Polaroid Type 107

Type 107 was one of the two original films Polaroid released with the Automatic 100 Land Camera in 1963, alongside the slower Type 108 color pack. It ran at ISO 3000 in panchromatic black and white, 30-second development at room temperature, print area of roughly 2.875 by 3.75 inches inside the standard 3.25 by 4.25 inch 100-series frame. The Automatic 100 introduced pack film in place of the older roll-film Land cameras, and Type 107 was what most pros loaded first when learning the system.

Character was contrastier than Type 52 or Type 55 sheet films, with a slight sepia-warm cast in the midtones that some users liked and others filtered out. Grain is structural and visible at any enlargement. Shadows block fast at ISO 3000, the cost of speed at this generation of silver chemistry. By the late 1970s Polaroid replaced Type 107 with Type 107C and eventually Type 667, the coaterless equivalent that did not need the protective swab applied to every print after peeling.

Andy Warhol shot heavily on Polaroid Big Shot and SX-70 cameras through the 1970s, but the studio assistants who handled production B&W proofs for his silkscreen work used Type 107 and its descendants through the entire run. The film was a working tool. Stills crews on movie sets used it to log continuity, and location photographers used it to verify exposure before committing a Hasselblad or 4x5 capture.

Polaroid kept Type 107 in production roughly 1963 through 2000, with Type 107C and Type 667 running alongside it from 1978 onward; Type 667 outlasted both until the broader pack-film discontinuation rolled out across the 2000s. Fujifilm carried the high-speed peel-apart torch with FP-3000B until production ended in late 2013. Today no manufacturer produces ISO 3000 pack film of any kind.

Reciprocity exponent is 1.0. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second; on Type 107 that correction is zero. The metered second is the shot second. At ISO 3000 you rarely sit on the tripod long enough for it to matter, which is part of why the film was loved for handheld interior and press work.