43 out of 43 people found this review helpful.
Polaroid One Step: Nope, I can't take your picture. The Camera's Broken
Date of Review: Dec 25, 2000
The Bottom Line: Camera lasts almost as long as the film that comes with it. Not worth the money
I remember my mother's first polaroid land camera in the 60's. What fun! Take a picture and minutes later, you had a greyish-greenish, but basically color version of the event that just passed. Never mind that eventually these pictures faded and you couldn't make copies. This was terrific fun.
I have a friend in Israel who brought her Polaroid one Step. I had a couple of these cameras in the past, and they were always great fun. The only problem was that at some point...for no discernable reason...they stopped working. I didn't abuse them, drop them, stick them in the laundry or microwave them. Just one day, I would stick the film in and it wouldn't come out. It just stopped working. But Amanda was having better luck with her camera...or so it seemed.
Yesterday, Amanda's camera broke. The film jammed. She couldn't open the front to get the film out. She took it to a camera shop. The owner basically said that this is the eventual end of many One Steps. He could fix it, but it would cost more to fix than to replace. Amanda walked out with an inexpensive 35 mm camera.
The other problem with polaroids is the cost of the film. At $8 a "roll" (stateside, more here in Israel) when it was on sale, this film is not cheap. It costs almost as much as regular photos by the time they're developed. The difference being that one can make copies of regular film photos and can have different sizes if one turns out that you want developed.
Polaroid film also is environmentally unfriendly. It comes with batteries in the pack (a great plus since your camera never runs out of charge) which is hard on the environment when you toss the pack. I used to have a radio that ran on old polaroid film packs, but since it would last 2 or 3 weeks on a single pack, how many film cartridges did I need? And eventually they still got tossed.
Finally, this camera is huge and clunky. If space is a consideration when packing to travel, this is not a good choice. The film takes up more room than a roll does, and there are more pictures on a roll of 35 mm film. There are only 10 in each polaroid cartridge.
The pictures are not as clear as the pictures taken with a 35 mm, either. They are smaller. They are thicker and heavier. They always have that white frame. They don't fit well into photo albums. At about $1 a picture, they far exceed the price of regular film even with developing.
Better than the highly breakable polaroid one-step, I recommend a digital camera. You can have the instant gratification of a polaroid, no film developing charges, you can give everyone copies of the photos and you can print your photos on photo quality paper if one turns out especially nice.
Amanda and I both agree. Polaroid One-Step is a lousy machine. Neither of us will buy another.
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If you are interested in more of my reviews about cameras, here is what I've written so far and where you can find them:
Pentax 67 II (Camera)
http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-3C14-1409BB85-3A0C753E-prod2 Polaroid One Step (Instant Camera)
http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-4953-439761B4-3A47163E-prod3 Kodak DC-25 (Digital Camera)
http://www.epinions.com/elec_Cameras-Digital_KodakDCC-Kodak_DC-25 Olympus C-3030
http://www.epinions.com/content_89597644420 Olympus D-460
http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-19D1-F37D446-398E65D5-prod1
