Impossible PX 600

PX-600 was the first instant film for Polaroid 600 cameras after the original Polaroid factory shut down. The Impossible Project, founded by Florian Kaps and Andre Bosman in 2008, bought the equipment from the closed Polaroid plant in Enschede and spent two years trying to recreate a chemistry the company had never fully documented. The original engineers had taken their formulas with them. PX-600 launched in April 2010 as a rough first generation, and rough was load-bearing in how it was received.

The problems were notable. Development time stretched to eight or ten minutes instead of the under-a-minute development original 600 chemistry had managed. The early opacification compound was incomplete, so the film had to be shielded from light immediately after ejection or it would fog. Image stability was uneven for the first year. Color rendering trended green-brown rather than the punchy saturation Polaroid set in the 1980s.

What the film did was keep the format alive when it was about to vanish. Without Impossible's salvage, the SX-70 and 600 cameras in millions of attics would have become decorative objects with no consumable. Each generation after PX-600 fixed something. PX 600 Silver Shade UV+ in late 2010 reduced opacification. By 2017, when Impossible rebranded to Polaroid Originals and then to simply Polaroid in 2020, the film had become approximately what 600 users remembered.

If you find sealed PX-600 packs today, treat them as historical artifacts more than working film. Even cold-stored, the early chemistry degrades. Shield each frame from light during the full development. Expect color shifts, partial pod failures, and the soft brown image that defined those early years.

Available only in Polaroid 600 pack format. Discontinued and replaced.

Reciprocity exponent is 1.0. Zone Light Meter applies the calculation past one second, but at 1.0 there is no correction: metered time is the shot time. The 600 cameras have limited shutter ranges anyway.