Polaroid Land Model Automatic 250 [1967]

One of the downsides of not originally having this website is that the provenance of certain cameras gets lost to memory over time. Since I’ve never sought out any Polaroid cameras specifically, the only way I would have acquired this would have been as part of a lot of multiple cameras, or perhaps at a tag sale. I suspect the former more than the latter.

The Polaroid Land Model 250 is a higher end camera for its time, and uses the FujiFilm FP-100c which was unfortunately discontinued in 2015, though new stock is still available “in date” through 2018.

Updates

My model was overall pretty clean with no signs of fungus or other lens issues. However to actually *use* it with the Fujifilm packs I needed to do the common battery conversion since the original battery type is no longer available – and modern equivalents can be expensive. My particular camera already had a broken connector on one of the battery leads, and the part was missing, so frankly I didn’t feel all that bad putting in one of those little tubular cases to hold three AAA batteries to attain the necessary 4.5 volts. A little solder in the right places and the camera spring to life… so to speak. The only way to tell that the battery is working is to cover the exposure meter completely and trip the shutter and listen to see if the shutter stays open a long time. Not the best system, but it works! I also used two small foam blocks to keep my battery adapter from floating around. For those considering a similar modification, all I had to do was to unscrew the original battery clip, which I’ve saved in storage. I did not need to enlarge or do any Dremel work to make enough room for my batter case.