Edwin Land(1909-1991), world famous and probably the most prolific inventor of the 20th century. By the time he retired in 1982, he held 537 US patents for his inventions, which were also patented in other countries. In the history of invention, only Thomas Edison managed to get more patents. Land's most famous inventions relate to the field of devices and technologies based on the phenomenon of light polarization. The phenomenon itself has been mentioned in the scientific literature since 1812, but Land was a pioneer in its technological implementation. The inventions of Land are based on the Polaroid camera and the technological process instant black-and-white and color images on photo paper. Although Land's primary area of interest was optics and various areas of its technical application (cinema, communications technology, medicine, etc.), the range of his inventive creativity is unusually wide and captures the chemistry and technology of manufacturing various materials.
Land was not only one of the greatest inventors of our time, but also an avid entrepreneur. Having founded the Polaroid company in the mid-1930s, he was chairman of the board of shareholders, president and chief engineer of this company for 40 years. Huddled in a Cambridge garage, the firm had grown into a $1,400 million corporation by the early 1980s. He was one of the first industrialists who realized the importance of scientific groundwork for the successful development of an industrial corporation. In 1980, Land founded a nonprofit research organization, the Rowland Institute of Science, with a gift of several million dollars. After parting with Polaroid, he went to this institute researcher. The institute has recently become famous for developing instruments and technologies for laser microscopy, which makes it possible to manipulate single-celled organisms.
As an inventor and expert who headed the secret intelligence committee under President D. Eisenhower, Land made a significant contribution to the development of reconnaissance satellites, which since 1960 began to regularly deliver pictures from orbit to Earth.
The following details are interesting. Land did not have a degree in higher education. He first studied at the Norwich Academy (Connecticut), and subsequently entered Harvard University twice, but in 1932 left him just one semester before completing the full course. Already on the student bench, he proved himself to be a brilliant student capable of research work. Then he became deeply interested in the polarization of light, created his first invention - a lens for car headlights, which prevents glare from oncoming drivers. These lenses began to be produced by the small company he founded in 1932, Land-Wheelwright Laboratories, co-owned by Wheelwright of Harvard University. After its liquidation in 1937, Land founded Polaroid. The term "Polaroid" was first coined in 1934 by a professor who studied with Land's wife, and this name was given to a highly polarized material produced by Land-Wheelwright Laboratories.
The task of creating a camera that instantly produces a photograph was suggested to Land in 1943 by his three-year-old daughter, who asked during a walk why he could not give her a picture that he had just taken. Land later wrote that during this walk, he thought hard about this problem for an hour and found a fundamental solution related to the interaction of the three main components of the process and the camera. However, it took years of purposeful work to bring the inventive concept to practical implementation. In 1947, he demonstrated a prototype, and from 1948 it began industrial production. By the mid-1960s, about half of American households owned a Polaroid camera. The color instant photographic system was developed by Polaroid in 1959, but it did not enter the market until 1963.
Not everything that Land invented and implemented was commercially successful. The Polaroid Company suffered heavy losses as a result of the lack of marketing of technically successful developments in the field of instant film technology and systems. Losses from one of these developments, Half Vision, ousted from the market in 1979, amounted to more than $ 68 million. Land was forced to leave one after another his leadership positions and in 1982 leave the company he created and glorified. However, this did not break him.
In conclusion - a few touches that characterize Land as a person. Everyone who knew him notes that communication with him immediately felt like a meeting with an extraordinary mind. But he knew how to behave in such a way that the interlocutor often felt himself equal to him, for Land had the gift of quickly understanding a person, mentally standing on his place, seeing the problem under discussion through his eyes. One of the rules of conduct that Land followed in his work was never to accept as immutable what everyone knows and what everyone believes. He had the ability to quickly delve into the essence of any subject, accurately pose questions penetrating the problem, and often grasp a new subject differently and deeper than recognized specialists. He knew how to inflame people with ideas, and more than once it happened that on general meetings he blinded shareholders with news of new inventions, sometimes prematurely. He himself worked extraordinarily hard and was a demanding, tough leader, sometimes too tough. He was stubborn, impervious to criticism, and firmly pursued his line, even if it led to financial disasters. He was more interested in science and technical side affairs. His numerous aphorisms were called "landisms". Here is one of them: "Don't do what anyone else can do."
The Boston Globe editorial said of him: “Edwin Land belonged to a brilliant group of scientists, innovators, developers, and business executives who turned ideas into reality to enrich our culture and economy at the same time. The obvious legacy of Edwin Land may be his camera and the corporation that makes it. But his greatest contribution was a vivid demonstration of how to melt imagination, education, science, and industry into vital human activities.”
Edwin Herbert Land (1930s).
