AshigrainColour reversal · Experimental
Polaroid Type 669
Peel-apart instant colour from a ten-shot pack.
Soft peel-apart instant colour. Original vs Ashigrain.
At a glance
- Exposure index
- 80
- Daylight
- Introduced
- 1981
- Discontinued
- Process
- instant peel-apart, 60 s at 70 F (21 C)
- Prints on
- Reversal, viewed directly
About the film
Polaroid Type 669, sold as Polacolor ER, was a peel-apart colour pack film: after 60 seconds' development at 21 °C the print was peeled from its negative.
Polaroid balanced it for daylight and electronic flash at ISO 80 and described it as a medium-contrast print film with extended dynamic range. It came in packs of ten prints of 3¼ × 4¼ inches, glossy or silk, and shared its technical data with Polaroid's other Polacolor peel-apart films, from Type 108 packs to 8 × 10 inch Type 809 sheets. Polaroid aimed it at professional test shots and proofing as well as passport and document photography, through pack backs that medium-format makers such as Hasselblad and Mamiya supplied. Polaroid itself listed image transfer and emulsion transfer among the film's key applications. Its sheet gives a resolving power of just 9 lines per millimetre, so the image is soft. Polaroid's 2008 product schedule gave the last T669 packs for the second half of that year, with expiry dates in March 2009. Polaroid stopped making its instant films soon afterwards, citing market conditions.
Sources for this history
- Film Data Sheet T-669 Pack Film, Polaroid Corporation
- Last call for Polaroid instant film, better move fast, TechCrunch
- Polaroid instant film terminated, PhotoReview
- Polaroid Access Fifty Years, Access Press / Polaroid Corporation
The look
A peel-apart instant colour print, viewed like a photograph rather than projected, with medium contrast and extended range. Its image is soft, with a resolving power of just 9 lines per millimetre.
A soft instant print, seen by reflected light.
Instant colour with low resolution.
Best for
- Snapshot-style portraits
- Close-up still lifes
- Studio test-shot looks
Among the films
Science & sources
A peel-apart instant colour print, viewed by reflected light under D50. Its dye shapes are borrowed from Fujifilm FP-100C and its sharpness is built from the printed resolving power, because the sheet publishes neither.
Response curves and the evidence behind the model
Compare manufacturer data with the Ashigrain model on the same axes. This shows the calibration to source curves; comparison with photographed film is a separate question.
Characteristic response
RMS granularity
Density variation (σD). Where the datasheet gives a single grain value, the response away from that point is an approximation.
| Channel | Density | Datasheet-based σD | Model σD |
|---|---|---|---|
| R | 0.3 | 0.010942 | 0.011382 |
| G | 0.3 | 0.006396 | 0.006668 |
| B | 0.3 | 0.016021 | 0.016612 |
| R | 0.6 | 0.018876 | 0.019636 |
| G | 0.6 | 0.012473 | 0.013002 |
| B | 0.6 | 0.028125 | 0.029163 |
| R | 1 | 0.029592 | 0.030783 |
| G | 1 | 0.022614 | 0.023573 |
| B | 1 | 0.059021 | 0.061198 |
| R | 1.5 | 0.02849 | 0.029637 |
| G | 1.5 | 0.031424 | 0.032757 |
| G | 2 | 0.033538 | 0.034961 |
Model limits
These images show the film model in use. Spectral response, lighting and viewing conditions include approximations, while halation, bloom, grain size, weave and flicker are not fully measured for each film. A real film capture also depends on development and print timing.
- This is an instant print viewed by reflected light. The model views it under D50; the viewing light, viewing geometry, paper scattering and surface glare are not measured and are approximated.
- The sheet prints no dye curves. The dye shapes are proxied from Fujifilm FP-100C's reflection dyes, a proxy rather than this film's dyes.
- No MTF is printed. The MTF is built from the printed resolving power, 9 lines/mm, as a curve falling to 10 % there; the 10 % level is an assumption.
- Densities are relative to the unprocessed print; paper white is taken as density 1.0 by approximation.
- No granularity is printed. Grain is proxied from Kodak Ektachrome 100D (5294), so the granularity values shown are that film's.
- Under custom lights the fast rendering path follows the full spectral calculation less closely for this film than for most others.
- Custom lighting spectra, camera metering and the spectral reflectance inferred from fixed-white-balance footage are modeled assumptions, not measurements of this film.
- Individual dye amounts, layer interactions and push/pull behaviour are approximated where the datasheet provides no calibration. Grain size is assumed; published RMS granularity does not specify dye-cloud size.
- Push and pull have no published curves for this film and use a generic model.
- Characteristic response outside the published exposure range is an extrapolation, not measured film data.
Film guide: assumptions and practical choices
Sources
- Exposure index: Polaroid T-669 Film Data Sheet (T-88, T-108, T-669/T-669S, T-559/T-559S, T-59, T-809 Instant Color Peel-Apart Films), undated Polaroid data sheet; PDF created 1999-06-24, modified 2003-07-15 (PageMaker 6.52 / Distiller 4.0), p. 1
- Process: Polaroid T-669 Film Data Sheet (T-88, T-108, T-669/T-669S, T-559/T-559S, T-59, T-809 Instant Color Peel-Apart Films), undated Polaroid data sheet; PDF created 1999-06-24, modified 2003-07-15 (PageMaker 6.52 / Distiller 4.0), p. 1
- Characteristic curves: Polaroid T-669 Film Data Sheet (T-88, T-108, T-669/T-669S, T-559/T-559S, T-59, T-809 Instant Color Peel-Apart Films), undated Polaroid data sheet; PDF created 1999-06-24, modified 2003-07-15 (PageMaker 6.52 / Distiller 4.0), p. 2