I have so many old cameras waiting for me to shoot them that I forget how I got some of them. I think somebody gave me this Polaroid Automatic 250. It certainly wasn’t on my must-buy list.

Polaroid Automatic 250

Not that the Automatic 250 isn’t worthy of my collection. As Polaroid cameras go, it’s pretty good. It boasts a three-element glass lens, 114 mm at f/8.8. Its electronic shutter fires from 1/1200 to 10 seconds. Atop the Automatic 250 is a Zeiss Ikon rangefinder with automatic parallax correction. It is an aperture-priority camera, allowing no manual setting of exposure. Some might find that to be a bummer, but let’s be real โ€“ Polaroid cameras are about snapshots, and autoexposure enables that.

The Automatic 250 was enormously popular — Polaroid made 750,000 of them from 1967 to 1969. That’s especially astonishing given their $159.95 price tag, which is equivalent to more than $1,200 today. What’s more, the Automatic 250 sat atop an entire line of 200-series cameras in the late 1960s, the least expensive of which cost $55.95, more than $400 today. Polaroid sold millions of 200-series cameras in the late 1960s. Money had to be falling out of the sky onto the Polaroid Corporation during those years.

The Automatic 250 takes pack film. Mine came with a pack of type 108 color film that expired in 1969. It was a real ray of photographic sunshine that Fujifilm kept making pack films for so many years after Polaroid got out of the business. Black-and-white FP-3000B and color FC-100C were available at Amazon.com at a reasonable price. In my opinion, they performed better than the old Polaroid films.

Polaroid Automatic 250

Unfortunately, the party ended; Fujifilm got out of the packfilm business. But not before I put a few packs through the Automatic 250.

However, the Automatic 250 takes a funky 4.5-volt battery. You can buy them on Amazon if you’re willing to pay a premium price. I instead adapted my Automatic 250 to work with AAA batteries, MacGyver style. I raided a little LED flashlight for its battery clip, which holds three 1.5-volt AAA batteries. 3×1.5=4.5; perfect. I unscrewed and removed the original battery clip from the Automatic 250 and, glory be, the flashlight clip fit right in. Inside the battery compartment are two wires with snap-style ends that attach to the original battery. I cut off the snaps, stripped the wires about a half inch, and then attached them to the new battery clip with electrical tape.

Polaroid Automatic 250

Using these old Polaroids isn’t terribly hard after you get the hang of it. To keep this already too-long post from being way too long, please read theย Automatic 250 manual as butkus.org to learn how to load film and take a photograph. Part 1 of the manual isย here; part 2 isย here. Also check outย this YouTube videoย for instructions on loading film. (The video is for the Automatic 104, but it’s the same as for the 250.)

If you like packfilm Polaroid cameras, also check out my reviews of the Big Swinger 3000 (here) and the Colorpack II (here). I’ve also reviewed some integral-film Polaroid cameras: the original SX-70 (here), the OneStep 600 (here), and the One600 (here). Or check out all of my camera reviews here.

I laid some FP-3000B into my Automatic 250 and took all ten shots in under an hour just after Christmas last year. I had some trouble pulling the first few shots out of the camera, which I guess is common. These cameras, which expected metal Polaroid film packs, compress the plastic Fuji film packs a little too much. I read about a trick where you actually pop the camera latch before pulling out a photo. It worked, but fogged and streaked some shots before I got the hang of it.

I figured that the ultra fast (3,000 ISO) film would let me take available-light shots inside, and I was right. I got best results when I set the lighten/darken control (the dial around the lens) all the way to lighten. I focused on the bowl of bulbs on the coffee table.

Christmas scene

The Automatic 250’s decent lens yielded uniformly crisp photographs, and the film returned minimal grain. I scanned the prints on my Epson V300 scanner. It normally does a wonderful job scanning prints but never does justice to anything I shoot on FP-3000B. These scans aren’t nearly as good as the prints. This is the last shot from my test film pack, and it shows the pack’s other shots lounging about the kitchen counter.