In 1883, after the accession to the throne of Alexander III, the persecution of Jews began in Russia. It was then that the whole Land family: grandfather Abraham Solomonovich, grandmother Ella, uncles Sam and Louis and his father Harry - emigrated from Odessa to America. The enterprising grandfather started own business for the purchase and processing of scrap metal. On May 7, 1909, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Harry Land and his wife Matha Goldfagen had a son, the future world-famous inventor, who was named Edwin. In the family, the boy was called Din (Din), because younger sister Helen couldn't pronounce Edwin's full name. This short nickname remained with Land for the rest of his life - both friends and business partners called him that. From a young age, Edwin experimented a lot with light, kaleidoscopes and stereoscopes, and often ran to the local library to gawk at the telescope installed there. And once, in a fit of curiosity, he disassembled his father's phonograph into parts, for which he was flogged by a strict parent. At the age of thirteen, his parents sent Edwin to a summer camp near Norwich, Connecticut. There he saw an experiment demonstrating the decomposition of a light beam into a spectral beam using a glass pyramid made of Icelandic spar. This event greatly influenced and determined Land's further sphere of interests. At this age, Edwin first read a textbook on optical physics by the famous scientist Robert Williams Wood, and this book replaced the Bible for him for many years. At school, Edwin gave special preference to the natural sciences. After graduation, the boy's parents paid for tuition at Harvard University. However, a few months later, Land unexpectedly dropped out of the university. It seemed to him that studying at Harvard only fettered his scientific initiative; Land felt that he was ready to make discoveries - and he knew exactly in what area. The direction of research was suggested by life itself. One night, when Edwin was thirteen, he was awakened by a terrible noise. It was a collision between a car and a farm van. As an adult, Land thought a lot about this case: how to make headlights powerful, but at the same time their light does not blind drivers of oncoming cars? The decision was made: to make polarizing filters with which it would be possible to "dim" the bright light. The problem was in the material. After a series of experiments, Land settled on plastic, which, as a result of appropriate processing, acquired the necessary properties. So Edwin Land invented polarizing lenses for car headlights that illuminated the road without blinding oncoming cars. In 1929, having perfected the invention and received his first patent, Edwin Land triumphantly returned to Harvard University. The results of his work so impressed Theodore Lyman, head of the Department of Physics, that he gave the promising student a separate laboratory for research. And in 1932, Land himself led seminars on the polarization of light - an unprecedented honor for a man who had not yet received a diploma. However, despite the persuasion of his colleagues, Land did not aim for a scientific degree, but tried to realize his second talent as an entrepreneur. Working with physics professor George Wheelwright, he founded the Land-Wheelwright Company. Her task was to commercialize the invention, which by that time had become interested in the research laboratories of such giants as General Motors, General Electric and Eastman Kodak. As for academic degrees, in 1957 Harvard did make Land an honorary doctorate. In the 1930s, Edwin Land began to collaborate with lawyer Donald Brown, which lasted more than 40 years. Patent law was considered Brown's strong point, thanks to which all Land's ideas were surrounded by an indestructible wall of patents, which excluded the possibility of any copying of inventions. In 1934, Kodak became the first customer of the new company to decide to use Land's polarizers as filters for cameras. AT next year American Optical Company bought a license from Land-Wheelwright to manufacture sunglasses. Edwin Land has always been creative in promoting his inventions. A fan of personal presentations, to sell his polarizing filters, Land rented a hotel to meet with top executives from the American Optical Company, placed an aquarium with a goldfish on the windowsill, and when the guests arrived, handed each a polarizing plate. The trick was that on a sunny day, due to the glare, the goldfish inside the aquarium was not visible, but with the help of a polarizing plate, top managers could immediately see it. Impressed guests immediately agreed to invest in this idea. Already in the late 1930s, the first pair of glasses was sold. In 1937, with the proceeds, Land was able to transform his company into the Polaroid Corporation. The term polaroid was first used by Professor Clarence Kennedy in 1934 when he talked about Land's work to find a material that polarizes light. Land didn't like the word at first. He himself wanted to call the material he invented epibollipol (epibollipol, from the Greek words for “flat” and “polarizer”). But Land's colleagues convinced him that the easy-to-pronounce word polaroid was a better fit for his invention. Initially, Polaroid did not deal with cameras, releasing sunglasses, polarizing glasses for various purposes for civilian devices and military equipment. Demand grew, and soon Polaroid products crossed the borders of Europe and Asia. 1939 marked new stage development of a young company. Polaroid received $7 million from the US government to develop homing projectiles. Defense work continued during the Second World War. Polaroid launched the production of night vision devices, periscopes, binoculars, aerial reconnaissance devices and other similar equipment. In 1944, all military pilots received new Polaroid glasses. The lenses of these goggles, similar to a large windshield, were made of unbreakable plastic. They provided excellent visibility and protected the pilots' eyes from hypothermia and flashes of fire. In 1944, Land took a vacation with his three-year-old daughter Jennifer in Santa Fe, where they took a lot of pictures on walks. And once the girl asked her father why she could not immediately look at the finished photograph. Within an hour, Edwin Land had outlined the concept of instant photography.
