After finishing my last pack of Polaroid 665 film I looked at the empty pack more closely. It is made up of 5 parts essentially. 1. A "cradle" into which a 2. film redirect septum and pressure plate  device sits and  3. an opaque paper leader that protects the 4. photosensitive material within (and also envelops the receptor/print sheets) and 5. a top metal or plastic cover.

One can easily take a pack apart whether the ones made by Polaroid or Fuji. They are held together with snap connectors along the top edge of the pack. Just pry the top away from the bottom and out will pop the parts I mentioned although if it is an empty pack then it will not contain the opaque leader sheet or any film stock anymore. Look at the three remaining parts closely to get an idea of what happens within that pack container.

In brief, the pack system works as follows: The opaque leader is withdrawn and this brings a white tab (connected to the first negative/positive combo) to the exit slot and exposes the emulsion of the first exposure to light from the lens when the exposure is made. Once ready for processing the white tab is pulled out and this brings the second white tab out and places the first exposed sheet into the correct position for breaking the developer pod and then processing and transferring image information onto the receiver or print sheet. This is accomplished by pulling out the tab that appeared when the first white tab was pulled out. This breaks the developer pod and spreads the liquid between the paper negative and the receiver sheet. Once processing is competed one separates the donor negative from the receiver, print, sheet and one has a finished product. One generally discards the paper negative and keeps the print. With type 665 materials a very good negative is produced but this material has not been manufactured in years. And this is repeated for every exposure until you are out of film. The pack is now empty.


One word of caution: Resist the temptation to discard the opaque cover sheet. You will need it.

Notice that along one or maybe two edges of the middle septum sheet that has a curved end at one end there are the remnants of paper attached to a small staple at one side of the other end of that sheet of metal or plastic. Clean up that area so it is clean and smooth. By the way, you will need a roll of double sided sticky tape along with the remnants of the empty Polaroid or Fuji film pack.


Now notice that you can place the opaque sheet back in its place, cover it with the redirect septum placing the curved end away from the film exit end of the pack and the smooth side down. You can now bend the opaque sheet back on itself and it will extend beyond the exit lip of the empty pack. Replace the back cover snapping it smartly into place. The completed assembly should look pretty much like an original Polaroid pack.

You can now place that pack in your Polaroid camera and you should be able to pull the opaque paper out without any trouble. If all this happens you good to go!!

Disassemble everything and go back to the beginning. Find a sheet of suitable 4x5 film and cut the 4 inch dimension so that it is close to 3 3/8 inches wide. A little less is OK but more is not. Make sure you don't cut off the notches on the film as these will help you determine the emulsion side later on should you need to know this. And you will!. When they are in the upper right you are looking (if not in the dark) at the emulsion. In the dark you would not see anything!  Anyway, this is as wide as the channel within which the Polaroid materials would fit in the pack and is as wide as the opaque cover  sheet.

Still in practice mode replace the cover sheet so it fits snugly towards the end of the pack where the staples were or are. As you did before.  Then on top of this place your sheet of sheet film with the emulsion side down, touching the cover sheet. and notice it will pretty much extend the full length of the pack. Now place a bit of double sided sticky tape on the pressure plate  and install it into the pack as you did before. You may want to press the front and back of the assembly together at this time. This will affix the film to the pressure plate. Now bend the opaque leader back on itself as you did before and  reassemble the pack replacing its back cover.  The sticky tape may not be necessary but it ensures that the film will remain where it is supposed to. Just so you know I do not use sticky tape!


Now you don''t even need to try loading the camera as you probably sense that this will work. The pack with your silver halide film is fairly light tight but I would recommend only relying on its light-tightness while the pack is loaded in the camera. My experience is that handling in moderate light levels has produced a small amount of edge fog which in general has not been a problem at least for me. 

Once the pack is prepared it loads into the camera as any "old" Polaroid film pack would. You just have it loaded with a single exposure. Notice that you can pull on the black leader paper and it should smoothly glide out of the pack and if you are looking at the front of the pack you will see the trailing end of the leader gradually uncover the film behind it. If the pack is loaded into the camera, the camera would now be ready to make an exposure.

OK ... now read what you have read so far and do the loading process using raw silver halide film. Of course you will have to cut the film and place it into the pack and into the camera in the dark. After a few trials this should not be too difficult to do. Establish a routine and a procedure that you can follow even with your eyes closed. Just make sure you don't just close your eyes and forget to turn the lights out while you are loading your film into the Polaroid pack!!

After exposure you disassemble the pack and remove the film stuck to the pressure plate and process it as you would any normal piece of sheet film. You could prepare several such "cassettes" each loaded with a single sheet of film and then you'd have the opportunity to make several exposures instead of just one. Store each exposed pack in a light tight container. Read below as to how you transfer the film from camera to such a container and how you reload the camera.

Sure. So now what you ask? How do I make another exposure??? Since the raw film is inside the camera and there is no way to replace the black leader you must resort to a drastic measure. A changing bag!!!  In fact, the changing bag gives you a way to store and transport several pre-loaded packs as well as a place to unload and load your camera without having it exposed to high light levels during the process. However, as I mentioned above reasonable light levels while handling the pack should not cause much of a problem.

So who said life would be easy? Remember that to make single Wet Collodion plate took a lot of effort. A Daguerreotype even more. But many dedicated and enterprising photographers took on the challenge making one image at time. So what is holding you up?? Give it a shot!!

In my opinion this is a great way to make single shot exposures ... for example a pinhole photograph. Generally we don't make many of these as the fascination with making them tends to ebb and flow. Besides working to make a single negative will possibly improve your previsualization process and the ratio of your number of good photographs vs. the number of almost good ones will improve since you will be forced to think more before pressing the shutter release button. Also, think of the savings that will result form not using so much in terms of photosensitive materials. Your whole life will be simplified by working on one photograph at a time. Maybe one a week! Make them good ones!!

Just to show how well this system worked I actually did make a photograph with my Polaroid pack back adapted to be a pinhole camera. Here it is below.  The pack was not exposed to diect sunlight but it was handled in average room light before and after exposure for about 30 minutes. And, of course, it was exposed to dayight such as seen in the photograph, for another 15 minutes or so.  Evidence of fogging is quite minimal.  The film was Ilford FP4 Plus 125 ISO speed and the pinhole photograph was exposed for about 15 seconds. I don't know what the operating aperture of the pinhole is. Film was tray processed with continuous agitation in D-76, 1:1 dilution, at 70 degrees for 8 minutes. The negative is excellent.