Polaroid Type 79

Type 79 was Polaroid's Polacolor Pro 100 emulsion in 4x5 inch peel-apart sheet form, an ISO 100 daylight-balanced instant color film for view-camera work. The Pro 100 line was Polaroid's professional color stock from the mid-1990s onward, designed to give large-format shooters a calibrated instant proof that read closely to the final E-6 transparency or color negative about to be committed. Type 79 was the sheet sibling of Type 579, the ISO 100 Polacolor Pro pack film, repackaged into 4x5 sleeves for the Polaroid 545 sheet film holder.

The practical workflow was straightforward. Set up the lighting, focus the view camera, expose a Type 79 sheet, pull and peel. If the proof came back right, swap to Kodak Ektachrome or Fuji Velvia and shoot the final. Studio shooters in cosmetics, food, watch advertising, and product catalog work used Type 79 by the box. It was a calibration tool more than a delivery medium. Color fidelity was specifically tuned to match what the final E-6 film would do.

The character is honest color with restrained saturation, closer to Portra than to Velvia in how it handles skin and fabric. Highlights compress before clipping and shadows hold useful detail across roughly five stops, broad for an instant film. Compared with Type 59, the older Polacolor 4x5 sheet, Type 79 ran half a stop more accurate in skin reproduction and held cleaner neutrals.

Polaroid discontinued the entire 4x5 instant sheet line in 2008 when the film division shut down. There has been no replacement. Type 79 only exists now as expired stock at a per-sheet price that reflects scarcity rather than utility. Storage matters: cold and dark slows the decay, warm and humid kills it inside a year.

Reciprocity exponent is 1.0. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second; on Type 79 the correction is zero. A 4-second metered exposure at f/22 in studio modeling-light fall-off is 4 seconds at the print. View-camera work and instant film were a pairing the calculator did not have to think about.