Gear Review: Polaroid Now Gen 2 Camera

I recently celebrated the 22nd anniversary of my 18th birthday and was fortunate to receive the gift of a Polaroid Now Gen 2 Camera.

This is something that I had asked for and have always wanted ever since I saw one being used at a birthday party at a local ten pin bowling alley when I was a child aged about 10 years ago (Superbowl 2000 Burton On Trent, if you must know - it’s a pile of rubble now!) and ever since I started a bit of a foray into film photography about 18 months ago, is something that had come back up on my radar. 

These cameras retail on Amazon for around £119.99, if you get the “Everything Box”. They are frequently on offer and so you might be lucky enough to get hold of one for less than £100. Inside the box you get the camera, an instruction leaflet, a wrist strap to attach the camera and two packets of film, each containing 6 exposures. There’s also a USB C charging cable, but if you’re charing off the mains and not a computer, you will need to invest in or hijack in a wall plug, as one doesn’t come supplied in the box.

First impressions of this camera is that it is great fun and delivers a huge hit of nostalgia! 

Straight out of the box, it feels like a pretty solid piece of kit for the price. It’s fairly lightweight, though I am not sure if it will always be in my bag when I am out of a shoot because despite its low weight, it’s a fairly hefty sized piece of kit and takes up quite bit a of space. It feels good in the hand.

The battery in the camera is a lithium-ion battery which is rechargeable via USB. It arrives completely flat and charged to full in about 90 minutes. 

The controls are fairly basic and easy enough to master. There is a shutter button on the front of the unit, a self timer function and it comes equipped with a built in flash. 

Given that the aperture on the lens is F/11, the manufacturers have decided to have the default setting for the flash to ‘on’ which is going to be essential unless you are shooting in bright light. If you’re shooting inside then you’re definitely going to need it. If you want to turn the flash off, then this is the simple press of a button on the rear of the camera. 

The camera comes supplied with 2 packs of film, giving you a total of 16 shots. This particular camera is compatible with both polaroids i-type and 600 film. Neither of these are particularly cheap to buy (if you’re already shooting film you’ll know that this is just par for course) so keep your eyes peeled for offers on this as well if you decide to take the plunge.

Loading the film is simple, you unpackage the stack from the silver foil wrapper, open the front of the camera, load the film with the light-proof cover face-up and close the front of the camera. Once you’ve done this, the camera will eject the light proof sheet from the slot at the front and you’re good to go.  

The process of taking a photograph with this camera is about as straightforward as you could want it to be. It’s essentially a point and shoot, that once you have pointed and shot, the photograph spits out the front of the camera.  

Once this process has happened, it takes some time for the film to develop fully. The instructions recommend that you place the photograph face down, preferably somewhere dark whilst it develops and specifically tell you not to shake it!

Given that a lot of people will want to use this to take selfies, the addition of a small mirror on the front of the camera like you used to get on mobile phones in the old days would be great!

The resulting images certainly have a certain ‘feel to them’. The colours are undersaturated and in spite of the f/11 aperture, they are not corner to corner sharp (what do you expect from a camera at this price point which comes supplied with almost £20 worth of film); the centre of the image is acceptably sharp. I took the first shot on this camera indoors and the flash fired and the image certainly has that feel of “the flash went off on this one” - there’s definitely no easy way to modify or diffuse the flash!

These aren’t portfolio images per se, but this camera is certainly great fun and will be great for taking snapshots - just do it carefully, they’re not cheap at around £2.12 a shot if you go for the 600 film and around £1.70 if you opt for the i-type film (both colour); this isn’t a cheap enough habit to be firing off images left, right and centre and you could end up with a pretty sizeable hole in your bank account.

I think that this is something that I will use for fun little photos to capture personal moments and achievements - moments with family and maybe a selfie at the top of each Wainwright I climb! This might be a fun project with a nice collection of images at the end of it. 

Who’s it for? I feel like this is a camera for everyone, photographer or not, as long as they are prepared to spend a small fortune on a good supply of film for it. The photos are sharp enough for the kinds of thing that you will be using this camera for and above all, the whole process is great fun!

Would I recommend it? Absolutely. As long as you’re prepared to have a lot of fun with it and spend a lot of money replenishing the film!