What is a polaroid camera. Why Polaroid Sunglasses? Modern Polaroid models

Polaroid is a famous American company founded in 1937. The company specializes in the production of photographic and optical equipment. It is most widely known as a manufacturer of instant cameras that print a picture immediately after exposure. In addition to photographic equipment, Polaroid Corporation also produces consumer electronics (LCD TVs, portable DVD players, digital photo frames and much more).

Camera era

Polaroid instant cameras are still a cult gadget today. The first instant camera was released in 1948, but the pictures were in black and white; The camera acquired the familiar look with one-time square prints of images already in the 70s, the peak of the popularity of these cameras fell on the 80s. The cartridge of such a camera contains photographic material or a combination of photographic materials and reagents, resulting in a positive image on a paper base.

Factory of inventions

Another popular product of the company is sunglasses with polarized lenses, but the products that earned the company the title of "invention factory" are X-ray films, night vision devices and more. From 1977 to 1979, the company also produced reversible film in Super 8 format (Polavision), and since 1983, a similar 35 mm reversible film, Polachrome.

Triumphant return

In the 2000s, the company went bankrupt due to a sharp rise in the popularity of digital cameras, which Polaroid was not ready for. However, in 2011, a new digital Polaroid Z340 was released, it took into account all the disadvantages of a bulky classic camera and applied the latest digital technologies; With the release of this model, Polaroid made a triumphant return to the global photography market.

Polaroid produces a wide range of different photographic accessories: filters, 3in1 and 4in1 filter sets, LED flashlights, wide angle and telephoto lens attachments, LCD battery packs, hoods, lens caps, LED video lights in a hot shoe , and much more.

This is one of many gloomy business stories in which the meteoric rise and prosperity of the company is replaced by a slow fade with desperate attempts to reanimate. There are hundreds and thousands of such companies, however, today we will talk about a living legend, about Polaroid.

The founder of the company, Edwin Land, was born in 1909 in Bridgeport (Connecticut, USA). It is known that his ancestors were from Russia (he is not alone - it is worth remembering only the designer Sikorsky, the inventor Zworykin, the actors Yul Brynner, Michael Douglas and many others, ending with Sergei Brin and many less eminent and successful businessmen).

Land's ancestors, the Solomonovichs, emigrated from the territory of the Russian Empire (from Ukraine) to the United States at the end of the 19th century. It is known that the descendant of the Solomonovichs did not live in poverty - in any case, there was enough money to study at Harvard University. It was there that Edwin Land invented the world's first synthetic polarizing material, and the idea that served as the basis for the creation of the company was then used everywhere - both for civilian and military purposes.

Startup

In 1937, Land's developments finally found commercial use - the Polaroid company was founded. Initially, she did not deal with cameras, releasing sunglasses, polarizing glasses for various purposes for devices and military equipment.

Edwin Land

The firm's website claims that Polaroid was directly involved with the invention of night vision devices, x-ray film and more. Believe it or not, Land has patented over 500 inventions in his lifetime. They say that more is listed only for Thomas Edison.

The researcher was helped to achieve success not only by scientific achievements, but also by an iron business acumen. According to one of the former employees of the entrepreneur, Peter Wensberg, “Land is like a bear. You can admire the bear. You can deal with a bear. But you have to be very careful not to be eaten by the bear. " Edwin Land ran the company permanently for 43 years.

Kodak has experienced all the strength of Land's character, which we will discuss below.

In the 30s and early - mid 40s. of the last century, the main source of the firm of the company was polarized glasses. Unlike many other modern Polaroid “inventions”, the brand's sunglasses are still in high demand among connoisseurs.

Photo? Wait a minute!

Legend has it that the idea of ​​"instant" photographs came from the daughter of the founder of the company, being almost in infancy. "Why can't you get ready-made photos right away?" - She allegedly once asked her father. And he seriously thought. As a result, his employees also had to think seriously.

Shortly after World War II, in 1948, the company finally introduced the first snapshot camera - the so-called. Polaroid Land.

It is worth noting that each picture taken by the first Polaroid cameras was expensive - $ 1, which, at that time, was very decent money - a classic, average hamburger, for example, was much cheaper. The time for cheap shots has not come yet.

However, Polaroid cameras and other products were in high demand. In 1963, Edward Land was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Rise of an empire

In 1972, the Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera went on sale, the first fully motorized model that did not require precise aiming and took color snapshots.

