Instantly sharing a photo from one iPhone to another used to feel like magic.
Polaroid Originals wants to make the now unconscious daily routine a wondrous experience again. A new printer by the analog photography company uses the light from your iPhone screen to project an image onto Polaroid instant film.
Compact printers for analog copies of your smartphone photos have been around for a few years and the Polaroid Lab, which goes on sale in October, appears to be a refined version of a product the company launched in 2013 when it was known by the name, Impossible Project.
Impossible Project, along with Fuji, made analog instant photography relevant again and when it purchased the once iconic Polaroid, it set out to stoke its popularity.
Watching the image appear before your eyes is not the only selling point. Polaroid Originals is also trying to get us to preserve the greatest hits of our camera roll before the images are lost before they are backed up.
Don’t take pictures. Make pictures.
The Polaroid Lab, its design inspired by the old Polaroid One-Step, hopes to raise the bar on mobile-to-instant-film printers.
The Lab works in tandem with the Polaroid Originals app, which lets users download select images and edit and style them before printing.
Built into the base are three lenses and several mirrors to project and focus the on-screen image. The red button activates the transfer and spits out a print that you and your friends can watch develop.
The Polaroid Lab will cost $129.99 and Polaroid Originals’ website will take your email to notify you when the Lab is available to order.
Sharing the photo may not happen at the speed we are used to with social media, but holding a tangible print never gets old.
Source: DPReview