I love shooting with instant film! It’s magical to see a print develop right in your hands.
We have a bunch of Polaroid cameras hanging around and so I was excited to finally give the Impossible Project Polaroid film a try.
Unfortunately it was pretty disappointing to discover that their color film takes about 45 minutes to fully develop! Not-so-instant film!
In the video above I show you a quick comparison of the development times between Fuji Instax instant film and Impossible Project SX70 color instant film.
The photos below show how long it takes for the Impossible Project color film to develop (Impossible Project Polaroid on the left and Fuji Instax on the right).
Final Thoughts
I really like instant film. We have tons of old Polaroid cameras, a Fuji Instax camera, a Fuji Instax printer. I’ve also shot quite a bit with large format Polaroid and Fuji Instant film.
The video in this post mainly highlighted the slow development time, but there are a couple other concerns with the Impossible Project film.
1. The Impossible Film costs a lot! You get 8 shots for $22.99 ($2.80 per shot) vs. Fuji Instax Film 20 shots for $15.99 ($0.80 per shot!)
2. The impossible film is much slower (lower ISO). It’s clearly more suited to shooting outside (which I should have been doing).
3. Because of the long development times it’s difficult to correct mistakes. You can see that the Polaroid photo is blurry and that I should have been more steady. I also should have composed a bit lower – the thing is it takes about 5 – 10 minutes before the photo is exposed enough for you to tell if you’ve made any big mistakes.
One thing to note is that apparently the black and white film from the Impossible Project develops much faster (about 5 minutes). I have a pack of that in my film fridge that I’m looking forward to trying out!
Congrats to the Impossible Project for bringing back Polaroid film, but in my opinion the Fuji Instax is a much better option for today’s instant print photographer.
Have you shot with the Impossible Project instant film? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments!
