The film claims to have an improved color balance over 600 film.
Film speed is the same as 600 film. The ingenious feature is a neutral density filter that sits on top of the film pack.
That way the viewfinder stays bright and clear.
There has been some speculation in the Yahoo forum whether or not SX-70 Blend
is a legitimate Polaroid product.
It looks genuine to me and bears the marks of the dutch
factory that produces Polaroid film for Europe, Asia and Australia.
The package looks like this:
This pack expires in February 2008
There is a thin filter foil on top of the film pack that is very easily damaged by fingerprints.
The filter is not as crumply as it looks in this photo
The back side bears the typical Polaroid production marks.
With the film speed reduced to 125 ASA by the internal
ND filter it is not easy to take pictures of children and animals indoors with no flash.
Flash photos come out well. All SX-70 tend to overexpose a bit with flash at
close distances but that's not the fault of the film.
Color balance is good for flash and sunlight photos.
Leaving the photos to develop in the cold results in a blueish tint.
(This is announced as a feature :-)
Photos:
upper left: indoor low light results in long exposures - just like TZ film.
upper center: mix of sunlight and tungsten light.
upper right: High contrast sunlight - exposure is good with no corrections.
lower left: flash (flashbar) exposure is OK with no corrections.
lower center: Sunny day - exposure is OK with no corrections.
lower right: Indoor flash (flashbar) close up flash pictures tend to be a little overexposed, this is the camera, not the film.
left: dim daylight upper is without, lower is with (flashbar) flash: let develop in the cold leads to a blueish tint.
upper right: again close up flash with slight overexposure when not corrected.
lower right: flashbar flash with one step darken dialled: exposure is correct for close up.
Colors are strong and well balanced, similar to 600 film.
I didn't do 1:1 comparison with 600 film so I cannot verify the claims in the product announcement.
I still miss the subtle pastel colors of the good old Time-Zero film.
This film cannot be manipulated any better than 600 film.
I don't know if the ND filter foil can be reused to shoot 600 film in a SX-70.
I'll give it a try and write about my findings later.
George