Huzzah!!

..Thanks?

Oh God, this is wonderful if true! I've had a Polaroid camera I've loved for years. They're a lot of fun at parties, and can't be beat for elderly relatives who can't deal with digital cameras or having film developed. From a visual standpoint, Polaroid film also registers colors in a really interesting way. Danke, mysterious Austrian man!

Maybe somebody should remind the Austrian Artist about the problem of selling Buggy Whips after the introduction of the Model-T.

Remember it is easy to continue a slow selling product line, the problem is the low sales rate and high costs of the product due to those low sales rates.

Everything old new again.

@GinaLouise: er, i've always thought that the colors look dull, overly brown, and/or washed out.

"The project is more than a business plan; it's a fight against the idea that everything has to die when it doesn't create turnover," said Mr Kaps.

erm, i don't think this guy fully understands microeconomics
if not enough people are buying the product to justify running the factory daily, then you can only run your factory a few days a week (or a few days a month)
you will then have a hard time staffing it, since people like to get paid for daily work, not sporadic monthly work... although i wish him luck

Obviously isn't an of the Austrian School of Economics.

@Gstein: Not if you're doing it right. :) And in regards to the Polaroid being beyond rescue: 25 years ago, people thought CD would quickly render the LP extinct, but I can still find plenty of new stuff on vinyl. There's a market for a strong niche product.

We used polaroids in physics lab to take pictures of oscilloscope readouts. I'm not old, we just had archaic equipment in our labs!

Many photographers and other artists use Polaroids. Think of it like black and white film, it is just another medium.

@shorty63136:

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

My plan to survive the recession was to put all of my money into buying 12,000 cases of polaroid film that I was planning to gouge people for on ebay! What will I do now? Oh the humanity! The humanity!

"Indie" teenagers across the country rejoice!

@Plates: Except that kind of Polaroid film they use isn't the kind that goes in the average Polaroid point and shoot camera.

I really hope they start making Type 55 again and 79! Mmmmm Polaroid transfers...

@illtron: Not Necessarily:
[en.wikipedia.org] Or Google "polaroid film transfer" for more examples.

Polaroid transfers are beautiful and awesome no matter what size they are.

@MooseOfReason: Sounds like Ludwig von Misery

/got nothing but nerdy jokes

On a recent St. Patrick's Day I was working at the local Irish pub and had brought my Polaroid Mio with me. (I still had some Mio film but luckily Fuji makes a compatible pack). I took a picture of some guy with a goofy hat and handed it to him. He showed all his friends and then they all wanted more pictures. With a digital camera the photo would have been taken possibly shown to the subject and one or two other people and then some day the memory card might have been offloaded to a computer and that picture probably would have ended up deleted like a fisherman in a Walgreen's commercial.

Say what you will but there is still something of Edwin Land's daughter in all of us; we want to see the picture right away and the physical object is better than a fleeting image on a screen.

Is he also gonna make commercials with James Garner and Mariette Hartley? Sorry my age is showing.

Somebody bring back Advanced Photo Systems (APS). I still have an APS camera served me very well over the years before I got a digital. It was just neat being able to take panoramics on the fly.

...And people say there's no good news left in the world!

Seriously I love my Polaroid. It's a hit at parties ("I'll send you the picture" doesn't have the same immediacy of handing it to the subject right after it's been ejected from the camera) and it's the world's best way after that awful Hannah Montana to entertain my husband's 10 year-old niece. (I have no idea what to do with kids.)

Does this guy know that Fuji picked up the void already?

[news.cnet.com]

@JayScooper: Fuji has their own line of cameras and film some of which are more-or-less compatible with Polaroid hardware. They do not have anything compatible with SX70 and 600 which is what the featured article discusses.

Perhaps the story of Chrysler gave him hope.

@Corporate-Shill:

and this "profit" over "quality of life" attitude is exactly what put most of the world in the toilet it is now.

and why must everything be made cheap??

i'd rather have a few great things than alot of crap.

great to see history preserved!

