Polaroid Polapan 664

Polapan 664 was the workhorse of studio proofing in the eighties and nineties. Every Hasselblad with a Polaplus back, every 4x5 with a Polaroid 545 holder, every commercial photographer checking lighting before a shoot loaded 664 first and rolled film second. The pack gives you ten 3.25 by 4.25 inch peel-apart prints at ISO 100, thirty-second development at room temperature, and no coater required.

Coaterless prints were what set 664 apart from Type 665, where the recovered negative needed a sodium sulfite clearing step and the print itself benefited from a stabilizing coat. Type 667 had already gone coaterless years earlier, but it sat at ISO 3000 for low light rather than the studio proofing speed 664 served. Skip the coater step and the image faded within months. 664 finished itself in the chemistry pod during processing and stayed stable afterward, which is why surviving 664 prints from the nineties still look good. It traded the dual positive/negative capability of Type 55 for simplicity. There was no usable negative to peel off, just the print.

The tonality is medium contrast with a wide tonal range. Compared to a properly developed sheet of HP5+ at the same speed, the highlights compress earlier and the shadows lift later, which is what you would expect from an instant material engineered to render usable density in half a minute. As a proof for confirming lighting ratios and exposure, it was excellent. As a final print it carried the soft, almost ceramic look that defined commercial Polaroid in the period.

Polaroid discontinued 664 when the film division shuttered in 2008. Fuji's FP-100B in the same 3.25 by 4.25 pack format covered some of the same ground for a couple more years until Fujifilm discontinued it around 2010 and then it ended too. Expired stock turns up regularly, and 664 keeps better than the color packs because no dye couplers are aging. Cold-stored packs from the mid-2000s still produce acceptable prints today.

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. Polaroid notes recommend exposures of 1/10 second or faster for best results, which keeps you clear of reciprocity territory in any case.