Polaroid Now + Gen 3 Review

Well, what is the difference between the Now+ gen 2 and the new Now + gen3. I do not have the Now+ gen 2, but I do have the Now gen 2, that I will be doing a comparison later on. From Polaroids website, they are stating that the new generation 3 that it is supposed to take better and brighter pictures. How are they achieving this you may ask?

Well, Polaroid says they have upgraded the autofocus ranging system using infrared sensors to more accurately select which lens to use for the subject matter more in the center of the frame that it focuses on.

They also state the light sensor location has changed in the generation 3, but that seems to be correct for the Now, since the Now+ already had the sensor below the lens , but the Now gen2 had it under the viewfinder. All this to say that the plain Now gen3 will have the light meter upgrade.

As you can see, I, for the first time, bought the colored i-type film for this outing. This first picture did not have the flash activated. I wanted to see if the light sensor would meter more for the shadows on this plant or the background sky. Also, the camera did seem to struggle with using the close up lens for this. I am not that surprised it struggled, there was a lot of background behind the leaves. I had to get super close and focus till I heard the lens switch and held it down to recompose. The old classic focus and recompose strategy. The focus turned out good and the exposure did seem to go more for the background instead of the plant shadows.

Overall: Not to bad given the circumstances

I had to mark what was taken with the Now+ because I brought the Now gen 2 with me to do a comparison and they were both shot with colored frames. This photo was the end of a little hike through the Ridge Trail. We had a little detour around a stinging insect nest. This photo was of my son on the right and my nephew on the left.

For this photo, I kept the flash on, since their faces were more in the shade and figured the camera would expose to keep the highlights more. I feel that this picture turned out well. I would have liked it to expose a little brighter to get more detail in the shadows.

Here we have a photo of my sister-in-law. She never says no to a photo opportunity. Since we were in the shade within the shelter building, I knew I definitely needed the flash in for this one.

The camera acted as I thought it would and exposed lower for the background highlights. Sure enough, that is what it did. With the direct sun in the background, I feel the highlights were not completely blown out and the flash worked well, being roughly 3 feet away from my sister-in-law.

Made it to the Lake!

Off the main drive loop at the park, you can walk down a short trail to Lake Sheeler. Luckily no alligators were there to meet us!

My father -in-law was not in the photo because I figured the glare from the top of this head would mess with the exposure. JUST KIDDING! Have to poke fun where I can.

I left the flash off for this one since the subject was too far away to be effected by it. I figured it would expose lower to compensate for the sky and the bright reflections from the water. I was going for more of the silhouette look from my nephew, my two sons, and my sister-in-law.

I was happy with the result for this and it achieved the look I was going for.

PUNCH BUGGY !!

After we got done with the Ridge trail, this was this Volkswagen Beetle parked there. I saw the wheels and thought they looked pretty cool with the sun reflecting off.

For this shot, I went close up. The hard thing for close up is the more you have to worry about parallax correction between the lens and the viewfinder. I adjusted a little down and to the left, but not enough down to get the wheel perfectly within the middle. The plan was to turn the flash off, but forgot.

Overall, I liked how this photo turned out in the end.

Pros

• More textured material used for the plastic and color options given for the Now+
• Tripod socket is a must, if you want to use the app for better control
• The lens seems to be pretty sharp (both close-up and far away lenses)
• The auto exposure seems to work pretty well

CONS

• The generation 3 does not give you a USB C charging cable, like the generation 2 did
• The wrist strap supplied is pointless, just give us a neck strap instead.
• The connection to the app was not always that cooperative
• Wish the tripod socket was metal instead of plastic