Polaroid

Yesterday I talked about the guestbook and I mentioned we are putting polaroids into the book, well today I will give you a second tip in the form of a mini review of the new Polaroid Z340 Instant Digital Camera

Polaroid Z340 Instant Digital Camera

The Z340 is a new Polaroid camera with a twist.
The moment I saw the news of it’s release I wanted to own one, and of course not for the great image quality, well ok it has a 14 MP sensor, and it’s ISO goes to a reasonable height and it shoots video. But you buy the Polaroid for something else. Well at least when you love the old form of the Polaroids and I do. It’s just fun to hold a camera with a build in strobe, aim it at your subject, press a shutter and hold the image in your hands in less than a minute.

And yes it won’t print A2 sized posters from the build in ZINK printer, it’s a small sized image but it’s so much fun.
The nice thing about adding digital to the camera is the fact that you can now take the image, see if it’s ok and print only if you like it, although there still is a setting that will print everything you shoot, but to be honest I would advise to not use that option. The prints itself are funky, I mostly use it in the studio with the slow flash setting (slow shutter fill in flash), playing with the white balance will never give the exact right colors, it’s always a bit off but man do I love it. the funny thing is also that if any other camera would give me images like this I would probably return it but the Polaroid Z340 somehow just hits the “right” colors, the right “feel” etc. It’s just too much fun.

The controls on the camera are pretty straight forward but also somehow clunky, which adds to the experience I think.
In the different setting of the camera are the settings that hold to that setting, so in shoot mode you will find the resolution settings, white balance, flash settings etc. In the print setting you find everything for the prints. At first use (and second and third) the menus can be a bit confusing but after a while you will get used to it, but it’s not straight forward so to say. As with most new cameras you can also select some settings for color or B&W, I love the vintage/lomo looks myself and normally I would add these later in Photoshop but with a camera like this it’s just fun to use it straight of the camera.

The prints can be done full size on the 3″-4″ paper or you can add funky borders, for me I would never use the build in borders to be honest but the Polaroid border is my favorite (is in a separate setting), do remember that you center your subject because with the Polaroid border it will cut off the sides of the image.

We use the Polaroid for our guestbook and just for fun of course because shooting with the Z340 is a LOT of fun and the added option to download the images to your computer is of course great, you can for example take it with you and give your subject a print and keep the same print yourself (something that was impossible of course in the old Polaroids). It will also be a popular camera on exhibitions like Photoshop World I think, shoot an image with your favorite instructor and let him/her sign it within a minute. By the way you can add every event to this of course.

Conclusion
Some cameras are there for quality, some cameras are there because you have them with you and they can record what you saw, and some cameras are just too much fun to not use. The Polaroid Z340 Instant Digital Camera is one of those rare cameras. The quality is ok but nothing spectacular, the high ISO and Slow Sync flash makes it possible to shoot almost everywhere with nice results, and the option to print or store in the onboard memory or on a SD card makes the Z340 a must have fun camera. I will be using it a lot for our guestbook but I also expect myself to have it with me during other occasions. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.