Polaroid Land Cameras - Lens differences?

[Kirks518]

Are there differences in the glass element lenses in the Polaroid Pack cameras (100/250/350/440/450, etc)? I know there is a tremendous difference in the lenses when talking about the 185/190's, and then there are the plastic lens cameras. But when it comes to the glass element lenses, is there any difference? As far as I can determine, they all have the same 3 element 114mm f/8.8 lens. Is that correct?

 

[Kyle M.]

As far as I've been told/and read they all have the same 114mm F=8.8 lens. But whereas some lower end models such as the 103 only have two apertures f/8.8 and f/42 because the only setting is B&W or color, other models such as the 450 have six different apertures and 4 ISO settings 75, 150, 300, 3000, allowing two apertures for each film speed depending on whether you set bright sun=smaller aperture or cloudy and or flash= larger aperture. I would imagine all of the models with six apertures are the same but the apertures I've found for the 450 are.

f/8.8
f/12.5
f/17.5
f/25
f/35
f/42

Whereas I'm guessing all two aperture models have f/8.8 and f/42, depending on selection of B&W=3000ISO and f/42 or Color=100 originally 75? ISO and f/8.8. Contrary to what I've also been told I know for a fact that changing the ISO on pack cameras changes the aperture, whereas moving the lighten darken control only affects shutter speed. It would be interesting to know what the two apertures for each ISO are just for curiosity's sake.

 

[Kirks518]

That's all I've been able to find out as well.

I think by playing with the ISO (ASA) and the 'exposure setting", along with the lighten/darken dial, any with the 4 exposure controls can be worked as if they were a manual camera. It would just be a matter of figuring out what setting corresponds to what aperture and shutter speed.

I know the 250 is deemed to be a sought after model, but I really can't figure out what makes it so special. If you take the ones with glass lenses, 4 exposure controls, and metal body (ie, tripod socket), what is the real advantage of the 250?

I have a 100, 230, and (2) 440's, and they all produce really nice images. I want a 450, but haven't found one at a great price yet. But if there is something special about the 250 over the 450, then my wants may change, but I can't see the justification of the price of a 250 as of yet.

 

[Kirks518]

Well, I just went through all the manuals, and all of the lenses (including the plastics) are 114mm f8.8. Now, whether or not there are any optical differences, I have no idea, but I would doubt it.

 

[Alan9940]

Not much real difference in the lens of the 100-450 Polaroid pack cameras other than some are plastic elements and some are glass. I've read user opinions that the glass lens are sharper. You don't get any real aperture control until you get up to the "professional" land cameras such as the Polaroid 195. Here you have both aperture and shutter speed control. But, don't get too excited because I believe it offers only 5 aperture settings with the "widest" being 8.8.

I have a Polaroid 250 and it's a really fun camera to shoot. Some time ago I stored many boxes of FP-3000B in the fridge which should provide me about 5 - 10 years of shooting, based on my anticipated usage.

Best regards,
AlanH

 

[M Carter]

Here's an exposure control tip… cut some little tabs of ND (Neutral density) gel and keep them taped somewhere on the camera body - if you want to lighten your exposure, tape them over the "electric eye" - tricks the camera into thinking it's darker and doing a longer exposure, and with real ND gel, it's repeatable since the stuff can be had in densities of 1/8 stop to several stops. (Or just use any old gel you have lying around and guess at the density).This is really handy for more control.

If you want to go darker, you need to get an ND filter on the lens but let the electric eye see all the light of the scene.

My land cameras have the "lighter/darker" dial, but this lets you surpass its limits and tune the exposure for specific situations (backlighting, etc).

 

[ic-racer]

I measured these approximate values on my Polaroid 250:
Wide Open: F 8.4 (measured. Specs are F 8.8 per the manual)
300 - Indoors: F 12.6
75 - Outdoors: F 19
150 - Outdoors: F 25.3
300- Outdoors: F 39
3000 - Outdoors: F 50

 

[Kyle M.]

That's all I've been able to find out as well.

I think by playing with the ISO (ASA) and the 'exposure setting", along with the lighten/darken dial, any with the 4 exposure controls can be worked as if they were a manual camera. It would just be a matter of figuring out what setting corresponds to what aperture and shutter speed.

