Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: When was the Polaroid camera developed?
The invention of commercially viable instant cameras which were easy to use is generally credited to American scientist Edwin Land, who unveiled the first commercial instant camera, the model 95 Land Camera, in 1948, a year after unveiling instant film in New York City. The earliest instant camera, which consisted of a camera and portable wet darkroom in a single compartment, was invented in 1923 by Samuel Shlafrock.[1]
In February 2008, Polaroid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time and announced it would discontinue production of its instant films and cameras, shut down three manufacturing facilities, and lay off 450 workers.[3] Sales of the analog film by all makers dropped by at least 25% per year in the first decade of the 21st century. In 2009, Polaroid was acquired by PLR IP Holdings, LLC make which uses the Polaroid brand to market various products often relating to instant cameras. Among the products it markets are a Polaroid branded Fuji Instax instant camera, and various digital cameras and portable printers.
When Kodak announced instant film cameras in 1976, Polaroid announced they were suing them, accusing Kodak of having stolen its patented instant photography process. In the two years that followed the lawsuit, total sales of instant cameras climbed from 7.4 million cameras in 1976 to 10.3 million in 1977 and 14.3 million in 1978. The suit in federal court lasted 10 years. Polaroid asked for $12 billion for infringements of its patents by Kodak. The court ruled in favor of Polaroid, and ordered Kodak to cease instant picture production, plus pay Polaroid $909.5 million of the $12 billion it had asked for.
Polaroid Originals is a Dutch photography company and manufacturer founded in 2008 by Florian Kaps, André Bosman and Marwan Saba. It manufactures its own cameras, the Impossible I-1, the OneStep 2, the OneStep+, modelled on the original Polaroid OneStep Land Camera, the i-Type instant film for both original cameras, and instant film for select original Polaroid instant cameras.
MiNT Camera is a company specializing in the Polaroid instant film cameras and its accessories. Founded in 2009, it provides products and services for instant photography. Its principal activities are the refurbishment and repair of Polaroid cameras, with two MiNT Polaroid Warranty Centers located in Causeway Bay and Kwun Tong, Hong Kong. MiNT Camera has partnered with Impossible Project, a manufacturer of instant photographic materials.
The original cameras folded into the body and used bellows to protect the light path. The film was put on two spools, one with the negative roll, and one with the positive paper and reagent pods. The film developed inside the camera. The exception to this is the Polaroid Swinger, a hard bodied roll film camera whose film was pulled out of the camera body to develop outside the camera. The film for rollfilm cameras was discontinued in 1992.
The Impossible Project was founded in 2008 after Polaroid announced in February 2008 that it would stop producing film for Polaroid cameras. The founders are Florian Kaps, André Bosman and Marwan Saba. In June 2008, Kaps and Bosman met at the Polaroid factory’s closing event and decided to found a company to produce materials for Polaroid cameras. In October 2008, Impossible bought the production machinery from Polaroid for $3.1 million and leased a building, called Building Noord, which was formerly part of the Polaroid plant in Enschede, Netherlands. The company has offices in Vienna, Berlin, New York and Tokyo. It leased the Polaroid production plant and developed new instant film products for use in some existing Polaroid cameras, beginning mass production and sales in 2010. They generated USD270,000 in profit on USD4 million in revenue and sold 500,000+ units.
Polaroid cameras can be classified by the type of film they use. The earliest Polaroids (pre-1963) used instant roll film. Roll film came in two rolls (positive/developing agent and negative) which were loaded into the camera and was eventually offered in three sizes (40, 30, and 20 series). The next generation of Polaroid cameras used 100 series "pack film," where the photographer pulled the film out of the camera, then peeled apart the positive from the negative at the end of the developing process. Pack film initially was offered in a rectangular format (100 series), then in square format (80 series). Third generation Polaroids, like the once popular SX-70, used a square format integral film, in which all components of the film (negative, developer, fixer, etc.) were contained. Each exposure developed automatically once the shot was taken. SX-70 (or Time Zero) film had a strong following with artists who used it for image manipulation.
In 1972, integral film was introduced which did not require the user to time the development or peel apart the negative from the positive. This process was similar to Polacolor film with added timing and receiving layers. The film itself integrates all the layers to expose, develop, and fix the photo into a plastic envelope commonly associated with a Polaroid photo. The Polaroid SX-70 was the first camera to use this film.
The Polaroid SX-70, while popular when released, was considered expensive at a cost of $180. Thus, Polaroid created cheaper alternatives: rigid plastic Pronto, and the OneStep series. With a release price of $40 (), the Land Camera 1000 became the best-selling camera of the 1977 Christmas shopping season. Later, Polaroid released Type 600 integral series cameras, utilizing the same film format and cartridge but with a different film formulation.
There are four generations of folding colorpack cameras: the 100, the 200, the 300, and 400 series. Polaroid announced in 2008 the discontinuation of all of its film by 2009, and Fujifilm stopped producing pack film in 2016. Polaroid Originals manufactures and sells Polaroid integrative type film for 600/SX-70/Spectra Image cameras.
