Film has always been the medium for photography purists. The most extreme fanatics turn their nose up at digital photography because, to many of them, people who look at a screen after each shot to see how well their photos turn out are akin to a monkey playing with a toy they do not understand.
I am one such monkey. I never saw the appeal in film or instant film photography…that is until I saw Impossible Project’s absolutely gorgeous I-1 instant film camera.
The I-1 is a nod to classic Polaroid cameras of old, bringing much of the original’s analogue features into a sleek and modern matte black body. It looks absolutely stunning from almost any angle.
Impossible Project calls their new-old camera the “only new camera for the original Polaroid format” and it is designed to shoot on their type 600 film. This particular film has been painstakingly reverse engineered from Polaroid’s discontinued 600-type film, but if you happen to have any of that original film lying around, the I-1 will also accept that.
It’s classic with what it shoots on, but completely modern with how you shoot with it. The I-1 is designed for simplicity with very few buttons, no knobs and an auto-adjusting LED flash that compensates for ambient light and distance.
The camera also connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth. Install the companion app and it will give you a lot more control over this camera. Users can adjust aperture, shutter speed, flash settings and even remote trigger the camera.
The app also provides users with several preset effects like double exposures and open-shutter long exposure shots. What’s more, you can also charge it via a microUSB cable which means it should hook up to your powerbank/wall socket without a problem. No more pesky batteries to worry about.
That said, this awesome-looking camera will be priced at USD299 (around RM1,550) when it goes on sale on the 10th of May. Unfortunately, when I checked out the site, it seems that only purchases from their EU store will be shipped to Malaysia, so the price may differ.
