Land Polaroid Lens Hacking

[clarence]

Hello. Since acquiring a Polaroid Image (Spectra) Pro, I've become interested in cameras that can use instant film. Ideally, I'd want something that is cheap and able to form images larger than 6x6. The old polaroid land cameras seem like a good option, but the ones with large aperture lenses (the 180, 185, 190 and 195) are beyond my budget.

I was wondering if it would be easy to transplant a lens and shutter from an old medium format folder, or even a large format lens and shutter into one of the cheap Polaroid land cameras.

These are some of the thoughts that I've been ruminating over:
- Rangefinder calibration might be difficult once the lens is transplanted
- Perhaps I could use a wide angle large format lens to gain more depth of field to overcome the focusing problem, and simply use an accessory rangefinder. An accessory viewfinder could also help with framing. Wouldn't the coverage of the lens still be enough to form an image on the whole area of the polaroid?

Thank you.

Clarence

[kiev4a]

Actually some of the early folders like the Polaroid 95B had very good lenses. The picture they produced were virtually grainless and the lenses were sharp. The main problems was the prints had to be coated by hand and if you didn't get every single spot covered the photo would later streak.
The photo below was shot in a camera store of me, right, and my best friend, in 1963, probably with a Polaroid 95B. Over the years the print got scuffed up some before I scanned it.

[minoltaman]

Awesome shot Wayne. Cool store!!

[clarence]

Thank you for the photo, Wayne! Unfortunately, I need to settle a lot of things that have come up and I don't have the time to pursue this project.

Clarence