Polaroid Type 88

Type 88 was the square-ish cousin of Type 108. Same Polacolor chemistry, same 60-second development, same pack of eight prints. Polaroid ran it from 1971 onward to fill the 80-series cameras that sat below the Type 100 bodies pros carried. The image area is 2 3/4 by 2 7/8 inches, which reads as almost square but not quite.

In 1975 Polaroid replaced the formulation with Polacolor 2 under the same type number. The new emulsion borrowed dye couplers from SX-70 technology and was sold as having more stable colors and deeper saturation. Whether you can spot the change in real prints depends on how well stored your sample is, because both versions are decades past expiration. Most surviving packs are from the brief 2003 to 2006 reintroduction Polaroid did for the pro market before discontinuing the format for good.

At ISO 75 in a daylight-balanced color emulsion, you get a slightly soft image with the warm midrange typical of Polacolor. Skin tones lean pink-orange. Greens render closer to olive than emerald. The dynamic range is shorter than any consumer film from the era, which is the point of an instant material: it has to hit usable density in one minute on the back of the camera. Andy Warhol shot most of his Big Shot portraits on Type 108 rather than Type 88, but the square format had its own following among art photographers who liked the proportions.

The film is long gone. Fuji's FP-100C ran a similar format until 2016, and that ended too. Surviving Type 88 packs on eBay are usually twenty years past their expiration date, and you will get muddy color and partial pod failures more often than a clean print.

Reciprocity exponent is 1.0. Zone Light Meter applies the calculation past one second, but at 1.0 no correction is needed and metered time is the shot time. The cameras the film was made for had limited shutter ranges anyway, so most exposures stayed inside hundredths of a second.