Since then, there have been more and more models, the price of them and consumables are getting lower, and already in the 70s - 80s Polaroid has become a truly "people's" camera, which is remembered with nostalgia by the whole of America and most of the world. At least citizens over 30 years old.

In the late 70s, clouds began to gather over the Polaroid. In 1979, Kodak announced its own instant camera. The company was several times larger and more powerful than the Polaroid in all respects, but Edwin Land accepted the challenge, six days after the announcement of the model, filed a patent infringement lawsuit.

The process lasted ten years and ended in a complete victory for Polaroid - Kodak was ordered to pay compensation over $ 600 million. She was still lucky. Experts estimated the possible compensation from $ 2 billion to 16 billion. In 1986, Kodak was forced out of the business of instant photography - its developments were less effective.

Before and after these events, a number of companies around the world produced Polaroid-compatible cameras capable of using appropriate photographic materials from a well-known company. These are Fuji, Keystone Camera Corporation, Konica, Minolta, illegal Chinese clones of the early 90s ... Even the USSR was noted with two models: "Moment", in some respects - a complete clone of the Polaroid Model 95, produced in the 50s, compatible with Polaroid photographic materials. In the absence of the latter, citizens used mainly local products. In the 60s, the Krasnogorsk Mechanical Plant produced the Foton camera, like the previous model, compatible with 40-series Polaroid cassettes and Soviet Moment cassettes.

In addition to the ill-fated Kodak, Fuji, Continental Camera Corporation, Camera Corporation of America, and others were engaged in original developments, but their technologies and models did not receive real recognition. The Polaroid empire was at its peak and was grinding its competitors into powder.

Our Soviet Polaroid

Few people know that the Polaroid was also produced in the USSR. Moreover, not only "clones" of our own design, but a camera under the corresponding trademark. The joint venture (joint venture) Svetozor existed from 1989 to 1999, and jointly with Polaroid produced the 635 CL and Polaroid 636 Closeup models. Some of them still keep cameras in their closets with the proud inscription “Assembled in USSR”.

Empire decline

Great people sometimes make great mistakes. I recall the story of Samuel Colt, who at first flatly refused to invest resources in the development of revolvers with through "cartridge" drums and dismissed the employee who proposed the idea. After his death, the heirs tore at their hair, watching how prosperous Smith & Wesson, which bought the corresponding patent.

Edwin Land was also mistaken. Prototypes of digital cameras have been in Polaroid since the 80s, but the owner of the company made a strong-willed decision: "We are not engaged in electronics."

On June 17, 1970, Edwin Land patented his landmark camera, the first fully automated Polaroid SX-70. Here are some of the most interesting facts about Polaroid cameras and their inventor Edwin Land.

Edwin Land's parents lived in Russia before emigrating to the United States.

Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid, was born in 1909 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA, to a family from Odessa who emigrated to America in the late 19th century, a turbulent time for Jews living in Russia. Edwin's grandfather, Abraham Solomonovich, started his own scrap metal buying and recycling business in America and succeeded. Later, this business was continued by Edwin's father.

Edwin Land, Polaroid founder and famous American inventor:

Edwin was fond of technology from his youth. Especially optics

Edwin was a very curious child from childhood. History stores information that his father once whipped him when he saw that the boy took apart his phonograph. Especially Edwin was fond of optics. In 1926 he became a student at Harvard University, but soon dropped out. Land was eager to invent, and his studies prevented him from doing so. All forces were thrown into inventions, and soon it paid off. First Edwin invented polarizing lenses for car headlights that illuminated the road without dazzling oncoming cars. Later he created the world's first polarized sunglasses.

The inventor's contemporaries say that he was always creative in promoting his inventions. For example, when he wanted to sell his polarizing filters for use in sunglasses to top managers from the American Optical Company, he rented a hotel for a meeting, put an aquarium with a goldfish on the windowsill, and when the guests arrived, he handed each of them a polarizing plate. The trick was that on a sunny day, due to glare, the goldfish inside the aquarium was not visible, and with the help of a polarizing plate, top managers could see it immediately.

Inventor Edwin Land and future president of Polaroid, 1958:

Having impressed his guests in this way, Land immediately announced that from now on, sunglasses should be made of polarized glass, and they almost immediately agreed to invest in this idea. Surprisingly, in 1929, Land, at the age of 20, returned to Harvard to continue his research. And the head of the Harvard physics laboratory, Theodore Lyman, meets halfway and is given the laboratory at his disposal. The professor was so impressed with the achievements of the 20-year-old dropout student.

