For a year and a half, I have been shooting Fujifilm FP-3000B monochrome peel-apart Polaroid instant film using a Polaroid 240 Land Camera. I shot over 300 stills and selected the best 75 to get frames in a custom display. They were scanned and uploaded before and being sent to the framers. It was an interesting project as the camera has certain limitations. Firstly it’s not an SLR, so you can’t see your exact framing. It additionally also has a separate focus viewfinder. There is some control over exposure, in that you can adjust an arbitrary exposure compensation dial, but essentially you are very much at the mercy of the camera’s in-built light meter that dictates the shutter speed. So it’s very much a case of trial and error when shooting. Luckily within 20 seconds of pulling out the still from the camera, you can peel apart the film and see the print to make adjustments to the next shot.

It was an interesting project as the camera has certain benefits and limitations. Firstly it’s not an SLR, so you can’t see your exact framing and have to apply a certain level of estimation that become more refined and accurate the more I shot with the camera. It additionally has a separate focus viewfinder and uses a stereoscopic parallax view to allow the user to adjust the focus. There is some control over exposure, in that you can adjust an arbitrary exposure compensation dial, but essentially you are very much at the mercy of the camera’s in-built light meter that dictates the shutter speed. So it’s very much a case of trial and error when shooting. Luckily within 20 seconds of pulling out the still from the camera, it has developed and you can peel apart the film to reveal and analyse the print to make adjustments to the next shot. This is a very expensive way to shoot, however, with the cost of each still coming in at a little over £3 after the film was discontinued. I was lucky in that I managed to purchase a large bulk order with a heavy discount from a Hong Kong reseller at the start of the project.

Unlike traditional polaroid cameras that spit out the print automatically after the shutter has been fired, you have to manually pull out the print through the camera rollers, or not, in that you can shoot multiple times over the same negative before removing it to create double or multiple exposures, opening up a world of creative possibilities. This is something I love doing with 35mm film and loved being able to do this on polaroid.

The Monochrome stills have a lovely quality and a decent dynamic range for polaroid film. With the 3000 speed ASA it allows for capture in relatively low light whilst maintaining a pleasing the grain structure due to the large size of the prints. This size also allows for a lovely shallow depth of field considering the small fixed lens aperture.

It was fun exploring a range of subject matters ranging from portraits with lighting setups at home, landscape shots, holidays abroad, to some more unusual purpose made horror-esq scenes with some willing volunteers.