Polaroid · ISO 3000 B&W negative
Polaroid Type 47
Type 47 is the roll film that built Polaroid's reputation for speed. Released in 1955 at ISO 3000 panchromatic black and white in the 3.25 by 4.25 inch Series 40 format, it gave press photographers a working speed no other available stock could touch in the same form factor. Photojournalists carrying a Pathfinder 110A or 110B could shoot interiors, news conferences, and arena lighting with handheld exposures that competing materials needed flash or a tripod to match. The film made Polaroid a fixture in the press pool through the 1960s.
Development ran 15 seconds at room temperature, fast even by Polaroid standards and an enormous advantage on a deadline. The print came out with the characteristic high contrast of ISO 3000 silver chemistry: shadows that blocked fast, midtones with real punch, highlights that compressed without clipping. Every box shipped with the protective coater wand and pink fluid; skip the step after peeling and the image yellowed within months.
The grain was the cost of the speed. Structured, salt-and-pepper, visible at any reasonable enlargement, but readable up to roughly 5x7 prints. Compared with the contemporary Type 42 at ISO 200 in the same format, Type 47 traded clean tonality for the speed that made it useful in scenes Type 42 could not cover. Against Tri-X push-processed to 1600, the grain ran similar and the contrast harsher.
Polaroid kept Type 47 in production through 1992, the same year the entire Series 40 roll film line ended. The format had been declining for decades against the 100-series pack and the SX-70 integral system, but the cameras that took roll film stayed in use among photographers who saw no reason to switch. Today the rolls turn up in estate sales at prices that reflect scarcity rather than utility.
Reciprocity exponent is 1.0. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second; on Type 47 the correction is zero. At ISO 3000 a normal indoor scene almost never crossed the threshold anyway, which was the entire point of carrying the film in the first place.
How the app handles this stock
- Box speed: ISO 3000. 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. B&W negative decay rates are baked in.