There’s always one thing you need when you shoot polaroids with the SX-70: luck. Unfortunately, the last time I visited Peloponnese, I wasn’t that lucky. However, I decided to present the Polaroid Diaries: Eastern Peloponnese with the SX-70 mainly because I wanted to show you what this camera is capable of, even when the conditions are not optimal.
You should not think that something bad happened when I talk about luck, nor that nothing worked. But here’s the thing: the slow ISO (160) of the Polaroid SX-70 film means that the camera needs light to perform optimally. And the truth is that whenever I decided to shoot polaroids that day, all of a sudden, it became cloudy. Of course, that’s unlikely for Greece during summertime, but unfortunately, it happened.
The Polaroid Diaries: Eastern Peloponnese are set in two locations. I went on a day trip with my parents, and I visited the Ancient Theater of Epidaurus and Nafplio, the coastal Greek town. In both locations, heavy clouds greeted me, but I thought of shooting an SX-70 film to see what I could get. I finished the film and then, before heading back to Athens, we thought that it might be nice to stop at Palamidi Fortress.
Guess what. The moment I stepped at the Fortress, the sun appeared. But I didn’t have a spare film with me. Murphy’s law, I guess.
*This post is part of my #PolaroidAugust side project.
Some links are affiliate links: if you buy something, I might earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
What you’ll see in the Polaroid Diaries: Eastern Peloponnese (SX-70)
So, even if the conditions weren’t optimal, I shot 8 polaroids at Eastern Peloponnese. Some of them are details, while others are all about the glorious Ancient Theater of Epidaurus. Overall, I can say that I’m satisfied with the results but, of course, I would prefer natural light. Especially at the Epidaurus Ancient Theater, I find it a pity that the polaroids look darker and moodier than I wanted them.
Well, you can’t have everything, I guess. As I always do, at the bottom of this post, you can see the settings I used for this edition of the polaroid diaries. Due to the bad light, I actually thought of experimenting a bit more with the settings.
So, let’s start with the Polaroid Diaries: Eastern Peloponnese.
Polaroid Diaries: Eastern Peloponnese (SX-70)
The first stop was the legendary Ancient Theater of Epidaurus. It’s been a while since I last saw a play there. As I already wrote, it was cloudy when I arrived there. Here’s the first photo from the theater.
And here’s one more. Unfortunately, the clouds were much darker than they look -see what I decided to do on the settings section below.
Attached to the Ancient Theater, there’s also an archaeological site. That’s actually the first healing place of antiquity. I shot two more polaroids there. The first one, which you’ll see straight below, is from the Asklipeio. Some scattered sun rays helped me to have a usable result.
The second one is from the field next to the archaeological site. The field fascinated me with its color, and I found it challenging to shoot a polaroid. However, despite the bad light, I am very pleased with the result. Moreover, for a lens like the one on the SX-70, I found the bokeh great. Here’s how it looked:
Later on, we drove towards Nafplio. This small coastal town once served as Greece’s capital, and it has a stunning inner town. I walked for a couple of hours through Nafplio, and I saw bougainvilleas everywhere. So I decided to take a photo.
Then, I came across a claw machine. It was straight at Nafplio’s main square, and I tried to get a self-portrait on its mirror together with some of the teddy bears. It turned out better than I thought, even though a tad dark.
Shortly before leaving Nafplio behind, I shot the last two photos of the film. The first one is a portrait of my mother at the main square. I found it impressive how sharp the details are on this one. (Did I already mention that I wish there was better light?). Here’s the portrait.
And the very last SX-70 polaroid I shot on Nafplio, it’s from the port. Again, the setting was there: two boats facing each other, the sea between and behind them. The colors looked great for a more minimal photo. And yet, it didn’t work out that well.
My SX-70 settings for this edition
For the Polaroid Diaries: Eastern Peloponnese, I had to experiment with the exposure wheel. I usually keep it in the middle, but this time I had to change my approach. For every photo that you see above, I overexposed by half a stop. It sounded tempting to raise the exposure even more; however, I was afraid that the image(s) would be unusable. After seeing the first image, I thought of playing it safe.
Even the photo with the ancient ruin with a tiny bit of light highlighting didn’t turn the wheel to the middle. I kept it half a stop up, and I think it’s probably one of the nicest images of this edition. Long story short, if you find yourself shooting on cloudy days, overexpose your images a bit. Remember that the SX-70s have a mind of their own (read more on my SX 70 review), so you should experiment a bit with exposure.
Despite the bad light and the dark clouds, I find most of the images to be decent. The one from the field actually has a rather nice yellow tone. While these are not among my favorite ones, I definitely have some keepers. The next time I visit Epidaurus, I’ll make sure to stop again for some polaroids.
So, that’s it with this edition of the Polaroid Diaries and the images from my road trip to Eastern Peloponnese. Make sure to check back soon for more polaroid photography, and feel free to subscribe to my mailing list for polaroids tips, reviews, and photos.
*You can buy the newest (and freshest) films and Polaroid cameras directly at Polaroid’s official website.*
The US Store | The EU store | The UK Store
More Polaroids: The full Polaroid diaries, My OneStep+ review & My Polaroid GO review
Get my Polaroid Camera on Amazon | Buy the film on Amazon
Pin it for later
Feel free to share on FB or Twitter the Polaroid Diaries: Eastern Peloponnese (SX-70).
Last Updated on August 28, 2021 by George Pavlopoulos
Hi George, all of the polaroid photos still turned out very good. That one of your reflection looks like you have a beard. Are you growing one?
Hey John,
I’m glad that you like these polaroids. I wasn’t pleased in the first place; unfortunately, it turned really cloudy for a couple of hours. However, I think that most of them look okay given the circumstances. The Polaroid SX-70 definitely needs light to perform. As for the beard, I guess I’m one of these guys that grow a beard out of pure boredom to shave. Especially during the summertime, I go through these phases of 1-2 weeks without touching the razor. Sooner or later, though, I try to get rid of it 🙂
Did you shoot another film with your SX-70?
I haven’t yet because I’m waiting for a week of sunny blue sky days. I ended up buying another SX-70, but this time a Polaroid SX-70 Sonar model. Someone advertised a vast collection of Polaroid cameras under the username Atlantis in an online marketplace called Gumtree, which is popular in Australia. It triggered me to buy the SX-70 Sonar model even though I didn’t buy it from Atlantis. Mainly because I went through this crazy experience of trying to meet the person with the Atlantis username, and it didn’t end well.
I’ll be using my SX-70 Sonar in my next polaroid post. Hopefully, it will work because I bought it based on someone’s word that it worked fine. I’ve still got the other one as well, so I can see which one I prefer.
Excellent choice, John! I think the SX-70 Sonar will help you overcome the “fear” of focusing -in the “normal” SX-70s, focusing takes time to master. The Sonar was a very progressive model due to the sonar autofocus system it used. I haven’t used one so far, but I might buy one someday. Looking forward to your polaroids!
PS: Give also a chance to your SX-70; it might work fine as well.