Topic: Polaroid SX70 Help required

[This-is-damion]

Hi,

Ages ago i bought an Autofocus Sx70, Looks like its in Mint cond, no scuffs, scratches, marks etc etc.  All sounds good!   Except I came to use if yesterday for first time in about a year and it doesnt work!   

It seems really difficult to try and work out what is going on as you cant get inside the bloody thing.

The film is fine as the same pack worked in my older SX70,  and a 600 film that worked fine also didnt work.

basically the camera seemingly takes the picture, the film gets spat out as normal BUT its white??  just doesnt develop.   occasionally the bottom bit (about 1cm) does start to develop but thats about it.

I would really like to get it working if possibly  -anyone have any ideas??? 

thanks

[Skorj]

Not an SX-70 expert, but this does not sound like a usual problem... Non ejection would have to rank up there as Ichiban Problem. I would maybe have to see a print (little developed one perhaps). But are the rollers bursting the pod on the film entirely perchance?

Or, it could be a mirror problem. Is it an SX-70 proper, or one of them funny guestimate ones (series-3)? Rather than waste more film, reload your discards into the cassette and try a few listening shots. There is a trick to hearing the mirror, shutter, mirror sequence. Your mirror might not be flipping all the way out of the way.

Or, your shutter might not be opening properly. Too many options. Shoot yourself in the eye and see what you can see perhaps for the shutter one? Good luck.

[Francois]

Don't forget that the SX-70 has been described as one of the most complex piece of camera until NASA put the Hubble in orbit!

Many things can go wrong with them. Don't forget that to use 600 film in them, you have to use a N.D. filter.

If the mirror slaps, film comes out, the pod is burst and the film is white once developed... the film is way overexposed.

If the film comes out and is black once developed... no exposure happened.

Could be either a bad shutter timer, sticky blades, or it needs a ND filter for your 600ISO film

Hope it helps...
But, my own advice: if an SX-70 is broken, don't even try to fix it yourself!

Question: is your film fresh or has the gel developer started to harden? could be part of the answer as some SX-70 don't use rollers to squish the gel out.

[gary m]

If you decide to get crazy on the SX-70, here is a link that might help you tear it the hell up Good luck http://www.chemie.unibas.ch/~holder/SX70.html

[This-is-damion]

here are 2 tests,  the first is like 99% of pictures turn out,  the other is an occasional occurance. 

have tried with SX 70 film  (that did work in another camera)  so i know its the camera!

Reloaded and listened to mirror and im sure it does slap, sounds a lot like other Sx 70.   perhaps mirror slap not quite as hard???  minor difference though

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[Skorj]

There's a PC monitor stuck inside! Easy! Remove the monitor and it should be fine...

[Skorj]

Could be an overexposure problem then... Using SX-70 film to start with, crank the light/dark control full dark and how does she run? The timing circuit might be stuffed, or someone may have tweaked it for 600-series, nah, that is faster than SX-70 so you'd be underexposed if that was the case.

Assume light/dark control and lucite window are all intact?

[Francois]

Don't forget that all Polaroid films are like slide film!

Skorj is right, since there is a picture, camera is probably OK (SX-70's are pretty tough)
If you have a dark gray filter, just stick it in front of the lens and take a picture.
(I think any dark filter will be OK)
If it comes out better, you know the solution.
On the Land List, there is information about it.
http://www.rwhirled.com/landlist/landfaq.htm#4.7

There are specialty stick-on neutral filters available for the SX-70. Found them at http://www.unsaleable.com/
Never done business with them. Their shipping charges are pretty high. They ship from Austria, so I think there might be a link between them and Lomography... but I can't say for sure.

On the other hand, I'm thinking of something else... Inside the camera, there is a soft rubber flap attached to the mirror. It is used to block light from exposing the film when focusing, and to block the viewfinder to prevent stray light from entering the film chamber when exposing. If the flap is missing for some reason, you will get strangely exposed photos... in the worse case, they will all be all white. (so using a dark colored filter might be a good test, if the color is uniform and the image visible, all is OK, if there is white in the image, you have a leak)

[Francois]

Hi Damion!
As I woke up this morning, I think I found what is the problem with your SX-70 
Just imagine the sight... I don't think my eyes were opened when I thought of it!

When reading on http://www.chemie.unibas.ch/~holder/SX70.html about the "hardware" modification for 600 film, they say that the modification consists on changing a capacitor in the exposure system.

I don't know why the geniuses at Polaroid decided to put a capacitor there, but it probably is the problem with your camera.
As they age, the insulating material inside capacitors tends to dry up. When they finally loose their insulating propeerties, they just fail. How do I know about this you may ask? Well, I have a vintage early 1970's sound system at home (one of the space age design era, you know, when everything looked like space stations and astronaut's helmets...). This sound system has one dried up capacitor. All it did for a long time is emit a buzzing sound until it became silent. It may be the same thing with your SX-70...

Putting in the 600 mod has only good points in your case!

[6oh]

hey Damion....gotta love finding old threads with the exact problem my SX-70 is having. Picked it up, but never seemed to be in working order as well, but the white polaroids that popped out did have somewhat an image, but mostly white....did you ever hack yours to fix it?  Curious to here is it ever got, umm, good again
 

[This-is-damion]

its still very much broken,   i havnt found time to mess around with it yet!

  i think from memory i tried the 600 film    -just to make sure it was spitting film out correctly and that didnt work either  so dodn think its been adjusted!