Polavision
Polavision was an instant movie camera system created by Polaroid during the late 1970s.
Unlike other motion-picture film stock of the time, Polavision generated color using an additive process. It consisted of (essentially) a black-and-white film base and three-color filter layer.[1] In this sense, it was somewhat similar to the much earlier Dufaycolor process.
Due to the light-loss caused by the filtering process (only red, green or blue was let through for a given piece of film), the resulting film was much denser than with other processes. As a result, Polaroid designed a standalone table-top viewer, which was intended to reduce the problems inherent in projecting such dense film.[1]
In addition to the density problems, the process was late to market and had to compete with upcoming video-based systems. Polavision was not commercially successful, and most of the manufactured equipment was sold off as a job lot.
Polachrome
Polachrome was an "instant" 35mm transparency system. The film used was a descended from the Polavision system and used the same additive color (filter) process. One difference was that with Polavision, the negative layer remained as part of the film after processing. It was intended to turn transparent after a short while, but the process was reportedly imperfect, reducing contrast. With Polachrome, the black negative layer was discarded after processing.[1]
References
- ^ a b c The Land List -- Film Index, The Land List. (Sections: "Type 608", Additive process, density problems; "Polachrome CS", Polavision/Polachrome negative differences.) Article retrieved 2006-12-01.