Polaroid 600 B&W

Same factory, same Enschede reformulation story as the color 600, but the black-and-white version handles differently enough that it deserves separate attention. The tonal response is high contrast. Shadows go dark fast; highlights hold a little longer than you expect. It is not the smooth tonal gradation you get from Delta 100 or even Tri-X. It is punchy, graphically flat in the midtones, and honestly well suited to portraits where you want separation without worrying about subtle zone rendering.

The development window is slower than the color emulsion. Polaroid's current spec puts full density at 5 to 10 minutes, and in cool weather that stretches further. The image comes up looking muddy and underexposed for the first several minutes, which alarms first-time users into thinking they got a bad pack. Leave it alone. The silver chemistry is working.

ISO is rated at 640, same as the color version, and the 600-series cameras with their built-in flash handle most indoor situations automatically. The flash fires on virtually every indoor shot whether you want it or not on most camera bodies. If you are after the available-light look, the Pro 600 cameras and some OneStep+ variants allow flash suppression.

Reciprocity exponent is 1.0 for this emulsion. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second for completeness, though a long-exposure manual shot on a 600-series body requires bypassing the auto-exposure circuit, which most bodies do not allow without modification. This is primarily a daylight and flash stock. The high contrast and slow development make it forgiving of slight underexposure but punishing of overexposure; the highlights block up quickly and the pod chemistry cannot rescue them.