10 or so years, but never have. Armed with the perfect excuse, and 3 rolls of undeveloped film, I ran out to St. John’s this morning.

They were out of Spectra film. And, apparently, the Impossible Project has decided that it will only sell Spectra film through its website from now on. Bummer. But wait, Blue Moon also sells used cameras. The logical way to deal with the lack of Spectra film stock is to buy a Polaroid camera that uses in-stock film, right? Of course.

Well, it made perfect sense to me. So now this gorgeous SX-70 has been added to my (now) growing Polaroid collection. First thing I did was stop at Cathedral Park for the iconic image. You see this shot everywhere. It seemed fitting for it to be the first one out of this camera.

Much thanks to Blue Moon. I didn’t catch the name of the guy who helped me, but he was patient, knowledgeable, and made sure I walked out happy. They’ve definitely earned my repeat business. I’ll be back in a week to pick up the film I dropped off today–one roll from the Yashica camera I bought in Montana a year ago, and two rolls from my grandpa’s old cameras.

Edit: Fixed title to show SX-70 instead of SX-40. Must’ve been thinking about my dad’s old Nissan 240SX.