I know the 250 is deemed to be a sought after model, but I really can't figure out what makes it so special. If you take the ones with glass lenses, 4 exposure controls, and metal body (ie, tripod socket), what is the real advantage of the 250?

I have a 100, 230, and (2) 440's, and they all produce really nice images. I want a 450, but haven't found one at a great price yet. But if there is something special about the 250 over the 450, then my wants may change, but I can't see the justification of the price of a 250 as of yet.

The 250, 350, 360, and 450 have a combination Range/Viewfinder made in Germany by Zeiss Ikon, it is a bit clearer in my opinion and I guess you could say it's slightly faster not having to use 2 separate windows to focus and compose. The only difference between 250, 350, 360, and 450 other than the model # is that the 350, 360, and 450 have built in developing timers so they originally took two 3.0v batteries, the 250 takes a single 4.5v and has no developing timer. The 360 was the only pack camera that was made for electronic flash which was basically a electronic version of the 490 focused flash, it used a rechargeable battery and most if not all of the originals are dead. Some people have had success in converting the 360's electronic flash to take modern rechargeable batteries. The focused flashes are actually really neat I have a 490 focused flash for my 450 and a ton of Hi-Power flash cubes, the flash has little metal blinds on the front that open and close as you focus to control the flash output.

 

[Kirks518]

I wrote out a spreadsheet of all the different pack cameras (100-450), and IMHO, the 350 is tops. It has all the best features; Zeiss finder, metal body, glass lens, and only needs 3.0v to operate (not including the timer). It also has a PC port, which the 360 doesn't have. Next would be the 450, which is the same as the 350, except it has the mount for the focused flash, which is a great place to attach a cold shoe. The 250 requires more power (4.5v), and the 360 has no PC port.

As we all know, the key thing that determines image quality is the lens (especially in the case of the pack cameras, since all the film is the same), of which they all have the same lens. The next would be shutter reliability, and seeing how the 250 is the oldest, I would think probability of failure in a 250 would be higher than a 350 or 450, I still can't see why the 250 is thought by many (most?) to be the best of the consumer-level pack cameras.

 

[M Carter]

...I still can't see why the 250 is thought by many (most?) to be the best of the consumer-level pack cameras.

A lot of this comes down to availability. I have two 100's, which both have PC sockets and work fine with packs & heads.

 

[1L6E6VHF]

As far as I've been told/and read they all have the same 114mm F=8.8 lens. But whereas some lower end models such as the 103 only have two apertures f/8.8 and f/42 because the only setting is B&W or color, other models such as the 450 have six different apertures and 4 ISO settings 75, 150, 300, 3000, allowing two apertures for each film speed depending on whether you set bright sun=smaller aperture or cloudy and or flash= larger aperture. I would imagine all of the models with six apertures are the same but the apertures I've found for the 450 are.

f/8.8
f/12.5
f/17.5
f/25
f/35
f/42

Whereas I'm guessing all two aperture models have f/8.8 and f/42, depending on selection of B&W=3000ISO and f/42 or Color=100 originally 75? ISO and f/8.8. Contrary to what I've also been told I know for a fact that changing the ISO on pack cameras changes the aperture, whereas moving the lighten darken control only affects shutter speed. It would be interesting to know what the two apertures for each ISO are just for curiosity's sake.

While all of the Polaroid folding ColorPack cameras with unit focusing triplet lens have the same optics, apertures are DIFFERENT in the later models (360, 430, 440 and 450) than in the earlier models.


In the earlier models (all triplet lens models 350 and below), film speed:
75 - bright sun or dull day, also flash: f 8.8, bright sun only: f 17.5
150 - bright sun or dull day, also flash: f 8.8, bright sun only: f 24.5
300 - bright sun or dull day, also flash: f 12.5, bright sun only: f 35
3000 - indoors without flash: f 8.8, outdoors or flash: f 40
I guess the Polaroid design team realized that slow shutter speeds would be a problem in cloudy or shaded outdoor environments if the color speed were to be limited to 75 (and, in fact, often really 50, on the film packs with the "set L/D control one mark towards lighten" sticker). They were thinking that if a 150 or 300 speed color film were introduced later, they could give the user one more stop of shutter speed before giving more depth of field. The 3000 speed outdoors or flash setting also had the shutter running one stop faster.


