The brand name Polaroid will always be associated with instant photography, even as the company has struggled in recent years due to the popularity of smartphones and their increasingly powerful cameras. However, 10 years after it stopped manufacturing instant cameras, the brand is making a comeback with the Polaroid OneStep 2.
During an event in New York City on Wednesday, the company launched the new camera, which was inspired by the 1977 classic Polaroid OneStep analog instant camera.
The new camera is an instant film camera and is available now via pre-orders for $99. The first batch of shipments will be arriving on Oct. 16. The camera, while sporting the straightforward technology of instant photography, will also include a few features, such as a timer and a flash. It can also be charged using a USB connection. The camera uses packs of eight black and white, or color I-type film which costs $16.
A new brand, Polaroid Originals, was also unveiled during the event. It is a brand focused on instant photography, and is the first offshoot brand of the Impossible Project, which is a group of instant photography enthusiasts and investors who bought the last remaining Polaroid factory in 2008. The Impossible Project is the owner of the Polaroid brand.
"Right now, we're actually adapting by not adapting," Polaroid Originals Chief Executive Officer Oskar Smolokowski told CNN Tech. "The smartphone is really saturating everyone's lives, and people are reaching out for other ways to experience photography."
For Smolokowski, "Instant Photography is one of the things that today's smartphones cannot eat," because "it is a physical artifact."
A number of instant cameras have tried to revive instant photography in recent years. These include Prynt which allows users to print photos directly from their smartphone, and Fujifilm with their instant film and digital hybrid camera, the SQ10.
