POLAROID REVIVALISTS

 

Bad Monkey is a really entertaining TV series from 2024 that I've recently been watching.

It's based on a book by Carl Hiaasen, also called Bad Monkey, and it's unusually well done.

That is not something I often say about TV programs, in fact I usually say they are utter crap. But I like Bad Monkey, both the book and the TV series.

In episode 6 there is an Instamatic camera featured. Although I've seen those before, I don't know much about them and have never used one myself. Maybe they were popular in America but not so much in New Zealand?

So I had questions! - When were they popular?, how much did they cost?, and are they now cool again and having a revival in the digital era?

I looked them up online…

Polaroid history from 1948 to modern retro cool

Some main points of interest to me were:

The first black & white Polaroid camera was sold way back in 1948. It was an instant hit.

 

The first colour Polaroid camera, The Land 100, was released in 1963 and it retailed in America for US$149. 

The ones that all the new ones are now modeled on were from the late 70's

At that point Polaroid cameras were pumping, and they were at peak popularity throughout the 70's & 80's. But their popularity started to decline in the 90's, and although Polaroid did develop an early digital camera, the digital revolution pretty much ended things for Polaroid.

 

"Polaroid Corporation filed for bankruptcy in 2001 its brand and assets were sold off. A successor Polaroid company formed, and the branded assets changed hands multiple times before being sold to Polish billionaire Wiaczesław Smołokowski in 2017" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_Corporation

In the 60's and 70's Polaroid cameras were expensive in New
Zealand, and with our weak currency, and heavy import taxes, along with the already relatively expensive prices of the cameras to begin with, adjusted for inflation, a Polaroid camera in New Zealand, back in the 70's would have cost the equivalent of NZ$1000 to $4000 for the camera, and then there were the expensive film costs on top of that.

So it's no surprise that they were not very common here, even in the 80's & 90's. But I gather they were once huge in America and are now becoming trendy again.

It turns out that there is currently a POLAROID REVIVALIST movement, and the new retro Polaroid cameras are styled to look like the old 70's ones, but they have been updated to work with blue tooth and phone apps.

They now sell in New Zealand at around NZ$400 for a high end one. 

 

The big drawback is the cost of the film. In NZ that works out at $2 a shot! For someone like me that regularly knocks off up to 200 photos in one session on my digital camera, in the hope of getting half a dozen good ones, that would be up to $400 a day. No thanks!

But apparently kids love them and drunken party goers think they are wondrous, and there are basic ones selling in NZ from as little as $98.

 

Which is pretty cheap, so I'm guessing the objective here is to get people locked into repeat buying the film.