It took about three years to bring the idea to life. The search for a new photographic material, which made it possible to obtain a photograph in a few tens of seconds, progressed slowly and was somewhat reminiscent of the search for a suitable material for an incandescent lamp filament by Edison. Edison himself put it this way: "I didn't fail. I just found 10,000 ways that don't work." Land later also recalled that period of research: “When inventing something, it is important not to be afraid to fail. Scientists make great discoveries only because they put forward hypotheses and conduct experiments. Failure follows failure, but they do not stop until they achieve the results they achieve. they need." He achieved that the photosensitive surface acted both as a film and as a photograph. In February 1947, Land demonstrated a prototype of the new camera at a meeting of the American Optical Society. The essence of the invention was as follows: after exposure, the film was rolled between special rollers, with the help of which reagents were applied to it for developing and fixing the image. It was removed from the camera ready for printing. The inventor always paid special attention to the convenience of using the device he invented. They say that before launching the next camera model into production, he brought it home and showed it to his wife and children - in order to make sure that even housewives could load a film or cassette on their own and take a normal picture. In 1948, the production of Polaroid Land 95 cameras was launched, which immediately after shooting produced a finished picture. In addition, the company also released special cassettes for them. The cassette contained photographic material or a combination of photographic materials and reagents resulting in a paper-based positive image. A picture taken by the first Polaroid cameras cost a lot - $ 1. At that time, this was very decent money, for example, a classic hamburger cost several times cheaper. And although the time for cheap shots has not yet come, the realization of the idea of instant photography brought huge popularity to the company, which has since been called the "factory of inventions". The Land 95 first went on sale on November 26, 1948 at the Jordan March department store in Boston. It cost $89.75. Land deliberately did not exceed the threshold of $100. Land considered the main consumer group to be the middle class, which, after the war, willingly spent money on entertainment and goods of this kind.
The calculation turned out to be correct: the cameras were a huge success in the market. The very next year, Polaroids were sold for more than $9 million, and in 1950 the millionth roll of film was bought. It was easy to buy a Polaroid, it was sold almost "at every corner". The invention of Edwin Land changed the style of parties, weddings and other celebrations in America in many ways. Now each guest could take his own set of pictures from the festival - instead of waiting weeks or even months for the hosts to send him a photo.
In 1958, Polaroid opened its first foreign offices in Canada and West Germany, then the company's branches appeared in the UK, France, Italy, Japan, and in 1989 even in the USSR, isolated by the Iron Curtain. In 1963, the company released the first camera, which makes it possible to receive color images immediately. Research into a color photo printing system began at the same time as the very first cameras that produced instant black-and-white shots began to be sold, and it wasn't until almost 15 years later that Polaroid employees were able to achieve success. Released in 1965, the Polaroid Swinger camera marked the next round in the popularity of instant photography. Since the Polaroid Swinger only cost $20, it quickly became the company's most commercially successful product. By the mid-1960s, about half of American households were using Polaroid cameras.
Polaroid 20 (Swinger) (1965)
In 1968, the Japanese company Mikami developed the Speed Magny 100 instant photo back for the first SLR Nikon cameras series F. The long optical path "ate" about 5 steps of light, so a shutter speed of 1/250s corresponded to 1/8s. The Speed Magny design completely replaced the standard camera back. The device used the standard Polaroid 8.5 x 10.8 cm format, including 669, 665 P / N and 679. Similar devices were developed for almost all popular brands, such as Hasselblad, Mamiya and others. Speed Magny instant backs were discontinued in the early 80s.
Ten years later, in 1978, Polaroid itself, together with the Japanese Mamiya, launched the Polaroid 600 SE model, developed on the basis of the Mamiya Press model. The 6x9 medium format camera Mamiya Press had a design based on a modular principle: not only the lens was interchangeable, but also the back. One version of the case, equipped with a back for instant photography, was sold on the market under the Polaroid brand.
The invention of instant photography Edwin Land tried to make part of modern art. He convinced famous photographers of his time to use Polaroid cameras. The most famous lover of instant photography was the famous Andy Warhol. True, thanks to Warhol, "Polaroid" pictures became rather scandalous - one of Warhol's hobbies, who was considered a real Polaroid "addict", was to photograph in the "nude" style of guests who came to him. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has begun collecting and exhibiting the famous Polaroid Photography Collection, which currently has about 20,000 works. After instant photography became affordable from a financial point of view, all forces were thrown into automating the process. The real breakthrough came in 1972. The world was introduced to the Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera, the first fully "motorized" model. In previous Polaroid cameras, the photographer had to remove the negative layer from the photo himself. Now the whole process of obtaining an image proceeded automatically: after pressing the shutter button, the photograph left the camera and fully developed within a few minutes. The first presentation of the SX-70 took place on April 25, 1972 at the annual meeting of Polaroid shareholders. Edwin Land came on stage and, lighting his pipe, began his speech with the words: "After today photography will never be the same again."
In 1972, Land, with a camera in his hands, was photographed on the cover of Life magazine, in which there was an article dedicated to the release of the new Polaroid SX-70 camera. The article was titled: "Instant Karma: Edwin Land and His 'Magic..." which means: "Instant Karma: Edwin Land and His Magic...". In June of the same year, on the cover of another popular magazine - Time. In the issue in the "Marketing" section there was an article "Polaroid's Big Gamble on Small Cameras", which can be translated as "The Big Polaroid Game in the Small Camera Market". The company invited the popular actor Sir Laurence Olivier to advertise the camera. This was his first and last advertising campaign. The model expected a resounding success, to which Wall Street immediately responded: the corporation's shares grew 90 times over the year, which allowed Polaroid to enter the Nifty Fifty - the rating of the 50 most attractive companies for investors. In the 1970s, Polaroid became one of the most successful companies in the world.
