Exactly two weeks ago I went to a flea market (or antique market, whatever) in Mendrisio looking for some camera and accessories worth buying, and I’ve found two nice and apparently working Polaroid cameras and an old photo and cine light-meter. I have bought most of my Polaroid cameras in such events as you can find them at ridiculous prices. The only thing is the risk of buying defective or completely not working cameras, so how can you be sure of what you’re taking? Sometimes it might be ok if you don’t really want to use a camera but it’s good looking for your collection, sometimes they are so cheap that you don’t really care they work or not. But there’s something you can do to find out whether a Polaroid camera is working or not:

First of all as far as I know this method kinda works for Sx-70, 600 and Spectra/Image Polaroid Cameras. By the way these are the only model for which you can find new generation film. Actually you can find Fuji film for type-100 cameras as well, but the method to check if it is working is different. The best way to know if a camera is working is to shot a picture with it and see how it looks. Yeah, that’s what one would usually do after purchasing a camera and coming back home, but we can’t go around with a film pack and take pictures to check whether they work or not, can we? Actually yes, that’s what I do, but being film so expensive and being very risky to switch film pack from one camera to another I do this with empty film packs. Why? If you are used to Polaroids you’ll know that the battery for the models mentioned above is inside any film pack. Ok, you can’t see what the picture would look like, that’s true, but it is enough to check if the flash is working, if the shutter opens (if you cover the light sensor you’ll get a long exposure so you can be really sure if it does) and most importantly if the ejecting mechanism works (you hear some funny noise and the rollers roll, you can’t see this in every model though). In the case of a folding SX-70 camera it is very useful to check if the full cycle works as a very common issue is the mirror getting stuck, thing you can see looking trough the viewfinder: before shooting you should see as supposed, while shooting the mirror should lift up so you’ll see complete dark and while ejecting the picture the mirror goes back to position and you’ll be able to see trough the lens again, just like any SLR camera. If you want you can push some already exposed film into the film pack to see if the camera manage to eject it, for some reason I don’t do it anymore though. Sometimes you’ll have to clean the rollers a bit if they’re full of dirt and stuck, or even clean the battery contacts inside the camera. Also, be sure the empty pack has enough charge, if you have used it for many shots (especially those triggering the flash) or it is simply defected (yeah, this may sadly happen on a new film pack) you’ll think all the cameras are broken, be careful! So, this method is not 100% guarantee of course, but when you can hear the mechanism work fine there is a high chance of holding a perfectly working camera!

Hope this may help you, remember that it is not a 100% guarantee test unless you do it with unexposed film. I’m working on a “Gear” page on this blog where I’ll post pictures of cameras from my collection with some details about them and maybe a little story of where/how and for how much I bought each camera, you’ll be surprised when you’ll find out how many cheap deals you can get into. For the moment, here are the two cameras I bought two weeks ago:

Polaroid Autofocus 660. This is my first autofocus box 600 camera! And it came with the original box and user manual, great! Got it for around 20$

More details on Camerapedia.

Polaroid Spirit. A regular 600. It has no flash in it but it has a flash-bar slot on top of it. I love the Polaroid rainbow, I have similar models without it, like the camera above. This should be from 1988. Got it for around 20$.