Polaroid is a word that Land at first absolutely disliked.

In 1937, already a successful entrepreneur Edwin Land founded the Polaroid company, specializing in optical technology. The term polaroid was first used by Professor Clarence Kennedy in 1934 when he talked about Land's work in the search for a material to polarize light. Land didn't like the word at first. He himself wanted to call the material he had invented epibollipolus (from the Greek words "flat" and "polarizer"). But Land's colleagues convinced him that K. Kennedy's easy-to-pronounce word was better for his invention.

During World War II, Polaroid became a major supplier of optics for the military - binoculars, night vision devices, periscopes and many other devices were supplied to the troops. Land also participated in the development of sophisticated military equipment. So, during the war, his company received a $ 7 million contract from the American government to develop an infrared guidance system for homing aircraft. By the way, the American military command appreciated Land's development. So, in 1944, all American pilots wore Polaroid goggles, similar to snorkeling masks, which provided excellent visibility.

Land's famous camera was inspired by a question from his daughter

After the end of the war, Land was finally able to fully do what he had long wanted - developing a camera that would combine the processes of photography and image processing. Edwin's invention was pushed by his three-year-old daughter while on holiday in Santa Fe in 1943. Land took a photo of her, and the girl was upset to learn that her father could not show her the resulting photo right now. Why? Instead of explaining to his daughter why this was not possible, Land asked himself the same question and very soon realized that his daughter's claim was absolutely correct. It is possible to create a camera that takes instant pictures.

The development of such a camera took at least three years - at first there were many military orders, and the very work on the search for new photographic material, which made it possible to obtain a photograph in a few tens of seconds, proceeded slowly. That work was somewhat reminiscent of Edison's search for a suitable material for a lamp filament. Remember Edison's famous quote about this: “I was not defeated. I just found 10,000 ways that don't work. " Land later also recalled that period of searching: “When coming up with something, it is important not to be afraid to fail. Scientists make great discoveries just because they hypothesize and experiment. Failure follows failure, but they don't give up until they get the results they want. "

By the way, among inventors by the number of registered patents, only Thomas Edison is ahead of Edwin Land - Edwin had about 600 of them.

Edwin did it. He made sure that the photosensitive surface in his camera was both film and photograph. For the first time, Land demonstrated his "instant" camera in February 1947 at a meeting of the American Optical Society. Those present were delighted. And on November 26, 1948, Land's revolutionary cameras went on sale under the name Polaroid Land Camera Model 95 and priced at $ 90. It was a lot of money for that time, but the first batch was sold out on the same day.

Here it is, the first Polaroid - the Land Camera Model 95:

Land made Americans fall in love with the art of photography

The first photographs taken by Land's camera were inferior in quality to those captured in the traditional way. And the cost of making a picture was higher, but that did not stop the Americans. Already in 1950, the millionth film roll was sold. At the same time, Land was constantly improving his cameras and films. They say that he was especially worried about the convenience of use, and he brought all the new experimental models home and saw how convenient it was for his wife and children to take photographs with them, load the film, and get a finished photograph.

Land's contribution to the popularization of photography cannot be overstated. Nowadays, thanks to the popular Instagram app, millions of people around the world are fascinated by mobile photography, and then Polaroid cameras were such a catalyst. Many of those who discovered the world of photography with the help of Polaroid later switched to professional cameras, became professional photographers. Almost every party and wedding in those days in the States was accompanied by photography, and photographs were handed to the outgoing guests as a keepsake. For those who were born in the USSR, it is not difficult to imagine. We had the same boom in instant photography, only much later. In the USSR, official sales of Polaroid cameras began in 1989.

In 1960s Polaroid was taught to take color photos and reduced the price of the camera to $ 20

In fact, work on color photographs began immediately after the very first camera models began to be sold. But the trial and error period took almost 15 years.

Another breakthrough product of that time was the Polaroid Swinger camera - it cost only $ 20, thanks to which, apparently, it became the most commercially successful product of the company. By the mid-1960s, about half of American families owned a Polaroid camera.

Polaroid Swinger:

The landmark, fully automatic, Polaroid SX-70 hit the market in 1972

The real breakthrough came in 1972 when the Polaroid SX-70 camera was introduced to the world, the same camera for which Land was patented in the summer of 1970. This was the first fully automated pocket camera. The photographer only had to load the cassette, point the lens and press the button. In a minute, the photo was ready. In comparison, we can say that it was the iPhone of its time - the most convenient camera.