Since then, the number of models has become more and more, the price for them and consumables - ever lower. In the 70s - 80s, Polaroid became a truly "folk" camera, which is remembered with nostalgia by all of America and most of the world. The model became a milestone, provoking another boom in photography. Land himself commented on the work on the creation of the Polaroid SX-70: "My main task was to create a camera that would become a part of you, which would always be with you." The most famous model of the SX-70 family, developed in 1977, was the 1000 OneStep camera, which for the first time appeared in the design of the proprietary right button. Built on the technology of the SX-70 and using the same film format, the camera embodied a new cost-cutting strategy. The company's engineers sought to develop mass-produced goods, not a futuristic marvel. The OneStep camera used a fixed focus lens, which forced the photographer to shoot from a distance of four steps. Instead of the previous hull finish genuine leather plastic with a cheerful rainbow stripe was used. The design of the series became legendary and formed the basis for the presentation of the image of Polaroid. At the origins of the corporate identity was designer Paul Giambarba, who joined the Polaroid team in 1958 to develop a new visual brand. It was necessary to separate the Polaroid products from the Kodak goods that flooded the retail shelves. One of the conditions put forward by Edwin Land is the presence of a dominant white color. This is how a simple, beautiful and unique visual language was developed.
Supercolor 1000/Polatronic 1 (1977).
In April 1976, Eastman Kodak tried to circumvent patent restrictions and introduced its first Kodak EK4 instant camera. It was an aborted project, driven in part by Kodak's fear. The success of the SX-70 series cameras was so resounding that it really could define the future of photography. Two years later, an automatic version was released - Kodak EK6. Kodak cameras had a vertically oriented body with a complex optical path that used a system of internal mirrors. Then came the Kodak EK 100 version, which had a slightly different body design. The series was also produced under a different name Colorburst. The cameras of the PLEASER and HANDLE series had a simpler design: now the future image was located in the focal plane. The entry of a competitor into the instant photography market, which almost single-handedly created Polaroid, ended the serene relationship between the companies. Kodak was much more than Polaroid. The giant had unlimited resources at its disposal. But Kodak cameras were clunky, unattractive, and heavy. Polaroid cameras weighed almost half as much and had bold design and innovative technical solutions. Land was not shy about admitting that the patent wall that lawyers built around his inventions made Polaroid a monopoly. This right to a monopoly was successfully defended by Polaroid for many years in litigation with various plagiarists. So Edwin Land took up the challenge, and six days after Kodak announced its instant photography camera, filed a patent infringement suit, responding with another aphorism: "The only thing that keeps us alive is our exclusivity. And the only thing that protects our exclusivity, - patents. By then, Kodak had already sued Polaroid for violating antitrust laws. It took five years for Polaroid's lawsuit against Kodak to go to court. Four years later, a verdict was issued that found that Kodak had infringed on seven Polaroid patents. Kodak was forced to stop manufacturing its instant photography cameras. A ban was also imposed on the release of films for already sold Kodak cameras. In July 1991, four months after Land's death, Kodak paid Polaroid $925 million in damages, a record amount for such a claim. Experts estimated the possible amount of compensation from $2 billion to $16 billion.
The course of this patent war was followed with particular interest in the Japanese company FujiFilm, since a lawsuit was also brought against them. The FujiFilm Fotorama camera largely copied the Kodak design, and had the same form factor. The Japanese company understood that Polaroid would not sell a license. As a result, an agreement was reached on the exchange of technologies: Polaroid began to produce VHS cassettes and Floppy discs, using many years of development in the field of magnetic media of the Japanese concern, and FujiFilm got the opportunity to further develop instant photography technology under own brand. Under the terms of the agreement, FujiFilm products were only available in the Asian market and in selected countries like Canada and Australia, while the largest markets in the US and Europe were closed to them under the terms of the agreement for the duration of the Polaroid patent. In 1998, Polaroid's US patent expired and FujiFilm introduced its new line of Instax instant photography cameras. After the end of the monopoly in the instant photography market, the shares of the American company fell by 44%. Before the bankruptcy of Polaroid remained 3 years.
In 1978, Polaroid collaborated with the Japanese company Mamiya to release the Polaroid 600 SE. Such cooperation was beneficial for both parties: the Japanese Mamiya did not claim the instant photography market, and Polaroid marked its presence in the professional photography segment.
SX-70 Time-Zero Model 2 (1978). 
Polaroid One Step 600 (1983). 
Polaroid Spirit 600 (1988).
From 1977 to 1979, Polaroid also produced Polavision Super 8 reversible film, and from 1983 Polachrome 35mm reversible film. In the second half of the 1980s, a new family of single-stage photoprocess cameras, the Polaroid Impulse, came out. The line was represented by three models, differing only in focusing (focusing). The Polaroid Impulse model was equipped with a hard-wired lens focused at a hyperfocal distance of 1.2 meters to infinity. In the Polaroid Impulse Portrait model, it was possible to change the minimum focusing distance from 0.6 to 1.2 m. When the attachment lens was extended, a frame with a visible oval appeared in the viewfinder's field of view. In this oval, when sighting, a person's face was observed. The Portrait inscription was not applied to every body of the camera, but the presence of an extension lens extension key was a distinguishing feature. The Polaroid Impulse Autofocus (Polaroid Impulse AF) camera was equipped with autofocus. After preliminary pressing the shutter release button, focusing occurred, which was signaled by light and sound signals, after which, by pressing the button to the end, it was possible to take a sharp photograph. In the USSR, instant photography peaked in the 1980s and 1990s. The production of Polaroid cameras was launched at the Svetozar plant. The Polaroid 635 CL and Polaroid 636 Closeup models were produced with a frame size of 78 x 79 mm. The shutter was of the central type. The uncoated lens (14.6/109) was made of optical plastic. The focus was set to hyperfocal distance. Exposure - automatic. The built-in flash was on a swing arm. The viewfinder is parallax, optical. Case material - shock-resistant plastic. The flash was charged after moving from the transport position to the working position. The light green LED was lit when the camera was ready for use. The shutter would not fire without the flash being fully charged. The automatic frame counter showed the number of shots remaining. For photographs with a wider format of 9.2 x 7.3 cm, there was a rather rare in the USSR, but still quite well-known model - Polaroid Impulse, made not in the form of a familiar "clamshell", but in a single body with a pop-up flash.
