This is a process journal entry (the first) for the work I'm doing to revive and old Polaroid Spectra camera.
Background
The Polaroid Corporation was the company that brought "instant" chemical photography to the masses. In 1972 they introduced their first "integral film cartridge" camera, the SX-70. Rather than a photographer needing to load sheets of film one at a time, these cameras used integrated film cartridges that contained 10 sheets of film, as well as the batteries that would make the camera run.
In 1981 they introduced the 600 series camera.
Cameras in the 600 series were less expensive, with a durable but lower build quality, than the SX-70. These are the famous "box cameras" many people think of when they think of a Polaroid. This camera also used film cartridges with batteries, but the film inside had a different formulation than the SX-70 film (mainly a higher ISO). While you could use film from one camera in the other, images weren't likely to come out well as each camera model's exposure system was designed for a specific film.
In 1986 they released their first Spectra camera.
These cameras were more expensive than the Polaroid 600s and had more advanced features (better quality lenses, better focusing, better metering, timer features, multiple exposure features). Spectra photographs were also a different dimension: a rectangle with more width and less height than the traditional square Polaroid.
The Spectra cartridges would not fit in the older cameras and the 600 and SX-70 cartridges were to small to fit in the Spectra cameras.
In 2001 Polaroid declared bankruptcy. After bankruptcy and defaulting on employee pensions, the company began liquidating assets. In 2008 they announced they would no longer be making film.
In response to this, a small company called The Impossible Project formed and bought one of the old Polaroid manufacturing plants in the Netherlands with the intent of creating new film. This company created new development chemistry -- Polaroid's old chemistry supply chains no longer existed, and even if they had newer environmental laws wouldn't have allowed them to use the old chemistry. Impossible made film for SX-70, Polaroid 600, and Spectra cameras. They also made a new film called I-Type, which was similar to Polaroid 600 film save that there were no batteries in the cartridges. This film was created for a device called "Impossible Lab", which allowed users to copy digital photos onto Polaroid film. Later, the company would use this film in new lines of cameras that had their own batteries.
In 2017 The Impossible Project bought the Polaroid brand name and remaining IP from the zombie Polaroid corporation. The company rebranded as Polaroid B.V. and began selling film under that name. If you buy Polaroid film today, this is the company you're buying it from.
In 2019 Polaroid stoped manufacturing the Spectra film. There's a lot of speculation as to why this happened -- the truth is probably a mix of the cameras being increasingly unreliable and Polaroid wanting to use the Spectra production lines to make film that was more profitable.
In 2021 Polaroid started selling Polaroid Go cameras with a fifth film type. This doesn't come into the Spectra story, but seems worth mentioning for completeness.
Reusing Old Spectra Cameras
If you want to shoot with a Spectra camera in 2026 there's a few approaches -- all revolve around finding a way to use the smaller Polaroid 600 or I-Type film with the camera. The first I tried was the simplest non-destructive method -- finding an empty Spectra 600 cartridge, taking a battery from a modern Polaroid 600 film cartridge, cutting it down to fit the Spectra cartridge, and loading it with film removed from a Polaroid 600 cartridge (in a dark bag/darkroom).
I ran into a few issues with this approach.
The biggest was my camera would occasionally (attempt to) eject two photos at once. The 600 film does not fit precisely in a Spectra cartridge, which means the cartridge gate needs to be left open. You can see the film overlap the bottom of the cartridge in the image below.
Unfortunately, this gate contains a small piece of plastic that prevents more than one photo from exiting the cartridge if one happens to adhere to the other during ejection.
Without the gate you run the risk of the exposed photo pulling an unexposed photo along for the ride. When this happens it halts ejection as the motor can't pull two photos through the rollers at once.
Because of this, I can't recommend this approach. Since the Spectra will automatically eject the first piece of film in a cartridge (usually the dark slide) you need to load a minimum of two sheets of film. This means you're always at risk of losing two pieces of film.
Spread, Motor, and Battery Issues
Despite my reservations, I was able to get a shot out of the camera using this technique.
The black bar at the bottom comes from the Spectra format being shorter than the transitional 600 sized film. More concerning is that blotchy brown spot. This comes from the development chemistry not reaching a part of the film — colloquially known as a "spread issue". With a Polaroid camera after you take your picture a small arm pushes the film into a set of rollers. The rollers pull the film out of the camera and burst the chemistry pods (chemistry is stored in the "fat" part of the film), and then as the film is pulled/pushed out of the camera this chemistry spreads across the entirety of the light sensitive area of the film. This develops the photograph.
The brown area is a part of the film that never received chemistry.
There's a lot of — disagreement? spirited debate? — around the cause of this. Theories include
- old tired motors not pulling with the same power
- new batteries not having the same characteristics (voltage, amperage) as old batteries
- capacitor wear and tear giving the camera different electrical characteristics
- differences in the new chemistry (photos being thicker, chemistry being more viscous)
- wear and tear on the roller mechanisms
- roller mechanisms calibrated for larger spectra photos/pods
I've done some testing and definitely noticed the motor sounds like it's struggling to pull enough power from the batteries compared to the 600 model cameras. I've also noticed that, after even a single eject cycle the battery's voltage can dip under 6V. In my Spectra a battery went from 6.13V before the eject cycle down to 5.96V. Voltage recovers somewhat if I let the battery sit overnight, but doesn't come back to where it was.
I know the new batteries use a different chemistry (lithium-ion) vs. the older batters (zinc-chloride), that the older batteries were purpose built for the cameras, and that powering motors via batteries presents a lot of unique challenges. All that said I am not that kind of engineer. I've read that the motors may be pushing these batteries past their amperage limits, and that this may account for the voltage drop. I've also read that older motors may put more electrical strain on a system due to things like bearings and insulation wearing out, or dirt/dust accumulation in bearingless systems.
I've also noticed some strange electrical behavior around the self timer feature. My understanding is the timer is meant to count down, take a photo, and then not eject until you flip a switch back. The behavior I've noticed in one off tests is that time counts down, the camera pauses, and then takes a picture with a full eject cycle. I haven't tested this extensively yet. I have an untested theory that this is related to where the Camera's voltage is sitting.
It's also worth noting that a lot of the folk advice on getting your Spectra to work includes tearing off the film gate from the cartridges (normally opened when the dark slide pops out), as well as the black felt that help keeps light out once this gate is opened. The implicit reason for this is the motor doesn't have the juice to push this open itself, or push film through the felt.
Next Steps
Next steps for me are this
This is a 3d printed adapter that slides into the film bay and allows you to use either Polaroid 600 or Polaroid I-Type film. It's my understanding that for 600 film you need to add conductive copper tape (with conductive adhesive) to the front and back rectangles, as well as shimmy a piece I through the holes. This allows the batteries in the 600 pack to form a circuit with the camera.
To get this working with I-Type film you need the aforementioned tape on the back of the adapter, battery springs added to the right side container, and then you solder wires to the springs and run them to the tape. You need two special AAA batters with a 3.2V rating.
I'll be starting with the 600 film/copper-tape approach which should allow me to more easily experiment with 600 film cartridges, solving the "pictures stick together problem" and reducing the variables in what might be causing spread issues. I'll still be at the mercy of voltage issues, although working from a fresh battery (vs. from an already used 600 cartridge battery) will probably be useful.
Other Information
There's a recent post (July '26) over on the Reddit Polaroid forum that loosely gathers up a bunch of different techniques, mods, and grievances. It has information on quick hacks like bending the prongs into position, more professional manufactured adapters, external battery packs, and DIY masking tape hacks to get the rollers working.