Polaroid SX-70:

In previous Polaroid models, the photographer had to remove the negative layer from the photo themselves. Now the whole process of obtaining the image proceeded automatically: after pressing the trigger, the photograph left the camera and within a few minutes was fully developed. It is these automatic models that became widespread in the USSR in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Land himself commented on that model: "My main task was to create a camera that would become a part of you, which would always be with you." The model has become a landmark. Great sales, another boom in photography in the United States, a rapid rise in the company's share price. In the 1970s, Polaroid was one of the most successful companies in the world, and Edwin Land and his camera even appeared on the cover of the most popular Time magazine.

In the 1970s, Polaroid becomes an "aesthetic" event

Land tried to promote his products not only to the masses, but also among the artists. He said: "... The invention of instant photography is also an aesthetic event: it allowed people who see artistic value in the surrounding everyday world to get a new environment for self-expression." Check out how much this resonates with the philosophy of the photographic social network Instagram! In those years, exhibitions of Polaroid photographs taken by celebrities were organized. Polaroid is filming Andy Warhol, Helmut Newton ...

Edwin Land was the idol of Steve Jobs

This does not seem surprising. After all, Land has always strived to create the most convenient products for users, and from time to time created completely new products. Jobs adhered to the same philosophy. It is known that technical innovators knew each other and communicated. Steve Jobs especially remembered the phrase of his idol, said by Land at a meeting with him: “The world is like fertile soil waiting to be cultivated. It is necessary to plant seeds and harvest, which is what I am doing. "

In 1982, Edwin Land was forced to resign from his own company.

Polaroid top managers and shareholders were not happy with the way their boss was doing business, complained that he was using totalitarian methods, making all the key decisions himself. According to other Polaroid executives, Land held back the company's development: he refused to merge with other companies, was always negative about raising funds, did not give a penny to marketing research, and had little faith in marketing and advertising. As a result, under pressure from shareholders in 1975, Land was removed from the post of president of the company, then deprived of the post of chairman of the board of directors, and in 1982, 73-year-old Land was forced to resign.

Curiously, in 1985, Steve Jobs, during one of his speeches, said: “Dr. Edwin Land was a real rebel. He was kicked out of Harvard and founded Polaroid. He was not only one of the greatest inventors of his time. More importantly, he was able to see the intersection of art and science with business and created an organization in which this philosophy was embodied. Polaroid succeeded for several years, but later Dr. Land, one of the brilliant rebels, was forced to leave his own company. And this is one of the biggest nonsense that I have ever heard of in my life. " In 1985, Jobs himself was asked to leave the company he had created.

In 1985 Polaroid received a record-breaking payoff from Kodak.

The lawsuit between the two giants of the photo industry began after Eastman Kodak began developing its instant photography system in 1975. Then Polaroid lawyers filed a claim for infringement of the rights of the patent owner. The lawsuit lasted about a decade, but the Supreme Court of Appeal ultimately ruled that Kodak's conduct was wrong. The company had to scale back all of its instant photography development and pay out $ 925 million to Polaroid. In our time, something similar has happened between Apple and Samsung, which brings Land and Jobs closer together. Although by the time the lawsuit was over, Land hadn't worked for Polaroid for a long time.

Polaroid's 50th anniversary celebrations took place in 1987 without company founder E. Land

Land never returned to Polaroid. At that time, Land Ph.D. continued to work as a research assistant at the institute, and on March 1, 1991, at the age of 81, he passed away.

Polaroid itself only outlived its founder by a decade. The new management did not invest in developing digital photography. Soon, many people preferred digital cameras to Polaroid instant cameras. The growing popularity of express printing laboratories also played a role. People preferred to save money: it was cheaper to print photographs in the laboratory, the pictures were of higher quality and more durable, and the loss in time was no longer so significant. With too many loans, Polaroid filed for bankruptcy in October 2001.

Despite bankruptcy, the famous brand continued to exist

That company ceased to exist, but the brand did not die. In early 2009, a new company Polaroid introduced a digital camera equipped with a built-in color printer, the Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Camera. And in 2012, the company returned to the Russian market again - with digital instant cameras and a pocket printer. Let's hope that the famous brand that made the world fall in love with the art of photography in the middle of the last century will have a successful renaissance.