Polaroid Impulse Portrait (1988). 
In 1983, the Konica Instant Press camera entered the Japanese market, which a year later began to be sold outside of Japan. It was the first successful copy of the Polaroid 195. The Konica Instant Press camera provided decent professional quality and was a good commercial success. The camera was equipped with an instant photo back. The film format used was Polaroid CB103 standard, which produced a 3 ¼ × 4 ¼" image size. The camera was equipped with an excellent Hexanon 110mm f/4.0 lens, the Copal shutter worked from 1 second to 1/500, and T-and-B, setting exposure was only in manual mode.The minimum distance to the subject is 0.6m.This is much closer than the professional Polaroid models (180, 190,195), which had this figure of 1.3m.Also closer than the Fuji FOTORAMA FP- 1 - 0.8m The mid-20th century Konica Instant Press's ergonomic design allows the lens to fold into a rugged housing.
In the late 1970s, Polaroid attempted to make another breakthrough by launching the Polavision system, an instant movie device, on the market. The Polavision kit included a camera, an instant reel cartridge, and a desktop viewing screen. The result of Polavision's work was two-minute-forty-second silent films. The Polavision system was expected to fail. Just ten years ago it would have been a miracle. But at that time, the technology of video recording on magnetic media turned out to be more promising and interesting for the mass consumer, since it provided the possibility of fixing sound, and the length of the video had no restrictions. Polaroid suffered significant losses and was forced to admit defeat in this market segment. Edwin Land, who turned 68 a couple of weeks after Polavision was unveiled, believed passionately in the new technology and hoped to replicate the success of the SX-70. He took his defeat keenly and did not resist his resignation as president of Polaroid. Land ran the company on his own principles. He did not recognize mergers, which at the end of the 20th century became one of the ways to stay on the market in the conditions of the development of new technologies, he believed that only earned money should be invested, and not borrowed, he did not put a penny marketing research and had little faith in marketing and advertising. The management style was based on the colossal authority of the inventor. After retiring, Land watched his offspring without any emotion. The design of cameras has undergone, as it may seem at first glance, small changes - the inscription "Land camera" has disappeared. It was a sign of great disrespect to the creator of Polaroid, who, disillusioned with the new management of the company, sold all his shares and even refused to attend the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Polaroid in 1987. He never returned to Polaroid. In 1980, he founded The Rowland Institute for Science, a non-profit research institute, where he became a research assistant after his dismissal. On March 1, 1991, at the age of 81, Edwin Herbert Land passed away.
Widely known in the 80s and 90s, Polaroid failed to find its place in the photographic market in the new digital age. The company had its own vision of the future of digital photography. According to the company, the consumer wanted to get a ready-made photo right away, so the developers focused on improving the printing process, and not on developing the photos themselves. digital cameras. This misconception was based on the fact that the company made most of its profits from selling instant film, not cameras. On this basis, by 1989, 42 percent of the research and development budget was for photographic printing technology. True, Polaroid still managed to shoot one more time - in 1999, almost 10 million copies of the I-Zone digital camera were sold. But the following year, sales plummeted, the company ended the year with a loss, and debts piled up. To pay off, the company had to take out a loan after a loan, but it failed to catch up with competitors and take part in the section of the digital photography market.
By 2000, the company could no longer compete with participants in the digital photography market. The new management of Polaroid, following the principle of "we do not do electronics" for many years, refused to invest in the development of digital technologies. The growing popularity of express printing labs also played a role, with their explosion in the photo services market all over the world. The locomotive of the ubiquitous distribution of express printing was the same Kodak - a former partner, and then a sworn enemy. The advantages of instant photography began to gradually fade away. In a photo lab with automatic negative film development and photo printing, an amateur photographer could print his pictures in an hour - the loss in time was no longer so significant. The prints were cheaper, better quality and more durable.
