Polaroid: Film & Company
The Film
Do not much like Polaroid film. To be fair, I am using a Holgaroid back to a Holga. Peeves: loading the film is tricky, though worse is extracting the film for exposure, as the paper pull tabs risk breaking, leaving the film stranded, and the ninth exposure usually pulls the tenth out along with it. Another problem: odd streaks down the film, which appear to line up with the pull tab paper: somehow this is getting compressed against the film through the rollers?
Film quality excellent, with a deep glossy black, though getting the exposure right was very tricky, as the Holgaroid metered nothing like my DSLR measured. A incident light meter should give better readings, but I do not own one.
Digital or regular film photography, combined with post processing and glossy printing, while slower, should produce similar effects. I could see using Polaroid to take test shots for medium or large format needs. However! Given that Polaroid is going the way of the Dodo, best to avoid the resulting high film prices until and if an instant film market emerges following 2009.
The Company
“Dire financial straits notwithstanding, Polaroid paid senior executives and directors a total of $6.3 million in bonuses, consulting fees, and lump-sum pension payouts in the months before the [bankruptcy] filing. Payments included $1.7 million in incentive comp to former CEO DiCamillo, while former CFO Judy Boynton got $300,000 in severance, a $510,000 stock award, and a $638,000 lump-sum pension payout. (Boynton, now the CFO of Royal Dutch/Shell Group, is listed as an unsecured creditor, for an additional severance of $600,000 she is still owed.)”
“Polaroid retirees had feared the results of a sale to OEP, and that fear was justified. After June 28, the company's cash balance plan was terminated and handed over to the federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp., meaning many retirees had their pension payments slashed. Employees on long-term disability received letters informing them that they would not be hired by the new company and that their benefits were being terminated. Indeed, the Massachusetts attorney general's office had difficulty convincing OEP, as owner of the new Polaroid, to sponsor the retirees' supplemental Medicare plan, even though that sponsorship costs nothing except time spent keeping the books.”
— What’s Wrong with This Picture?