The world-famous company Polaroid has become famous for its developments in the production of sunglasses, household electronics and photographic equipment. Most people associate this company with cameras, which immediately after the creation of the frame printed the picture on paper. It was this type of cameras that made people shoot in droves.

Polaroid's popularity peaked in 1980-1990. Other participants in the photography technology race soon overtook Polaroid. There was even a period of time when the company declared itself bankrupt. Polaroid is currently reviving interest in instant photography.

Edwin Land

Founded by Edwin Land Polaroid. He was born in 1909 into a family that emigrated from Russia. From an early age, Edwin studied how kaleidoscopes work and experimented with light. After graduating from high school, the young researcher and inventor enters Harvard. As a student, Edwin comes up with an interesting idea for the sake of which he drops out of school.

Edwin began to study the principle of polarization and began to make polarizing filters that help dim light. Edwin Land received a patent for his invention and returned to Harvard in 1929. The head of the physics department was amazed at the invention of the young talent and provided him with a laboratory to study the principle of light polarization.

After a while, other research laboratories became interested in these filters. Edwin co-founded a company called Land-Wheelwright with his physics teacher George Whewright. The first customer was Kodak. Polarizing glass has been used as photo filters for cameras. The rights to the production of sunglasses using the new technology were also purchased by the American Optical Society. These two deals increased the capital of the firm and in 1937 Edwin Land founded a new corporation called Polaroid.

At first, Polaroid did not do anything related to photography. In 1939, an order was received from the American government for the development of homing shells. During World War II, binoculars, periscopes, night vision devices and optical devices for aerial reconnaissance were created.

Land Camera

After the war, the American government did not spoil Polaroid with orders, which means that it is necessary to develop a product for mass consumption by people. In 1944, Edwin Land began to think about creating a device that could take snapshots. This thought was prompted by his little daughter. She asked her father why it was impossible to immediately look at the photo taken. The concept of instant photography has been in development for three years.

In 1947, a new type of camera was presented at a meeting of the American Optical Society. There were special mechanisms in the chamber that pulled the film and applied reagents to it, which developed the image inside the device. An already finished photograph was pulled out. The quality of the pictures was lower than what was obtained in photo workshops, but the fact that it was unnecessary to waste time and effort to obtain the finished result made this device very attractive to the average user.

1948 was a big year for Polaroid. It was then that the first cameras went into retail. For them, special cassettes have been developed, which are easy to carry with you and install in the device. Such a camera was not cheap, but it was not considered a luxury item. This invention was aimed at the middle class. By 1950, the millionth pack of cassettes had been produced. It was a success.

The world of amateur photography has changed. At various holidays and millet parties, the Polaroid camera was used more and more often. This is very convenient, because the guests could immediately take their finished pictures with them. Photo labs became less and less popular.

Over time, instant photography began to be used by professional photographers as well. The first person to use Polaroid for creative work was the photographer Ansel Adams. After him, this trend was adopted by Andy Warhol, Helmut Newton and other famous creative personalities. Image quality has become the hallmark of Polaroid. The photographs had a very warm and pleasant film-like appearance.

SX-70 camera

In the 60s, another breakthrough took place. A new Polacolor film has been developed and launched on the market. It made it possible to obtain color photographs. Also, the improvement of the photographic equipment itself was carried out. Cameras began to decrease in size, the control mechanism changed and an exposure meter appeared.

1972 saw the introduction of the Polaroid SX-70 Land, the first fully automatic Polaroid device. The only two things the photographer now had to do was change cassettes and press the shutter button. The camera was not large in size. It was very convenient to carry it with you.

The image quality of the SX-70 was still inferior to that of conventional cameras, but people did not pay attention to this, as the joy of taking a snapshot made up for all the shortcomings. Edwin Land owned the rights to the snapshot technology, and when Kodak decided to market its snapshot devices, Polaroid squashed the venture with numerous lawsuits. Kodak was forced to leave this market.

A huge number of patents ensured the preservation of an absolute monopoly. Edwin Land said that his idea is exceptional and that the entire success of the company is based only on it. And only patents protect this idea.

Polaroid collapse

The mistake was made in the late 70s. At that time, Polaroid released a new device for receiving instant films. The camera was called Polavision.