The popularity of digital cameras has finally driven Polaroid instant cameras out of the market. Only one name remained from the former company - "Polaroid". Over the past three years, the company's shares have fallen from nearly $50 a share to 28 cents. In October 2001, after taking on too much debt, Polaroid filed for its first bankruptcy. After that, most of Polaroid's business was sold to Bank One's Imaging Corporation. In 2003, the company entered the market consumer electronics and began producing portable DVD players and LCD TVs. In 2004, together with the American company Foveon, originally known as "Foveonics", they announced the release of the digital compact camera x530. The production of new items was located at the plant of the Hong Kong company World Wide Licenses Ltd. (a division of The Character Group PLC). Released under the Polaroid trademark, the camera was equipped with a 4.5 MP Foveon X3 sensor. Before that, Foveon matrices were not found in amateur devices, appearing only in the D-SLR devices Sigma SD9 / SD10 of the Japanese corporation of the same name. By the way, since November 11, 2008, 100% of the shares of Foveon are owned by Sigma Corporation. In April 2005, Polaroid was acquired by Petters Group Worldwide for $426 million from Imaging Corporation. And on December 19, 2008, Polaroid filed for bankruptcy for the second time, resorting to Article 11 of the US law. The company itself claimed that the bankruptcy was technical in nature and Polaroid would continue to work, and the 11th article would allow the company to carry out a financial restructuring. The FBI was investigating CEO Tom Petters, who was accused of fraud in the amount of $ 2 billion. The investigation had no claims against Polaroid itself. The culprit of Polaroid's problems federal authorities considered not the financial crisis, but its own owner. A jury found former Polaroid CEO Tom Petters guilty of 20 counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. According to the prosecutor, Petters is guilty of organizing fraudulent schemes that allowed him to steal $ 3.5 billion. In early 2008, it was announced that film production for instant photography would be discontinued. A sticker was placed on the packaging of Polaroid cassettes warning consumers that production was now discontinued. The cameras themselves ceased to be produced back in 2007: conveyors were stopped at the company's factories in the USA, Mexico and the Netherlands. In the same year, The Polaroid Book presented the assembled collection of photographs to a wide audience for the first time. In addition, the publication became the only detailed technical reference containing an overview of all Polaroid cameras ever released. The book was sold in the original branded light-protective packaging that Polaroid cassettes were sold in.
Book "The Polaroid Book" (2008). 
Packaging of the book "The Polaroid Book". 
The company ceased to exist, but the brand did not die. The new owner of Polaroid is Patriarch Partners, an indirect investment fund. Despite the problems and setbacks that have accompanied Polaroid for many years, new owner The company looks to the future with optimism. The Patriarch Partners Foundation plans to completely revive the brand and continue to release digital novelties. In January 2009, at the Consumer Electronics Show 2009, the company attempted to revive interest in instant photography in the digital age with the introduction of the "Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Camera". A distinctive feature of this model is its built-in color printer. In recent years, global corporations, especially large IT companies begin to live according to the laws of show business. Collaboration with movie stars and popular musical performers allows attracting the attention of an increasing number of the public to their activities. Singer Lady Gaga has become the creative director of a special line of Polaroid cameras. Polaroid CEO Jamie Salter has revealed that they have opted for the famous singer because Lady Gaga has great creative talent with which the star will be able to breathe new passion into the camera brand. In 2011, at the same Consumer Electronics Show, singer Lady Gaga, as creative director of Polaroid, introduced three new products at once: sunglasses with a built-in camera and two 1.4-inch OLED displays, a GL10 mobile printer, and an updated Polaroid camera. Gray Label GL30.
Polaroid GL10 (2011). 
In 2012, Polaroid launched new instant cameras on the market - Polaroid Z340 and Polaroid PIC300, as well as the Polaroid GL10 pocket printer mentioned above. By adopting the new format, Polaroid hasn't lost any of its flair: instant photos are better, cameras are designed with the latest technology in mind, and design still sets the company apart from the competition. Now you can pre-edit the photo you like: use a filter, apply a frame, an inscription, etc. New technology fast printing ZINK allows you to get the finished picture much faster than traditional Polaroid photography. In the same 2012, the Polaroid SC1630 Android HD Smart Camera was introduced - a camera on Android. The device is equipped with a 16-megapixel sensor and a triple optical zoom. Shutter speed - 1/1400, maximum ISO - 3200. There is support for geotagging, image stabilization system and the ability to record video in 720p format.
The popularity of instant photography is still great, despite the rapid development of digital technologies. There are many attempts to revive instant photography. In 2000, the American instant photography back manufacturer NPC released the NPC 195, which was a copy of the Polaroid 195. The camera was equipped with the same lens - Tominon 114mm f / 4.5 and a Copal 0 shutter operating in the range from 1/500 to 1 second . In Japan, the camera was sold under the Polaroid brand. The company's main product is the NPC Proback back covers, which used a fiber optic plate to transfer the image from a 35mm camera to Polaroid instant film (two shots could be placed on one film). NPC Proback covers were made in all known formats to fit cameras of most manufacturers.
In 2009, one of the closed factories, located in the Netherlands in the city of Enschede, where cassettes were produced, was bought out by a group of former enthusiastic employees who single-handedly decided to continue this business. They founded their own company called The Impossible Project and a few months later the production of instant photo cassettes was resumed, but using a new proprietary technology. The cassettes were made to be fully compatible with old-style cameras. So that all Polaroid fans can capture moments like never before. Enthusiasts, together with engineers who lost their jobs then, have repeatedly tried to restore production Supplies, but constantly faced with the absence of certain chemical substances. A new variety of consumables will still be able to provide a retro quality, similar in effect to what pre-war photographers managed to achieve with silver chloride.
Impossible Project Black & White Film. 
Impossible Project Instant Film. 
FUJI FP-1 Professional (1995).
In 2013, Polaroid introduced the new Polamatic app. The new app allows you to edit and share your photos. If you wish, you can stylize photos as pictures from the famous Polaroid - the application also includes the famous branded "white frame". Polamatic also allows you to send photos via e-mail, share them on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Flickr. In 2014, a prototype was developed, called the Instagram Socialmatic Camera. The concept camera has two lenses, one for general shooting and the other for 3D filters. In addition, the camera has an application with which it can become a webcam, and an application for capturing and recognizing QR codes. Socialmatic will run operating system Android. The photo you just took can be processed on your Instagram Socialmatic Camera in the same way as with Instagram on mobile phone. After processing, you can immediately post the result on Facebook. The difference is that Instagram Socialmatic Camera is equipped with better optics than mobile phone optics.
