Instant camera

Polaroid Corporation pioneered (and patented) consumer-friendly instant cameras and film, and were followed by various other manufacturers.

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] Other brands such as Lomography, Leica, Fujifilm, and others have designed new models and features in their own takes on instant cameras.

Many different models of Polaroid and non-Polaroid instant cameras were introduced in the mid to late 20th century.

[4] It introduced the use of more efficient print technology that developed more instantly than previous film types offered, which cut out some of the user's responsibility and made it easier to use.

Captiva, Joycam, and Popshots (single use) cameras used a smaller 500 series film in rectangular format.

Polaroid also invented and manufactured an instant movie camera system called Polavision.

The biggest disadvantage of the Polavision system was the low film speed (ASA 40),[citation needed] which resulted in having to use very bright lights when taking the movie, as well as requiring a special player to view the developed movie.

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 photograph.

Kodak also lost the contract to manufacture Polaroid's negatives which subsequently took production in house.

Recently photographers tried to use Instax mini and square film inside the Kodak EK4 being somewhat successful and only being able to load one picture at a time in a darkroom.In more recent years, Fujifilm introduced a line of instant cameras and film in Japanese and Asian markets.

"Kid mode"[8] for example, will shoot photos at a faster shutter speed for capturing fast moving objects or people.

Fujifilm later introduced Instax Mini 8 and advertised as the "cutest camera" targeting young women and girls.

[1] In the late 1990s Fujifilm introduced a new series of cameras using a new film called Instax it was available in markets outside the US.

Two years later in 2021, it introduced another rangefinder camera, the InstantKon SF70, that uses Fuji instax square film.

They were also used by police officers and fire investigators because of their ability to create an unalterable instant photo.

Instant film also has been used in ways that are similar to folk art, including the transfer of the images/emulsion and image manipulation.

Script supervisors in film production used instant cameras (until superseded by digital cameras) as standard to aid visual continuity by photographing actors, sets or props, to take photographs that could be instantly referred to when a particular set or character's appearance needs to be reset and shot again, or recalled later due to reshoots or the out-of-sequence shooting schedule of a film or television production.

[4] Instead of having to use a darkroom to develop photographs, users were able to explore and document their world and experiences as they occurred.

[4] Instant cameras were portrayed by Polaroid as being able to combine the activities of both taking a photo and viewing one, into a singular past time.

Edwin Land's original idea behind instant photography was to create a photographic system that was seamless and easy for anyone to use.

To prevent fading, the black and white positive had to be coated with a fixing agent, a potentially messy procedure which led to the development of coaterless instant pack film.

After the required development time (15 seconds to 2 minutes), the positive (with the latent image) was peeled apart from the negative.

The camera and film did the rest, including adjusting the exposure settings, taking care of focusing (Sonar autofocus models only), utilising a flash if necessary (600 series and up), and ejecting the film, which developed without intervention from the photographer.

[4] Due to the way that instant film develops, several techniques to modify or distort the final image exist, which were utilized by many artists.

SX-70 manipulation is used with SX-70 Time Zero film and it allows the photographer to draw on or distort an image by applying pressure to it while it is developing.

Thus, he developed the series "autoentrevistas", a set of self-portraits in which he takes the place of a model in different circumstances.

John Reuter, the director of the Polaroid 20×24 camera studio, for years experimented with snapshot transfers.

In spite of this, their peculiar vision and the passage of time have turned these Polaroids into famous and interesting photographs from an artistic point of view.

Instant cameras featured prominently in the 2015 video game Life Is Strange in which the protagonist, Max Caulfield, frequently uses one.