There seems to be so much hype towards these rubbish cameras these days which it costs like $1 for each small photo. I get that it's "cool" to get it printed instantly but any rational person would know it's much better to take a camera with your smartphone and get it printed at Officeworks or Kmart or somewhere for 10 cents. The camera itself is a rip-off in my opinion. Thoughts?
Why Are People So into Polaroid Cameras These Days?
lifehacker on 18/12/2016 - 19:28
Comments
because of private pictures you wanna take as it gets developed on the spot. also its retro looking.
You can print from a printer if you want, "private"?
The Polaroid quality is awful….imho
Absolutely! It's for people pics, not food adly. Was give one, we're going to take pics with the historic reenactment group though, on location.
It's a fad….. a lot of people are stupider than you think.
Too much money, very little brain.
Agreed. As I get older and balder, I'm starting to realise that the majority of people are idiots. This saddens me… a little
From where do you think hair draws nutrients to grow?
Digital photos: no / low cost, great quality, easily shared and backed-up but no hippy coolness or factor
Polaroids: high cost per photo, creates a physical and tangible product, instant gratification with a printed product and retro / hippy factor
havent seen or heard of it.
Instax, made by fujifilm, are $70 ugly cameras that produce half size hard copy prints like polaroids used too. They have a peel off sticky back so they are stickers too. RRP per pic is around $1.
I feel the target market is teen girls, but I'm not 100% sure who is buying them. It could be equally raving 20yros.
Also some people remanufactured Polaroid compatible film (google the impossible project) when they stopped making the real thing. Hipsters are buying vintage polaroids to take out clubbing etc.Thanks
It appears I'm not one of the cool kids.
And not hanging out in a place where I would see a instant pic being taken
The train I've seen is a popular place, also those music festivals.
Polaroids are like the Apple of camera, the users have "fun" and even have things called "relationships" and other highly irrational things.
You can buy the ingredients to make a pizza for $1.50, or you can go pick up dominos for $7 or sit back and wait for delivery for a bit more.
Handing somebody a picture right then is cool and fun. If the prints were cheaper, like 20c or 30c I'd probably get one. If everyone is already on each other's facebook or Insta feeds, fine, but I can imagine lots of times meeting people at a show or club, or when traveling would be great to hand out instant prints.
Sending dic-picks will definitely get weirder, though.
The risk/reward ratio goes through the roof!
Good lord!
Sharing mobile photos is a tap away!
How is this even a "thing"?
Nostalgia. Most people who own these cameras are teenage girls who weren't even born when Polaroid peaked, and put them in scrapbooks, etc.
McDonald Birthday Parties! - I always wanted one back then.
very popular in asia, i assume the overseas students brought its popularity to oz and it took off with the kids here
Instant print.
Most of the people commenting here have never been photographers nor really shot extensively with film, but I have, so let me offer my views. I'm a photographer (both semi-professionally in that I shoot for money, and also as a hobby).
Digital cameras (including smartphones and the like) are one of the best inventions to have occurred in photography. It's made photography cheap and accessible and it's made my job shooting professionally much, much easier. I'm young, so I grew up on digital. I never really had the inclination to try shooting with film until my friends convinced me it'd make me a better photographer, so I tried it out.
I went out for a day and shot 36 exposures. I got the film developed and boy, were they right. I shoot a lot of street photography and with my digital cameras, I can shoot upwards of 100 images in an outing. I'd be over the moon if over 10 of them were shots that I'd keep in my collection. With the 36 shots I took that day, almost all of those shots were keepers.
The problem with digital is that it's made photography too easy and too cheap - it doesn't cost anything for you to click the shutter, so you just take photos mindlessly without thinking deeply about composition. It costs nothing to you, so you might as well just take it. You take it, you see it on screen and you move on if it looks mediocre. With film, you're paying for each and every shot, so you don't click the shutter until you know it's perfect.
It's the same idea with $1 polaroids. I take it that you're not really a photographer and you've never tried these. On the outside, they look ridiculous, but remember that these are not made for the same purpose that your smartphones and point-and-shoots are. If you want to take pictures of your holidays and family/friends, go get a nice point-and-shoot. If you want something quirky, fun, with a bit of randomness in it, get a polaroid. You don't buy a nice sports car to get from A to B, you buy it because it's fun to drive and makes driving a better experience.
If you go and get yourself a 10 pack of polaroid film and go shoot for a day, I'll assure you that you'll get 10 good images and you'll shoot less, but more meaningfully meaning you'll enjoy your day out a lot more too.
Lots of things are stupid at first glance - why do people still read books when they can read on their kindle or tablet, why do people still drive manual shift…etc. There are reasons behind this - e.g. enjoying the feel of a book (analogous to enjoying the instant print), enjoying the manual process (analogous to enjoying shooting on film, where you don't see the results BEFORE you shoot).
You could also be kicking yourself because you missed a perfect shot, because you were still considering if it was worth taking it.
I came in thinking people were idiots, your comment changed my view. Nice going. Although still not getting a polaroid camera.
Member Berries and marketing
Sometimes it's not about the cost, it's about the experience
A few times I've bought things which were from my youth that I could previously not afford or didn't have
because they're all fekin hipsters who want to stand out and be all 'old school' despite the fact that they're just poor and unable to afford a DSLR
In my youth polaroids were for taking pics you couldn't get developed instore. Thus saving us a lot of embarassment. Btw, still got one, lol.
No one buys these because of quality or because they think it's an alternative to professional camera lmao. It's popular because of instant prints, instant private sharing and trendy, looks good on their desk/fridge etc.It's more of a fashion item than a proper camera.
A friend recently used these at her engagement party and it was a brilliant idea. Cheaper than those photo booths and you still get instant photos to stick onto the scrapbook and keep for yourself. They still had a photographer though. Just because you don't understand the experience doesn't make it stupid.
its fun, I use it to take photos of the kids and stick them on the fridge for the grand parents, needless to say the fridge is completely covered in photos which they love and show everyone that comes over their place
We borrowed a polaroid camera and bought about 80 film for our engagement party.
Ended up having the guests write comments/stories and how we met and stick them along with the polaroids.
We'll do the same thing for our wedding guestbook - it's expensive but it's well worth it for the memories it gives
Worse, is that you can take a digital photo & edit it to "look" like Polaroid? Why bother with the camera?
I think it's over-rated nostalgia & marketing, personally.
My daughter's mate, who is into photography, bought one— then, much to his chagrin, realized that to "share it" he had to scan it & thus created a digital photo out of a Polaroid- lol.
;)