Pillow "Polaroid camera".
The legendary design - a cheerful rainbow stripe on a white background - formed the basis for the image of the Polaroid company, which is still associated with something unusual, fashionable and creative. 
Components trademark. 
Polaroid Electronic Imaging logo. 
New Gray Label "G Pixel" logo.
Let's start, perhaps, with the yellowed newspaper pages :-) Here is what in May 1989 the magazine of the Kommersant publishing house Vlast wrote in an article entitled "Polaroid" for rubles "
"On May 16, the Svetozor store opened in Moscow, which will carry out retail cameras "Polaroid Supercalor 635L" and photographic plates "Polaroid 600 plus". Same day at the Center international trade Krasnaya Presnya hosted a presentation of the joint Soviet-American enterprise Svetozor, which will assemble cameras in our country. The American partner is Polaroid Europa BW (a branch of the American Polaroid Corporation). On the Soviet side - the enterprises of the USSR Ministry of Atomic Energy: the Narva production association "Baltiets", the Obninsk enterprise "Signal" and the Moscow All-Russian Research Institute of Radiation Technology.
Where do the legs of the history of our "Polaroid" grow from? F5 found out all the details!
In the late 80s, the famous Soviet nuclear physicist, academician Evgeny Pavlovich Velikhov, while in the United States, talked with the then president of the Polaroid company, and he suggested that he establish a joint production. Velikhov brought the idea to the USSR and tossed it to the Minister of Mechanical Engineering Lev Ryabev (by the way, an engineer-physicist in the past). Tom liked the idea, he gave the go-ahead to the instrument-making central office, and as a result, the notorious joint venture with an old Russian nickname appeared - the wholesale creation of joint ventures with recent ideological enemies in those years was the most fashionable trend! :-)
As already mentioned, in the USSR, the production of Polaroids became collective labor three enterprises with a nuclear focus. In the few references to those events, it is said that inside Svetozor their roles were distributed as follows: the Obninsk plant "Signal" - the assembly of electronic circuit boards, the Narva plant "Baltiets" - the manufacture of plastic parts, the Moscow All-Russian Research Institute of Radiation (!) Technology - the final assembly cameras.
A lot of water has flown under the bridge since then, but F5 tracked down those who in the 90s were engaged in the production of famous cameras!
We started the investigation from the Estonian factory "Baltiets", in the city of Narva. Some retro photography websites say he made plastic camera cases. This fact caused us great doubt - the Soviet industry of those years was completely unable to make high-quality plastic parts! It turned out a terrible ugliness with burrs and flash, which was suitable for consumer goods without fish, but in no way corresponded to the standards of the world-famous Polaroid.
And a small F5 investigation confirmed these doubts - in the list of Soviet polaroid builders, "Baltiets" occupies a very conditional place, because it never made any cases!
An enterprise from the city of Narva really participated in the process, but for a very short time and had no direct relation to cameras at all! The thing is that the Svetozor company needed currency. The American Polaroid gave the green light to the assembly of its cameras in the USSR, agreed to sell components for them, but he did not need Soviet wooden ones. And dollars at "Svetozor" (like most commercial structures in 1989) of course, it was not possible. Therefore, we had to build a multi-passage plant - to launch a line at the Baltiets plant for the production of ... plastic boxes for video cassettes, which, in turn, were sold abroad and brought in the currency needed for the first time to purchase parts for assembling cameras! The process was tricky, but did not last long - after a couple of years, Estonia became an independent state, and a year later, the plant itself ordered a long life ...
The next point of the journey in the footsteps of the Russian "Polaroid" was the instrument plant "Signal", which still exists in the city of Obninsk, Kaluga province and is engaged in the manufacture electronic systems control and monitoring of reactor operation nuclear power plants. Here is what Vyacheslav Anisimov, who was the chief engineer of the enterprise in those years, told F5:
— In 1989, we started producing electronics for Polaroid cameras as part of a joint venture with the Americans. We were one of only three companies in the world that made components for Polaroid instant cameras, in addition to factories in Malaysia and Scotland. In Obninsk, one small unit was assembled - an electronic flash control unit.
The release of electronics for cameras lasted for almost ten years, after which it stopped - as you know, instant cameras could not compete with digital devices ... During all this time we have made electronic boards for approximately 1.2 million cameras. More than half of them went abroad, to local assembly plants, and some were used in cameras assembled in the USSR and subsequently in Russia.
It is difficult to say why production was established in our country. It was hardly better and cheaper than the same Malaysian one. Perhaps this was necessary in order to show in deed, and not in words, the rapprochement between the USSR and the USA - as a symbol of perestroyki i novogo mishleniya ...
The final stop of our digging in the Russian-American history of instant photography is the Moscow All-Russian Research Institute of Radiation Technology. (Now it is called the Research Institute of Technical Physics and Automation.) At the radioactive enterprise, under the leadership of Anatoly Alekseevich Trusov, the final assembly of cameras was carried out.
“We started production with dozens of pieces and only two assemblers,” says Anatoly Alekseevich. - 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. But in 1995, we already celebrated the release of the half-millionth device made in Russia!
