Yesterday my ebay lot of Image film (360 shots!) and Spectra 1200si camera arrived. All week I had been like a kid anticipating xmas - rushing home after work to see if the package had been delivered. There's nothing like a brown cardboard box waiting at your doorstep.

The film is expired but so far looks okay, I'm surprised at how good it is because other expired Polaroid film I have had was missing most of the blues and greens. I love the size and aspect ratio of the pictures. Have posted just a couple of practice shots. I took the camera to a barbeque this afternoon where it was a big hit - trouble is I give all the good pictures away in such situations. People still wave them in the air as if they were wet.

Last week my $20, San Francisco garage/sidewalk sale SX-70 died, just as I was adapting it for 600 film by taking out the ND filter, etc... It worked in the evening but died sometime during the night. The next morning, it wouldn't take any pictures, or even make a noise. It was in trouble-shooting this that I found Polanoid.net. I had a bad case of polaroidus interruptus. It looked beyond my ability to repair, so I looked for another camera.

Ebay is crazy with sx-70s and even crazier with buyers for them. The parts or repair cameras are selling for over $75. I turned to craigslist los angeles and low and behold! $50 and I didn't haggle - for the same Sonar OneStep I had. I bought film on the way home from picking it up, along with a sheet of 4stop ND gel, and a pair of wire snippers to take off the nubs - I couldn't wait. But then! The photos got stuck in the rollers! Another frantic Saturday of troubleshooting before I realized that I could cannibalize the two bad cameras to make one good one - especially since the problem was with the only component of this camera I could easily switch. And it works! And so does the gel, for now. I would say I could sleep again, but now I'm hyped up about taking pictures.

My "new old stock" case of flash bars purchased on ebay should arrive day after tomorrow!