I just found my old polaroid. Anyone want to buy it? ;)

@changed my name:

"That's why he was acquitted." :D

Too bad I would have been happy to see that company flushed. My beef wasn't with the photo side it was with the LCD TV that broke after 9 months then took 6 more months to get fixed. Letters emails phone calls nothing helped. Complete incompetence at every level. If I had known of Consumerist at the time they'd have gotten an e-mail.

Even under new management I wouldn't buy another product from them- TV camera film nothing.

@larrymac808: You've seen the guys that go from bar to bar selling roses to poor suckers trying to impress their dates? There's a guy in my city that goes from bar to bar offering to take Polaroids of couples or groups. In the age of camera phones it's surprising how many people still do buy photos from him!

Yay more nude pictures!

@Corporate-Shill: I think he is onto something here... Just read the headline....'for months'... Right everyone who has a polaroid quick order a crap load of extra film because we all know he will be out of business in no time... Kodak wouldn't have closed down if there was profit to be made.... right... a few people order whacks of film over the knowlege that they have this last chance perhaps ever to get the stuff... he profits quick clean and ...(insert standard mosh running pose here) out the door to the bank.

@kimshot: An industry saved.

@Teresa Wiltshire: Exactly. That's the way to do. All you need to do is stash the pictures somewhere.

@lowercase: Read the article. It's not the Polaroid company under new management. It's a completely new company who's only stated intent is to replicate Polaroid film for the old cameras. It's completely misguided to hold them responsible for stuff the Polaroid company did to you.

@NodalPoint: Unfortunately, the only one they're looking to start back are the integral type ones like SX-70 and 600. I have not heard that Spectra or Captiva were on the list.

If you want the peel-apart kind, Fuji still makes some that is equivalent to 667 and 669, but I'm not sure whether it works for transfers. I used to have the peel-apart type Polaroid and I really loved 667. It was way better than color Polaroid.

@startertan: You can still easily buy APS film.

@SagarikaLumos: I know. But with the digital and the stitch functionality who needs APS? :-P

Umm, thank you Australian businessman?

@SagarikaLumos: 110c (fuji 669) works ok for transfers, but it's more difficult to separate.

fp 3000b (high iso black.white) is amazing, however. I'm in love with it.

@Christopher Ungeheier: what model?

@Corporate-Shill:

Someone's still selling buggy whips.

[www.google.com]

And they're probably making a little money at it, too.

@suzieq: I love Polaroid transfers. As far as I am concerned they are the #1 reason for keeping Polaroid film around.

@lowercase: You were actually barking up the wrong tree. The new owners of the original Polaroid corporation quickly realized that they could make more money licensing the Polaroid name to other manufacturers seeking to put a widely recognized brand on their products. So while you think your LCD TV is actually a "Polaroid" made product, it's probably made and marketed by some no-name factory and distribution company whose only connection to Polaroid is a piece of paper giving them permission to put Polaroid's name on the box. "Bell and Howell", the famed movie camera company from the past, has done the same thing for consumer products totally unrelated to making or showing home movies.

At one point about two years ago the new Polaroid owners proudly stated in an interview on local TV that they made more money licensing the Polaroid name to others than from film sales.

It's sad... I work in Waltham MA a stone's throw from the former Polaroid main office and manufacturing complex there and it's now a shell of a building in the process of being demolished, to make way for some kind of mixed use office and retail complex that probably won't get built anytime soon.

Shortly after I bought the Polaroid Mio, I had an amazingly fun time with it....and then a frustratingly bad time finding film for it.
I now buy the fuji instax film for it, (but can only find it on ebay...from Japan...)
If this Austrian knows what's good for the world, he will put Mio film back on the market. Nothing matches it in terms of quality right-there-to-share photos and sweetly instant joy for everyone involved.