Polaroid · ISO 640 Color negative
Polaroid i-Type Color
The i-Type format is mechanically identical to 600 film except the pack does not contain a battery. The battery lives in the camera instead, in the Polaroid Now and OneStep+ bodies. This is a sensible engineering decision that cuts cost from the film pack and extends the per-pack battery life estimate. If you try to use i-Type film in an older 600-series camera, it will not work; those cameras draw power from the film pack.
The color emulsion is a newer formulation than the 600 color film. Polaroid has described the chemistry as improved since the first Impossible Project years, and objectively the current i-Type color stock is more consistent than early Impossible SX-70 or 600 film was. Colors are saturated, running warm overall. Blues and greens come through reasonably true outdoors. The color rendering in tungsten light without flash goes orange-heavy, same as any unfiltered ISO 640 color emulsion would.
The market for this film is large. The Polaroid Now is one of the best-selling camera lines in specialty retail in the US and Europe, and i-Type Color is what most people who buy one will use. That volume has given Polaroid enough manufacturing scale to keep the formulation stable and the price slightly lower than 600 film.
Reciprocity exponent is 1.0. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second. Like the 600-series bodies, the Now and OneStep+ cameras handle exposure automatically, and the auto-exposure system is calibrated for the ISO 640 rating. For most shooting situations you are trusting the camera's metering entirely. Development reaches full density in about 15 minutes; shield the print during the first minute after ejection.
How the app handles this stock
- Box speed: ISO 640. Picker exposes pull/push chips so you can shoot it at any speed you want and the meter follows.
- Reciprocity: No reciprocity correction needed; metered time is the shot time.
- Expired film: if you load an old roll, set the expiry year and storage in the app and the ISO scales for you. Color negative decay rates are baked in.