A Hands-On Look at the New Polaroid I-2

Polaroid is an iconic brand in photography and has been since the late 1940s! Now, Polaroid has a new camera released, and it has a lot of pros, but potentially one large con.

I've got to be honest, I'm pretty biased when it comes to Polaroid products. I've got a couple of old Polaroid cameras from the '70s on the shelf behind me and I've loved shooting with some of their modern offerings. Nevertheless, I don't shoot with them much. I have some pretty rare film stock for my Polaroid in the fridge that I have been saving for a special occasion; my best friend got married, my son was born, my son had his first birthday — it's still chilling.

That said, I bought my girlfriend a Fujifilm Instax to sate our desire for taking instant, physical pictures, and we've used that a lot. The Polaroid I-2 is really a premium instant camera, more in line with the price of the original Polaroid camera in 1948, which adjusted for inflation would be $1,138.41 in today's money. The I-2 is nearly half that price, at $599, but given that it is no longer cutting-edge technology, that's still a hefty price tag.

I think a lot of people are going to struggle to justify that purchase unless they are either a) wealthy, or b) really in to instant photography. What do you think?

Robert K Baggs is a professional portrait and commercial photographer, educator, and consultant from England. Robert has a First-Class degree in Philosophy and a Master's by Research. In 2015 Robert's work on plagiarism in photography was published as part of several universities' photography degree syllabuses.

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