In models 360, 440 and 450, film speed:
75 - bright sun or dull day, also flash: f 8.8, bright sun only: f 17.5
150 - bright sun or dull day, also flash: f 12.5, bright sun only: f 24.5
300 - bright sun or dull day, also flash: f 17.5, bright sun only: f 35
3000 - indoors without flash: f 8.8, outdoors or flash: f 56
Note that the "normal" mode lens openings are now proportional to the square root of the film speeds. In other words, the shutter speed is the same for faster films as the shutter speed for 75 speed film. The "extra stop of shutter speed" has been taken away and faster films yield greater DOF.


This was due to an engineering problem facing Polaroid. Polaroid had designed the electronic shutter to respond to light during the short-lived flash of the M3 bulb (longer than most flashbulbs, though shorter than any natural lighting), so the prototypes showed overexposure. The solution with the Automatic 100 was to have an extra filter in front of the electric eye that would be withdrawn when the #268 flashgun plug was inserted into the lensboard, causing the shutter to close sooner. But the solution was not perfect. Close-ups tended to overexposure while longer shots tended to underexposure.


The 360, with its electronic flash (far, far too brief for the mechanical shutter to time the exposure), had a set of mechanical blinds in front of the flashtube, geared to the focusing rack. This also ended the problem of inconsistent flash exposures on the earlier models, so Polaroid introduced the 400 series, using a new smaller #490 flashgun, where a HI-POWER flashcube was behind mechanical blinds geared to the focus rack, called "Focused Flash". Instructing users to set the flash gun all the way towards "darken" when using B&W film would have caused a lot of confusion to the average user, so the lens openings were set to provide the right exposure with every film speed.


Incidentally: The 420 (duplet lens - 75 & 3000 speed only) and 430 (triplet lens, 75 & 3000 speed only) also had the 3000 speed lens opening at about f 56, versus about f 40 for the older simple cameras.
The f 8.8 triplet provided more than enough acuity to exceed the definition possible in the finished print (about 10 lp/mm in color films and 667/107C, about 20 lp/mm in type 105/665), and possibly served the type 105 negative fairly well, about 2/3 way to the corners)
The duplet lenses were not as sharp, and, wide open (with color film), softness could be seen at the corners in the final print. At the "B&W" or "3000" setting, they were fine.
Color-capable rigid-pack cameras, with the hard plastic body and the flashcube socket on the side (ee.gg. Colorpack II, Super Shooter) actually had front-focusing triplets with methylmethacrylate in lieu of crown glass and acrylonitrile polymer in lieu of flint glass. They are actually quite sharp, though pincushion is considerable.


(all apertures above calculated mathematically, actual figures may differ slightly).

 

[bvy]

The lighten/darken control on my 450 changes the shutter speed. I did a shutter speed test for each setting and have my notes on home. For FP100C at (I think) 75, I have to turn the lighten control all the way up, one mark from the maximum setting, to get a properly exposed frame. I imagine every one of these cameras has its quirks.

 

[1L6E6VHF]

On all of these cameras, the lighten/darken control adjusts a variable density neutral density filter placed in the path of the photocell. As one turns the control in the direction of "lighten", less light will reach the photocell, and the shutter speed will be slower.

One thing I should have mentioned earlier -these cameras are notorious for components of the AE system changing with age, almost always toward underexposure. I had a 220 from a garage sale more than two stops in the hole when it was only about 10 years old. In extreme cases, I've placed an ND filter over the electric eye to compensate.

 

[bvy]

On all of these cameras, the lighten/darken control adjusts a variable density neutral density filter placed in the path of the photocell. As one turns the control in the direction of "lighten", less light will reach the photocell, and the shutter speed will be slower.

By the way, my tests were on a Polaroid ProPack Camera, not the 450. This is a pretty capable little camera too -- feels more plasticky than my 450, but ironically, it also feels less fragile. It has a Polaroid "Polatriplet" 9.4/112 lens.