polaroid bastards...

3 replies [Last post]

Submitted By: Anonymous

Posted: March 20, 2005 - 9:46am

I have a question for any vintage polaroid people. I have recently converted a polaroid 160 roll film camera to shoot 120 and love the heck out of it. Now considering converting a 80a roll film to 120 but I picked up a badly abused model 80 and butchered it. I grafted the lens onto an ansco pioneer body. I was terribly disappointed in the sharpness of the lens.

My question is does anyone know if the orgininal 80a or 80b were as sharp as the bigger cameras. If you have any experience with the model eighties I would love to know about them before I waste a good 120 back on it.

Submitted By: DaveBelew

Joined: Mar 16 2005

Posts:

Re: polaroid bastards...

Posted: June 27, 2005 - 11:05pm

Hi,
The "little" cameras had pretty good lenses. However, they were only intended to create a small image, so I wouldn't
attempt to convert one to 120.

Submitted By: Anonymous

Re: polaroid bastards...

Posted: January 9, 2006 - 4:36pm

Do you have any examples from your converted 160?
I'm looking to do the same conversion myself and am interested in the quality.
Thanks! lonnyww@yahoo.com

Submitted By: mysteryscribe

Joined: Apr 13 2006

Posts:

Re: polaroid bastards...

Posted: April 13, 2006 - 7:10pm

I started this post before I was registered. I send some of the pictures from several of my converted polaroids to lonnie

I have converted most of the early and middle polaroids now. I like the 110s of course, but to do real conversions the newer packfilms are good to. I have changed lenses and made backs for most of them. The are a lot of fun but have started to get pricey as people learn how rugged the frames of them are. If I am going to build a camera It is going to be on a polaroid packfilm frame. They have solid frames good rangefinders (the zeise one anyway) and a good solid bellows. The attached shot was made with a polaroid 700 with roll film back.