Polaroid Camera To Be Relaunched In 2010 (PHOTOS, POLL)

UPDATED 1/8/2010: The next generation of Polaroid cameras has been spotted at CES 2010! Check out photos of the new, instant-film cameras, called PIC-1000, below.

Gizmodo describes the reintroduced retro camera:

The new model has a self-timer, flash and even red-eye reduction. And, thanks to the Impossible Project, it'll work with Polaroid 1000 instant film.

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HuffPost Readers' Polaroid Pictures

 

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UPDATED 1/6/2010: The Polaroid has returned! The instant film camera made its comeback at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2010) with the introduction of Polaroid camera model, the PIC 1000.

The new model "resembles the Polaroid One-Step from the 1970s and 1980s," USA Today writes.

Go to USA Today to read more about the new Polaroid models.

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Hipsters, photo-classicists, and impatient picture-snappers everywhere rejoice: Polaroid Cameras are making a comeback.

After announcing that Polaroid cameras (and film) were being discontinued, Polapremium has announced that they are "preparing, supporting and managing the comeback of Instant Photography."

The beleaguered company seems finally to have understood the charm -- and kitsch-appeal -- of its clunky, boxy devices. Polapremium wrote in its press release,

After all the difficulties and changes of ownership during the last years, the new management of Polaroid now understands the source of the brand's attraction - which is surprisingly not based in digital cameras but in Dr. Edwin Land's groundbreaking 1948 invention of Instant Photography, which he ingeniously devised and passionately developed with a lot of care and devotion.

Polaroid cameras and film (both color and black-and-white) should go on sale in mid 2010. A new digital Polaroid will also be on the market.

The Impossible Project will manufacture the film, the Telegraph writes:

The film, meanwhile, will be created by The Impossible Project - the company rescued from the ashes of the Polaroid manufacturing plant based in Enschede, The Netherlands. Over the last year former managers of the factory have worked, as mostly a labour of love, to recreate the magic of the film on a low budget.

Check out our slideshow of more obsolete gadgets we miss (bring 'em back!!!). Don't forget to vote, and please suggest your own in the comments section below.

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Comments

[zombywulf]

04:14 AM on 01/09/2010

well one good thing about it, your sure not going to accidently attach any "personal" polroid pics to an email

[dmclark]

10:29 AM on 02/12/2010

So when is Polaroid supposed to relaunch this camera?

[Frank Panucci]

10:12 PM on 01/08/2010

Thinking them orphan products, I threw away my SX70 cameras year ago. One of them was the expensive Rube Goldberg folding model with leather pads on it. Crap.

[lastep]

06:51 PM on 01/08/2010

i grew up selling cameras and film at a tourist attraction in the Smokey Mountains. I have fingers crossed these cameras come back and become as big as they were back then.

[P r o f a n a t i o n]

02:29 PM on 01/08/2010

My digital camera fits in my pocket. This looks like a big, hot mess of a camera.

[bobdcat]

12:18 PM on 01/08/2010

I still have a "Time Zero" SX-70. I guess I'll hang on to it now.

[regulargal]

12:51 PM on 01/08/2010

Do hang on to your SX-70. Those were especially good.

[enoughofrr]

10:52 PM on 01/08/2010

Great lenses.

[candlepin2002]

11:39 AM on 01/08/2010

I wonder where they get the components­, the negative, reagent, batteries, and sheet? The MA plants are closed and gone. It is not easy or economical to manufactur­e the batteries, negative and sheet, Enschede has and can make the reagent but not the batteries, negative and sheet.

I worked at Polaroid for 30 years and I admit that there is no better joy than taking a birthday picture and handing it to a 3 year old and seeing the amazement on their face as the picture develops.

Polaroid had it's heyday in the sixties and seventies, let the past be the past and move on.

[jonathonz]

11:17 AM on 01/08/2010

Taking pictures with Polaroid film is a completely different pleasure from digital photograph­y. The pictures have a wonderfull­y evocative look that's completely different from an inkjet or laser printer. It also inspires a very different mindset when you know that each picture you're taking costs $1. I slow down and take more thoughtful pictures. It's a great pleasure and I for one am very happy to see that instant photograph­y and Polaroid in particular seems here to stay.

[Sweetdreamer]

11:23 AM on 01/08/2010

Second.

It maybe silly, but I can't wait to hear that Polaroid sound once again.

[walleymr]

09:43 AM on 01/10/2010

I'm right there with the both of you!!!

[eastcoastpaperboy]

04:14 PM on 03/15/2010

I could not agree with you more, jonathonz.
You don't have to wait for these new cameras to enjoy the sound of a Polaroid, sweetdream­er. Check out /www.the-im­possible-p­roject.com­/ for some film and vintage cameras. I stand behind their products.

[Krek]

03:27 AM on 01/08/2010

Since when have pens been categorize­d as a) 'gadgets', b) obsolete?

[tones]

01:56 AM on 01/08/2010

when they got rid of the classis it was prob one of the stupidist ideas ever. I have tons of camera buddies that have stocks of the film sitting in their fridges. Hell i don't like taking pics but polaroids are awesome

[NoSillyName]

01:56 AM on 01/08/2010

Polaroid comes in very handy for many reasons.

Can we bring back KODACHROME next? Please.

[enoughofrr]

10:53 PM on 01/08/2010

The process is too caustic. It's too bad. The stuff was the best film ever made.

[JohnSawyer]

04:39 PM on 01/07/2010

A fun thing you can do only with Polaroid instant photos, is before the emulsion has had time to dry, you can rub on them with your fingernail or a stylus, and make patterns to "enhance" the photo. If you're artistic, you can get some really decent Impression­ist effects. A book was published years ago with examples--­I have it buried in my library somewhere, though I don't remember its name or author.

[JohnSawyer]

04:44 PM on 01/07/2010

I also still have my original Polaroid model, as pictured in the article's photo. Maybe I'll buy some of this new film and show my grand-neph­ews (10 and younger) what instant photograph­y used to be like, and let them rearrange the emulsion.

[4TJefferson]

11:11 AM on 01/07/2010

Can't Polaroid or Kodak simply put a small printer in a digital camera? Instant prints? Hello?

[jsgaetano]

12:17 PM on 01/07/2010

> "A new digital Polaroid will also be on the market."

Hidden deep in the depths of TFA.

[enoughofrr]

01:07 PM on 01/07/2010

Can't wait a minute for it to process?

[HappyMarsden]

11:10 AM on 01/07/2010

I think the problem with Polaroid is not that their self-devel­oping cameras are so wonderful, so much as that their digital cameras are so krappy. I had a Polaroid digital camera. Worst. camera. ever. It took pictures that made you think you were in an alternate universe. I think Pokemon makes better digital cameras. They completely ruined their name putting out junk like that. Bringing back the land camera may be all well and good, but I suspect its only a passing trend from the newer generation­s, who WILL be bored with it all by around next year. Then Polaroid takes the final plunge into Chapter 11.

[HappyMarsden]

11:06 AM on 01/07/2010

Pens?? Since when are "pens" obsolete? You can't sign a cheque or credit card without one. And that Playskool thing you call a "record player"? Yeah, that SHOULD stay gone. I have a Roksan Xerxes. THAT's a record player.

The turquoise rotary phone IS cool though.

[miles120]

01:22 PM on 01/07/2010

I use an old Western Electric rotary dial in my darkroom, because there is no light on the dial. It's thirty years old and looks like it just came out of the box.

[JScott]

10:50 AM on 01/07/2010

Just like the LP vinyl record, their death is premature.
And mom and pop grocery stores, you can still find em.