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Converting a Type 80 Polaroid Land Camera to take Type 100 Film

Inspired by some great how-to's on how to convert Polaroid cameras using type 80 film to the wider type 100 film format (by Stratski and Nano_Burger), I recently purchased a Polaroid Super Swinger Colour Camera.

You might ask why I would buy this camera instead of just getting one that already takes type 100 film and to be honest, my answer is mostly: Because I can! Besides the fun prospect of bringing an obsolete piece of technology back to life there was also the idea of trying improve on previous attempts.

This guide will show you how to convert any (as far as I know) type 80 camera to use type 100 film, without any modifications to the film packs themselves. This means that it will be much more convenient to load a new cartridge when you are out in the field (with no preparation needed).

What you need

  • Type 80 camera (I used a Super Colour Swinger)
  • Side cutting pliers
  • Type 80 film (Fujifilm FP-100C)

Method

Since type 100 film is wider than type 80 film, this will be all about making more space inside the camera to allow you to fit the pack. Luckily type 80 cameras were designed with quite a bit of unused space inside them. If you have already followed the other conversion guides you can skip straight to step 3, as the first two steps are already covered by these.

Step 1: Removing the film stop

After opening the back of the camera, the film stop will be the plastic part near the left-hand side (marked in red in Image 1). On some models it will have a label on it explaining that you should change the batteries yearly. In my case it's just a plain bar of grey plastic.

Image 1. The film stop

Try bending it a bit using a fair amount of force, it should flex and creak. Keep bending it back and forth, applying more force as you go along. It should soon snap off, revealing 3 rows of black plastic ridges (which are part of the camera body).

Step 2: Cutting off ridges (from below the film stop)

Image 2. Location of ridges to be removed

Out of the three ridges we only need to do something about the leftmost two (marked with red in Figure 1, these are the ones that protrude the most). Using the side cutting pliers, keep cutting off pieces of them until they are no longer protruding any more than the shorter rightmost one. Try to even out any sharp edges that you create when cutting them. I used a rotary tool to make the surface more smooth but this is not really necessary.

Image 3. After removing the ridges

Step 3: Making some more space

Up until now we have followed the same steps as the other conversion guides but now things will get a bit more interesting.

Locate the ridges on the opposite end of the body (near the slot where the film will come out). As you can see there is one full ridge going from the top to the bottom and to the right of it, a partial row with a gap in the middle.

In Image 4 the ridges to be removed are marked with red, and the ridges that needs to remain are marked in green.

Image 4. Location of additional ridges (Red = remove, Green = keep)

What we need to do is to fully remove the entire full ridge (as well as any plastic pieces connecting it with the second row), leaving the second partial row intact. Since the two ridges are very close to each other it is a good idea to be very careful when cutting, only cutting off small chunks at a time. Be sure to cut off as much as possible, the remaining pieces of the ridge should not protrude more than what was left from the ridges in step 2.

Image 5. Additional ridges removed (but not cleaned up yet)

That's it! You should now be ready to load a pack of film but please read the notes in the next paragraph first for some tips as the procedure will be a bit different compared to a regular type 100 camera.

Notes on loading the film pack

Even after the modifications, the inside of the camera will barely be big enough for the film pack. Be prepared to use a bit more force to get it to fit. Also, instead of just pushing the pack straight in, start by seating one edge of the pack and then the other (while applying some force horizontally to slightly compress the pack).

Sample photos

I'm not much of a photographer so these photos do not really do the camera justice. They do however show the difference between type 80 and 100 film, as the edge of the photo has not been exposed. I think it still looks quite good though and I think I'll keep using this camera for a while.



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