Tan SX70 Alpha 1
So…after realising that my black and silver SX70 Sonar was not going to be an easy repair job, I decided to bite the pillow and buy a replacement. I probably umm’ed and ahhh’d for a good two months. Firstly you have to wade through the many SX70 lots on eBay that are listed as “not sure if it works but it used to in 1978 when my Grandad used it last”…which seemed to be most of them. There were also a few lots which were re-listed with suspicious regularity; this suggested to me that a buyer received it only to discover it no longer worked and sent it back. I almost bought one from PolaPremium, but refuse to pay the inflated prices. In the end I bought a very pretty tan leather SX70 Alpha 1 (manual focus), deciding that a sonar autofocus model would add to the list of things that might go wrong with it.
Two design icons
It came with a very nice leather carrying case, the strap of which broke the moment I put it on. Luckily the camera wasn’t damaged in the drop. I tested it with the remaining film salvaged from the old Sonar:
Found Toy
Incidentally, I finally got around to scanning the last Polaroids that I managed to take with the old SX70. Briefly in August it started working again for a few hours, long enough to take some photos at Steve’s birthday party. When it came to taking my self portrait, the SX70 died for a second and last time…I’m trying not to take it personally:
August Picnic
Goodbye SX70 Sonar…I will miss you
RIP
Tags: polaroid
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Hello,
I came across your blog and as it happens that I have a SX-70 Land Camera Alpha and was told there is no way to get Polaroid films for it.
Now I read your Blog and wanted to ask you if you can help me and tell me about the films you use and where you purchase them.many Many Thanks
Viola -
Hi Viola – SX70 cameras were designed to use Time Zero/SX70 films, and these are no longer made. You can however use type 600 film which was made for the later 600 series cameras. You will need to modify your film pack to fit in your SX70 though – there are some little plastic bumps on the bottom of the pack which stop you loading the pack. You can either use a thin piece of card (e.g. a playing card) as a sort of shoe-horn (cover the bumps as you slide the pack in, then pull it out once it starts going in), or you can use a sharp knife to cut the bumps off. I use the playing card method.
The second thing to be aware of is that the new type 600 films are a lot more sensitive to light (faster) than the original film packs, so if you take a shot it will be overexposed. You can adjust for this by covering the lens with a neutral density filter (buy one here)I buy my polaroid films from http://www.polapremium.com – you’ll want type 600 film (though type 779 and Artistic TZ will fit in the SX70 too). You may also be lucky enough to find some expired “Time Zero” film on eBay, but be aware that the chemical pod in the film pack dries out over time, so you can’t guarantee that it will still work
Good luck!
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