BUY

POLAROID

Film

With all our heart and soul we do believe in the MAGIC OF ANALOG INSTANT FILM slowly developing in the palm of your hand. Supersense founder Florian Kaps classifies as the savior of Polaroid film, as he was the one launching The Impossible Project in 2008, to rescue this unique material in the very last minute.

The Story


Doc first
Notary
Webmeister
Customer
Opening
Bosman

The story of the POLAROID ORIGINALS FILM is almost as unbelievable as it is impossible. In order to understand this product`s true nature, please allow us to serve you a condensed short version of how it all started:

The impossible journey origins in the year 2003 with the very first instant self portrait Florian Kaps took with an old Polaroid Camera from the flea market 1. Immediately, he was addicted to the mysterious magic of this incredible material and started to dive deeper. Surprisingly the world, including the Polaroid management itself, seemed to have totally lost faith in the relevance of instant film. You could hardly find any supply, there was no real communication and it seemed clear that the days of Polaroids were counted.

For Florian an unacceptable situation that simply had to be changed. Together with his long-time business partner in crime, the famous Webmeister aka Andreas Eduard Hoeller, he founded the UNVERKAEUFLICH Trading Company (unfortunately destroying the notaries table with aggressive developer paste from old Polaroid film when they instantly documented the founding ceremony) in spring 2005.2

Only a few months later, Webmeister proudly launched their first online shop, 3 and in the following years they became the worlds biggest online retailer, specialized in Polaroid film. (honestly not a too big challenge, as basically they were the only one)

During this time they had the pleasure to discover that they were NOT the only maniacs who passionately love analog & instant, but that there was an exponentially increasing number of people of all ages who re-discovered the magic of analog instant photography in a more and more digital world.4

Then the SHOCK: Polaroid informed the world about the end of the production of their instant films. Within the year 2008, the very last factory in Enschede, NL would close its doors forever.

For almost one year, Florian Kaps tried to fight this frightening decision, but the best he could get was an invitation for the closing event on June 14th, 2008.5

There he met Andre, 6 the production manager of this amazing plant, and suddenly everything changed. He told him about the incredible re-discovery of analog instant film all over the world and the incredible potential of the next generation of analog customers. And Andre told him about his secret experiments and the slight chance to re-invent a new analog instant film if they only could save the factory. Within 1 year he and his best 10 team members would be able to produce a new film material.

So they restarted the fight for the factory and with the help of the FBI (another thrilling story) they finally ended up as proud owners of the very last Polaroid factory and started THE IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT. 6 months later, in 2009, the very first NEW and truly IMPOSSIBLE lab test analog instant picture (showing chief chemical wizard Martin) slowly developed in their trembling hands. In 2010 they finally were able to proudly present the very first real IMPOSSIBLE INSTANT FILM, the PX 100, to the world. Since 2018, the film is back on the market under its one and only birth name: Polaroid Originals.

History of Impossible History of Impossible

Chemistry


Chemical

Every little instant picture is a small but incredibly complex chemical universe of many layers and hundreds of chemicals, perfectly optimized for one very special purpose:

To work as a micro-darkroom that develops your exposed photo within just a few minutes in the palm of your hand.

To achieve this unique miracle, two huge factories (one in Enschede for production/assembly and one in Monheim for coating all materials) full of giant machines and several laboratories are needed. All these machines were built a long time ago, based on a global demand of millions of film packs per year. Who ever had the chance to visit the IMPOSSIBLE factory immediately understands how absolutely crazy you have to be to re-start the production with this giants from scratch at a time when nobody exactly knew if analog instant film would still be needed in our more and more digital world.

The Assembly Machines in Enschede
The Assembly Machines in Enschede

The Assembly Machines in Enschede

IMPOSSIBLE had to re-invent the chemistry from scratch as all the components from the original Polaroid chemistry were used up and could not be re-produced because too many of them did not match international rules/standards any more. This undertaking was much harder than ever expected! The production batches of the first film generations were truly challenging regarding stability, artifacts, crazy patterns, strange colors, the infamous “killer crystals”,... the list is long.

Push

Color Artefacts

Crsystals

Killer Crystals

But the amazing IMPOSSIBLE lab team was working 24/7 to further optimize the IMPOSSIBLE Film materials, both in black/white and color. The current generation of Polaroid Originals film is simply wonderful with stunning image characteristics and qualities than anyone ever dared to dream of when The Impossible Project was started.

Filmtypes


The universe of POLAROID INSTANT FILM consists of 3 main types:

Polaroid 600

A: Film for POLAROID 600 cameras


Approximately 600 ASA, available in B/W as well as Color. Type 600 cameras are the most widespread instant cameras out there in the world. If your camera looks like one of the cameras pictured above, you most likely need this type of film.

Polaroid SX70

B: Film for POLAROID SX70 cameras


Approximately 120 ASA, available in B/W as well as Color. The SX70 was introduced in 1972 and for many people it is still the most beautiful camera ever built. Most of the SX70 cameras are foldable. If your camera looks like one of the cameras pictures above, you most likely need this type of film.

Polaroid Spectra

C: Film for POLAROID Image / Spectra cameras


Approximately 600 ASA, available in B/W as well as Color. Image / Spectra cameras produce white framed images that are slightly larger than the classic shape of 600 and SX70 photographs .If your camera looks like the camera picture above, you most likely need this type of film.


If you are the proud owner of an INSTANT LAB you are in the lucky situation to be able to use both 600 and SX70 film types.

Additionally, Polaroid Originals also produces an amazing instant film material for large format cameras with an 8x10 inch film holder. This material is currently only available in B/W.

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Shop


Within this section the famous "Webmeister" Eduardo the Lexi Hoeller and me, the "Doc" are delighted to present you very special offers, only available at our new project "SUPERSENSE", the most analog Wunderkammer on earth.

We are proud to start this series with a very special SPECIAL. Moving our belongings to our new home, an old Venetian Palace in the heart of Vienna, we discovered a big old box full of an incredible selection of first generation Black&White and Sepia test films from the early days of THE IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT. These films were sent to us on a regular basis in order to test new materials and feed back the factory.

With trembling hands we tested some of the material and to our big surprise the films were not only working but developed into really beautiful images of a very special kind. A rare effect that only can happen when the films are carefully matured in perfect storage conditions.
After shooting several packs and jumping in joy, we decided to share the rest of the box with our customers. So we carefully boxed 8 films in the so called

"FOUND BY FOUNDERS" Antique Expired Film Pack


Found by Founders

8 hand selected packs of carefully matured antique IMPOSSIBLE film material at a very special price of just 39 EUR

Attention, only very limited amount of FOUNDERS PACKS are available.

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