The novelty did not have much success. The videos were very short and without sound. Recording on magnetic tape, which was being developed by many companies at that time, became much more widespread due to the presence of sound and higher quality. Polaroid has suffered losses. The videotape market eluded Edwin Land. He was so worried about this that he resigned and left the post of company manager. The end of the 90s was marked by the emergence of a new star - digital photography. This hit Polaroid the hardest, as they only developed film and were unable to enter the digital market.

At the beginning of the new century, Polaroid found itself on the margins of the photography market, as it was impossible to compete with digital photography, and Polaroid's own digital technologies were underdeveloped. The company's management turned out to be completely unprepared for changes. Polaroid nevertheless released digital cameras to the soybean market, but Japanese manufacturers had already taken a big step in this direction by then and it was impossible to catch up with them. People's interest in instant photography was waning, and digital technology excited the minds of the public.

Huge losses forced the firm to go into bankruptcy in 2001. Part of the company was taken over by the Imaging Corporation. In 2003, another attempt was made to return to the market. The company released a digital camera that also failed sales. Polaroid filed for bankruptcy five years later. The company has been restructuring for a long time and in 2009 another Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Camera was introduced. It had a built-in color printer that could print color pictures.

Any smartphone can now take an instant photo. A couple of touches and somewhere in another city, mom knows that you have eaten. But, despite this, hands reach for the good old Polaroids, which give out real analog photography with a pleasant grinding.

Interest in retro has touched all spheres. This is largely due to the fact that people born in the eighties and nineties have now reached the age "before the grass was greener" and they want to return to things that once left memories for a lifetime. These people are solvent today, and the marketing sharks cannot miss such a chance. Well, as for those born in the 2000s and nostalgic for the times in which they never lived ... Well, psychologists say that this is normal.

But there is something else here. Many changes imposed by tech companies have unfairly supplanted their ancestors. As the candy bar killed the clamshells, so the digital ousted the analog photo in the caste of fetishists. But there are prerequisites for the return of fashion to instant photography, especially in the general flow of retro fashion.

On such a favorable wave, the revival of the Polaroid Origins, which ceased operations in 2008, was announced. Entrepreneurs who have believed in the opportunity to return some of its former glory to Polaroid say that in today's digital world, there is an increasing demand for real things that exist outside the narrow confines of the smartphone. Austin Cleon, in his book Steal Like an Artist, described ten lessons of creativity, one of which dealt precisely with the juxtaposition of analogue and number.
Austin says "work with your hands."

It is important for the human brain to receive the result of its work. When an artist creates in an intangible space, the creativity can quickly dry up. This problem has yet to be solved by the evangelists of virtual and augmented reality.

History

The Polaroid company was founded by Edwin Land, the grandson of Russian émigrés and a Harvard graduate, in 1937. Basically, the company produced products with polarized coatings: sunglasses, table lamps, and others. During World War II, the company produced a range of products for the US military, including infrared night vision devices, gun scopes, and vectrographs. But cameras for instant photos began to be produced only 11 years later in 1948.

One day in 1943, while vacationing in Santa Fe, Land's three-year-old daughter Jennifer asked why she couldn't see the photo right after the shoot. It was this naive childish question that became the starting point for Land's work on a new type of film. Later, Land recalled that he put in his head all the conditions and components necessary for the implementation of the technology within an hour. It was then that he decided to take up the development of instant photography. It took five years to obtain a patent and implement the idea.

From 1943 to 1946, the development of the Polaroid instant camera was kept in secret. One of the main concerns was the strength of the cassette: to get to the end customer, it had to make its way from the conveyor, through warehouses, trucks, stores, bags and numerous crooked hands, while not cracking or deteriorating from impact or pressure. Not to mention temperature drops and other factors.

But a solution was found and on February 21, 1947, the first instant camera was introduced. And already in 1948, the first commercial model “Model 95” arrived in the central department store of Boston, which was capable of taking only pictures in gray shades and had an important limitation: it was necessary to wait exactly 60 seconds before peeling off the negative layer from the photo. Despite the fact that the quality of the camera did not surpass the existing systems, and the photographer required extreme care, the buyers were satisfied. The first batch was sold out in a matter of minutes.

True contrasting black and white (not gray and gray) Polaroid film came out two years later in 1950. The transition to black and white required additional manual soaking of the developed image using a polymer coating to prevent darkening of the photo. And already in 1957, the New York Times called instant photography equal in quality to the best works that came out of ordinary developing rooms.