Polaroid debris

After the new year I bought more film and tried again. I discovered that my electrical-tape battery connections didn’t hold. The exposure system needs juice; without it, you get all-black photos! I need to buy a soldering iron and more permanently attach those wires. But I retaped the wires and got this shot.

Hamper

The challenge with outside instant photography in Indiana in January is that the cold temperatures slow developing way down. The camera comes with an aluminum “cold clip” that you warm up under your arm. You slip the freshly taken photo inside it while it develops. To avoid that hassle, I took this photo outside and then dashed back in to let the photo develop at room temperature. This is the golf course behind my house. A lot of rain fell, flooding the 14th fairway. Then it froze overnight. Ice skating, anyone?

Frozen Golf Course

This is Roger, a colleague. He shoots film, too, and has a small collection of cameras. Whenever either of us buys something interesting we bring it in to show the other.

Roger

Some time later I got the Automatic 250 out again and tried some FP-100C. Unfortunately, my battery hack performed poorly and many photos turned out black. Those that didn’t were badly underexposed. But look at those colors pop anyway.

Autumn bush

It was with this pack I decided I should try one of the hard-bodied packfilm cameras. I heard that early Colorpack IIs sported glass lenses, so that’s what I bought. It worked great. I ended up giving my Automatic 250 to someone who loves, and can better deal with the quirks of, these folding Polaroids.

Enough with the cars already

Despite my challenges, these photos say a lot about the Automatic 250: it packs a reasonably sharp, contrasty lens that is reasonably free of distortion and light falloff in the corners. To see more photos, check out my Polaroid Automatic 250 gallery.

Instant photography charms me. I keep trying different Polaroid cameras trying to find The One. The Automatic 250 isn’t it. But in its heyday, it absolutely would have been.

If you like old film cameras, check out all of my reviews here!
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Comments

28 responses to “Polaroid Automatic 250”

  1. ryoko861 Avatar

    I love Polaroids. They’re just unique and quirky.

    1. Jim Avatar

      Quirky is right. Using one of these is not unlike doing the Hokey Pokey.

      1. ryoko861 Avatar

        That’s what it’s all about! I had to add that.

  2. Fitwellmom Avatar

    I am impressed with the pictures you took-they are really beautiful. Thanks so much for sharing!

    1. Jim Avatar

      Thanks! It was fun to shoot with this camera.

  3. pesoto74 Avatar

    Looks like this is one of the Polaroids worth having. I too have found myself wanting to like Polaroids, however I have a hard time warming up to it for some reason. I can believe those sales figures for Polaroid. It seems like everyone had one back in the 60’s and 70’s.

    1. Jim Avatar

      According to the Land List, most of the folding pack film cameras share this glass lens, so any of them should be capable of these kinds of results. Given film availability, I’d say a folding pack film Polaroid is the one to have if you want to shoot instant. I also really love it that I can shoot the 3000 speed b/w film indoors w/o flash.

  4. Mark O'Brien Avatar

    Wonderful post. I should look for one of these, as my Polaroid Reporter has 2 AA batteries that can only be accessed by removing the film…which if you find out that you have a battery problem with film in the camera is a real pain in the butt. Which I do.

    1. Jim Avatar

      Oh yeah, my Big Swinger 3000 suffers from the same AA battery problem. I wonder if that’s why Polaroid built the battery into the film pack for the SX-70 and later integral film cameras — the battery is always as fresh as the film. I’m shooting with an old Canon Dial right now and its battery is in the film compartment. Naturally, it died halfway through my test roll. D’oh!

  5. Mike Avatar

    Thanks for the thorough write-up on the Auto 250. The parallax correction seems like a really good idea since you have to take what you get with the polaroids. That might help me get over the hump of seeing a dollar fly off every time I push the shutter.

    1. Jim Avatar

      Mike, my impression of the parallax correction is that it’s decent — not perfectly precise, but way better than nothing. Many of these folding Polaroids have a rangefinder, by the way. Most of them have a focusing window and a taking window. The cameras with the Zeiss Ikon rangefinder do both functions in one window. And don’t hold me to this, but I think only the Zeiss Ikon rangefinders have the parallax correction.