In Japan, Fujifilm introduced their own line of instant photographic products in 1981 starting with the "Fotorama" line of cameras. The name Fotorama came from photograph and panorama, as the film was a wide format compared to the square Polaroid SX-70/600 films. These Integral films developed similar to Kodak's with the back layer first. This presented a major problem for Fujifilm because of the ongoing litigation between Kodak and Polaroid. Polaroid also has a separate suit with Fujifilm and their instant film patents in Japan. When Kodak lost, Fujifilm was able to work with Polaroid to allow their cameras and films to remain in the market, provided that they have a technology sharing agreement. Polaroid was interested in branching out to magnetic media in the boom of the videotape era and had acquired a company called MagMedia Ltd. Fujifilm has a long history in magnetic media dating to the mid-1950s. This led to Polaroid having access to Fujifilm's extensive electronic, video tape and floppy disc magnetic products. This allowed Fujifilm access to Polaroid's film technology.
Kodak's EK and Kodamatic series cameras accepted a Kodak developed integral instant film, similar to but incompatible with Polaroid's SX-70 film. The film was chemically similar to Polaroid's with the exception that the negative was exposed from the rear and the dye/developers diffused to the front of the photogragh. This alleviated the need for a mirror to reverse the image before it struck the negative.
Screenshot kits were available for standard (film) cameras that included a long antireflective hood to attach between the screen and camera lens, as well as a closeup lens for the camera. Polaroid film was popular for capturing screenshots, because of the instant results and close-focusing capability of Polaroid cameras. In 1988, Polaroid introduced Spectra film with a 9.2 × 7.3 image size more suited to the 4:3 aspect ratio of CRT screens.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Lindroth worked in the Polaroid Artists Program using the Polaroid SX-70 camera and later the Polaroid 20x24. Her first ever solo museum show was at the Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey, in 1986, of work done with the Polaroid 20x24 camera. Lindroth produced a series of three limited edition portfolios entitled TRIPTYCH I, II, III of Polaroid 20x24 images, copies of which are in the High Museum of Art and the Newark Museum. Other Polaroid work was exhibited in Canada and in the WestLicht_Schauplatz für Fotografie, Vienna.
In general large format camera use, the scene is composed on the camera's ground glass, and then a film holder is fitted to the camera back prior to exposure. A separate Polaroid back using instant film is used by some photographers, allowing previewing of the composition, correctness of exposure and depth of field before committing the image to film to be developed later. Failure to "Polaroid" an exposure risks discovery later, at the time of film development, that there was an error in camera setup.
In 1947, Polaroid introduced its first consumer camera. The Land Camera Model 95 was the first camera to use instant film to quickly produce photographs without developing them in a laboratory. The popular Model 95 and subsequent Land Cameras required complex procedures to take and produce good photographs. Photographic paper had to be manually removed from cameras, peeled open after 60 seconds, needed several minutes to dry, and often left developing chemicals on hands. The instructions for the Model 20 Swinger, introduced in 1965, warned that, if not followed, "you’re headed for plenty of picture taking trouble".
When the original Polaroid Corporation was declared bankrupt in 2001, its brand and assets were sold off. The "new" Polaroid formed as a result, and itself declared bankruptcy in 2008, resulting in a further sale and in the present-day Polaroid Corporation. In May 2017, the brand and intellectual property of the Polaroid corporation were acquired by the largest shareholder of the Impossible Project, which had originally started out in 2008 by producing new instant films for Polaroid cameras. The Impossible Project was renamed Polaroid Originals in September 2017.
While conventional cameras were becoming more refined and sophisticated, an entirely new type of camera appeared on the market in 1948. This was the Polaroid Model 95, the world's first viable instant-picture camera. Known as a Land Camera after its inventor, Edwin Land, the Model 95 used a patented chemical process to produce finished positive prints from the exposed negatives in under a minute. The Land Camera caught on despite its relatively high price and the Polaroid lineup had expanded to dozens of models by the 1960s. The first Polaroid camera aimed at the popular market, the Model 20 Swinger of 1965, was a huge success and remains one of the top-selling cameras of all time.
The lyric "shake it like a Polaroid picture", along with the song's commercial success, helped to revitalize the Polaroid Corporation. Because current Polaroid film is sealed behind a clear plastic window, casually waving the picture has no effect on the film's development. Vigorously shaking the film may actually distort the image by causing the film to separate prematurely and creating blobs in the final image. Nevertheless, Polaroid sought to capitalize on the allusion, hiring Ryan Berger of the Euro RSCG advertising agency. Polaroid sponsored parties for OutKast at which Euro RSCG distributed Polaroid cameras.
This is a list of the instant cameras sold by the Polaroid Corporation. Cameras are ordered by type.
As noted above, Polaroid Originals (previously the Impossible Project) produces instant film for Polaroid cameras. In spring 2016, as Impossible Project they released their own instant camera, the Impossible I-1 that uses the company's 600-type and I-Type films.[11] In September 2017, now renamed Polaroid Originals, it announced the Polaroid OneStep 2 that also uses its 600-type and I-Type films.[12][13][14]
After Land's instant camera invention was brought to market in 1948, a few different instant cameras were developed, some using Polaroid-compatible film such as cameras by Keystone, Konica, and Minolta. Others were incompatible with Polaroid cameras and film, the most notable of these being made by Kodak, such as the EK series and Kodamatic cameras.
The Land Camera is a model of self-developing film camera manufactured by Polaroid between 1948 and 1983. It is named after their inventor, Edwin Land, who developed a process for self-developing photography between 1943 to 1947. After Edwin Land's retirement from Polaroid, the name 'Land' was dropped from the camera name. The first commercially available model was the Model 95, which produced sepia-colored prints in about 1 minute. It was first sold to the public on November 26, 1948.
The Swinger used Polaroid's 20-Series roll film, which was the first Polaroid roll film to develop outside the camera.