Introduced in 1972 and invented by
Edwin Land, the
Polaroid SX-70 Land was the first mass market instant camera. It was also the first
SLR (Single-Lens Reflex) camera with a folding body. To quote Georg Holderied (a fellow
enthusiast) "The SX-70 is one of the most
sophisticated consumer articles ever made. It is the down to earth equivalent of the
Hubble space telescope."
The first
incarnation was chrome-plated
plastic with genuine leather trim. It was sleek when folded, a little smaller than a
Lean Cuisine frozen lasagna, but when opened resembled a
space insect. It had three sections; the top was a holder for the flash bar (like a
flash cube but it was bar shaped) and later (1976+) it was where the
sonar auto-focus cell was located, the middle held the
view-finder and
lens, and the bottom was where the picture was
spit out moments after you clicked the button. Later designs included the black with the blue button
Special Edition, the genuine brown "Porvair (looks like real wood!)"
Alpha, and the brown and white plastic
Model 2.
SX-70s were a huge
success and throughout the 70s were a common sight. Then in 1982 the first Polaroid 600 Series Instant Camera was introduced. It took cartridge style film but its shutter speed was four times faster so the film couldn't go into the SX-70. That, in combination with faster regular film processing times led families everywhere to throw away or sell their old SX-70s. You can still find them at
garage sales and
flea markets for under ten dollars (US).
The
interesting things about this camera are not limited to
history and
design, but also the very
pictures it takes. The
photo emulsions in the Polaroid Time Zero film are very soft for a short time after exposure. From the time the
photo slides out of the
slot there is ten minutes of exposure time - time enough to turn the picture into
a work of art. The picture is
manipulated using a variety of items including pen caps,
popsicle sticks, crochet hooks, clay modeling tools and
dental instruments. The pictures turn out to look like a mix between
photos and
watercolor paintings.
To see a few of these images to learn more about SX-70 image manipulation I recommend
The Hacker's Guide to the SX-70 at http://www.chemie.unibas.ch/~holder/SX70.html.