  6. DennyG Avatar

    The dollar sign marked stats really are impressive. This (and similar Polaroids) with marginal optics and and unspectacular resolution sold at a premium over higher quality film cameras and relative speed is too simple a justification. Instant vs. soon is not at all the same as quick vs. slow. Polaroid changed photography. Period.

    1. Jim Avatar

      Waiting for processing was always film photography’s Achilles heel. Polaroid obviated the need, but in the working-class family into which I was born, there was never money for such things. We made do with Instamatics and drug-store processing.

  7. chelcie3 Avatar

    Go to the website landcameras.com. He’s awesome and he can either replace your battery wires for a reasonable price OR he can even put a rechargeable battery system in it for around $50. So he’s obviously a land camera specialist.

    1. Jim Avatar

      That’s cool — nice to know I have a resource. If I seriously take to using this camera a lot I may reach out to him.

  8. Jason Powell Avatar

    The Polaroid Land 250 is the best automatic Polaroid Land Camera, in my opinion. The Zeiss Rangefinder is really great (especially if you get the earlier large window version) and you don’t have the now-useless development timer taking up space in the back (like the 350,360 and 450). Sure, the manual 180 and 195’s are better, but I’ve gotten so many good shots from my Land 250 I don’t really even care about the manual Polaroids anymore.

    When you get around to shooting that FP-100c, you may find that it’s too cool for your tastes (it is for me). Get some Roscoe warming gel material and simply tape it over your lens (or the Polaroid slip-on UV filter, which is what I did). Presto, perfect tones! I also use the orange slip-on cloud filter when shooting in B/W, which adds a ton of contrast to my FP-3000b shots.

    1. Jim Avatar

      Jason, wow, thank you for all the excellent Automatic 250 advice! When I get around to shooting the FP-100C, I’ll look for a warming filter.

  9. Stephanie Gonzales Avatar
    Stephanie Gonzales

    I have a vintage polariod automatic 250 land camera mint condition and works great. any offers

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      This ain’t the place to sell it. You’ll get your best dollar on eBay.

    2. davonte Avatar
      davonte

      I’ll give you $1.

  10. pannyics Avatar

    I’ve been interested in this particular model for a while but it’s so hard to find info on it. I found your blog very informative, but I’m still curious about whether the lens is a fixed 8.8 aperture or if it can stop down. If so, to what aperture?
    Thx.

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      Hm. I just don’t know how far the 250 can stop down. It took a little doing just to find out its maximum aperture! Polaroid meant for these cameras to abstract these details from the photographer, so the kind of info you are looking for is going to be very hard to find.

  11. Sam Avatar

    Jim, excellent results out of that 250! It’s got a very nice look on FP-3000B that I really like, you know, the vintage classic looking shots! I could’ve been happy with this, seeing your results, but I really need a faster lens which is why I got the 180 for the f/4.5 Tomonon.

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      I looked at the better-specified folding packfilm cameras and decided not to spend the bucks until I found out whether I liked one that I could more readily afford. So I started here!

      1. Sam Avatar

        Good place to start! I should have kept that 360, but I was too dumb to appreciate it then! :-)

  12. bodegabayf2 Avatar

    I regret not having had the opportunity to shoot Land cameras when they were new and film was original.

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      I am fortunate that I got a Polaroid Super Shooter camera for Christmas in 1976 and shot several rolls of the original Polaroid Type 108 (and square Type 88) pack films in those years.

      I was both happy to have received that camera but sad it wasn’t one of the integral-film cameras as I thought a camera that shot a print out the front was the coolest thing ever.

      But now I know that pack film was peak Polaroid, the best they ever did from an IQ perspective. The Fuji pack films were better than the old Polaroid films, by the way.

  13. […] Film Photography Project – Polaroid Feaver! The Polaroid Automatic Land Camera Model 250 Down the Road – Polaroid Automatic 250 Review Big Head Taco – Polaroid Automatic 250 […]

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