Despite the unprecedented popularity of instant cameras, Land did not believe in marketing. He said that marketing is needed for notoriously bad products. His approach was this: you need to show people something new and unnecessary up to this point, so that by the end of the demonstration they irresistibly want to get this product. So he turned the annual meetings at Polaroid into a show of sorts. Land went up on stage, showed the new camera, talked about its capabilities. And by the end of the meeting, the audience simply dreamed of getting such a camera.

You may have noticed some similarities here with Apple's product presentations. Steve Jobs followed the development of Polaroid in his youth, and once even confirmed that Apple is based on the same business model. During the seventies and early eighties, he visited the Polaroid headquarters several times to chat with Land.

Polaroid production in the USSR

Polaroid cameras were assembled in the USSR, and then in Russia. In the 80s, during one of his business trips to the United States, the Soviet nuclear physicist, Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician Yevgeny Velikhov, at one of the meetings met with the then President of the Polaroid company McAlister Boof, and he suggested that he establish joint production in the USSR.

So, in 1989, at the initiative of the USSR Academy of Sciences, a joint venture Svetozor was organized, which over the next ten years produced the Supercolor 635CL and 636 Closeup models. These models did not differ functionally and differed only in the shape of the case. Production began with only a dozen pieces and two assemblers, the equipment was put on the conveyor, but at first there was no one to work. Two people alternately changed operations from assembly to testing.

It was originally planned to produce 350,000 cameras within six years, but five years later the company reported that production volumes reached two hundred thousand cameras per year. But this was not enough, because the sales of Polaroids assembled in the West on the territory of the former USSR reached one million pieces a year, not counting the lots produced by Svetozor.

By the way, not all components for assembly were delivered from abroad. For example, the electronic flash control unit was manufactured at the Signal plant in Obninsk, which was the only one, apart from the factories in Malaysia and Scotland, where they produced electronics for the Polaroid.

Our days, Impossible Project

In 2001, Polaroid filed for bankruptcy twice and was resold three times. It seemed that the era of Polaroid had come to an end. Still, there were enthusiasts who showed an interest in outdated photographs. And in 2009, the last Polaroid plant was bought by three entrepreneurs and named The Impossible Project. It can still be called experimental, but the project already has many supporters and admirers. And here it is worth remembering one more phrase by Edwin Land: “You don’t need to do what everyone can do”
Thanks to Impossible Project, in 2017, for the first time in a long time, a new camera came out with the familiar Polaroid inscription. It is called OneStep 2. The camera takes instant photos, it has a timer, flash and USB port for charging. The OneStep 2 has yet to go on sale, but is available for pre-order. The camera uses I-type film that was originally created for the original Impossible Project I-1 camera.

Since 2008, various companies have been able to obtain a license to use a patent for Polaroid technology. But in 2017, the parent company of Impossible Project bought out all of Polaroid's patents, as well as all intellectual property rights. What does all this mean? This means that soon it will be possible to buy a new Polaroid camera for only $ 99.

Technology

The desire of Land's daughter required not only the creation of a new type of film, but also a camera with a different mechanism for producing photography. The main element of the system was a film cassette containing both a negative and a positive receiving layer, connected by a reservoir with reagents (including sodium hydroxide) for development. This reservoir was called a cocoon. When leaving the chamber, a pair of rollers at the base of the chamber squeezed the film, destroying the wall of the reservoir, after which the reagent spread over the image area. As the reagents proliferated, the chemicals removed the non-illuminated silver halide from the negative, brought it to the positive layer in less quantity, creating the final image. And to this day, the process has not changed significantly.

The outside of the picture is protected with a transparent film.
Below is the fixer.
Below is the buffer layer. It delays the penetration of fixer substances while the reaction with the reagent takes place below.
The next is the receiving layer of paper, where the final positive image is formed from the dyes from the lower layers.
Under it is a reagent.
The next six layers are alternating emulsion layers and development ink layers.
Three emulsion layers are sensitive to red, green and blue colors. They work as negatives for layers of cyan, magenta, and yellow ink (or, in more familiar terms, cyan, magenta and yellow), making them transferable to paper. For example, a photograph of a blue sky will affect the blue emulsion, which will block all the yellow paint underneath, allowing the magenta and cyan layers to blend onto the positive surface, forming a blue color.

Video clip

In the format of an article, I prepared this Polaroid story for Giktimes, but initially we made a video, which we left below. It features voice-over with historical and technical illustrations and a slightly more advanced script.