All components came from Scotland, with the exception of what was made in Obninsk, and the build quality was very high - some batches even went for sale abroad.
In 1994 "Polaroid" sank and actually got out at the expense of Russian sales - then we had a boom in these devices. Despite the fact that cameras were actually sold at a loss, below cost, based on profit from the sale of film for them.
In our country, two models of Polaroid instant cameras were produced - 635 and 636. It was planned to add a third model, but they did not have time - the company rapidly "fell into a tailspin" ... In 1997, Russian production was also closed - over these nine years we made more than 600,000 cameras...
P.S. Polaroid is, without a doubt, an era with a capital letter in the history of photography. And by a bizarre coincidence, the dawn and dusk of this era are closely connected with our country - the founder of the company, Edwin Herbert Land, was born in a family of immigrants from Russia, and Russia turned out to be the last serious market for the famous instant cameras ...
Any smartphone can now take an instant photo. A couple of touches and somewhere in another city, mom knows what you ate. But, despite this, hands are drawn to the good old Polaroids, which with a pleasant rattle give out a real analog photo.
Interest in retro touched all areas. This is largely due to the fact that people who were born in the eighties and nineties have now reached the age “the grass used to be greener” and they want to return to things that once left memories for a lifetime. These people are solvent today, and 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 of the changes imposed by technology companies have unfairly supplanted their forefathers. Just as the candy bar killed the folding phones, so the digital replaced the analog photo into the fetish caste. But there are prerequisites for the return of fashion for instant photography, especially in the general flow of retro fashion.
On such a favorable wave, the revival of Polaroid Originals was announced, which stopped its activities in 2008. Entrepreneurs who believe in the possibility of returning Polaroid to some of its former glory say that in today's digital world there is an increasing demand for real things that exist beyond the narrow confines of a smartphone. Austin Kleon, in his book Steal Like an Artist, described ten lessons in creativity, one of which concerned precisely the opposition of analog and digital.
Austin says, "work with your hands."
It is important for the human brain to get the result of its work. When an artist creates in an intangible space, the creative charge can quickly dry up. This problem has yet to be solved by virtual and augmented reality evangelists.
Story
Polaroid was founded by Edwin Land, the grandson of Russian immigrants and a Harvard graduate, in 1937. Basically, the company produced products with a polarized coating: sunglasses, table lamps and others. During World War II, the company produced a range of items for the US Army, including infrared night vision goggles, gun sights, and vectorgraphs. 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 the photograph could not be viewed immediately after the photo was taken. It was this naive childish question that became the starting point in Land's work on a new type of film. Land later recalled that he laid out 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. Obtaining a patent and implementing the idea took five years.
From 1943 to 1946, the development of the Polaroid instant camera was a closely guarded secret. One of the main problems was the strength of the cassette: to get to the end customer, she had to make her way from the conveyor, through warehouses, trucks, shops, bags and numerous crooked hands, while not cracking or spoiling from impact or pressure. Not to mention temperature fluctuations and other factors.
But a solution was found, and on February 21, 1947, the first camera for instant photography was introduced. And already in the 48th year, the first commercial model “Model 95” arrived at the central Boston department store, which was capable of taking pictures only in gray shades and had an important limitation: it was necessary to wait exactly 60 seconds before peeling off the negative layer from the photograph. Despite the fact that the quality of the camera did not exceed the existing systems, and required extreme care from the photographer, the buyers were satisfied. The first batch was sold out in minutes.
True high-contrast black-and-white (rather than 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 polymer coating to prevent the photo from darkening. And already in 1957, the New York Times called instant photography equal in quality to the best works, coming out of the usual dark rooms.
Despite the popularity of the instant camera, Land did not believe in marketing. He said that marketing is needed for obviously 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 to the stage, showed a 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 was based on the same business model. In the 1970s and early 1980s, he made several visits to Polaroid headquarters to chat with Land.
Production of Polaroid 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 Macalister Boof, and he suggested that he establish joint production in the USSR.
So, in 1989, at the initiative of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the 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 had differences only in the shape of the hull. Production began with just a dozen pieces and two master assemblers, the equipment was put on the conveyor, but at first there was no one to work. The two people alternated between assembly and testing operations.
It was originally planned to produce 350,000 cameras within six years, but five years later the company reported that production volumes had reached two hundred thousand cameras a year. But even this was not enough, because sales of Polaroids assembled in the West in the territory of the former USSR reached one million pieces a year, not counting the batches produced by Svetozor.
By the way, not all components for assembly were delivered from abroad. For example, the electronic flash control unit was produced at the Signal plant in Obninsk, which was the only one besides factories in Malaysia and Scotland where Polaroid electronics were produced.
Our days, Impossible Project
Polaroid filed for bankruptcy twice in 2001 and was resold three times. The Polaroid era seemed to be over. But still there were enthusiasts who showed interest in outdated photographs. And in 2009, the last factory for the production of Polaroids was bought by three entrepreneurs and received the name Impossible Project (The Impossible Project). It can still be called experimental, but the project already has many supporters and admirers. And here it is worth remembering another phrase of Edwin Land: “You don’t need to do what everyone can do”
Thanks to the Impossible Project, in 2017, for the first time in a long time, a new camera with the well-known Polaroid inscription was released. It's called OneStep 2. The camera takes instant photos, it has a timer, a flash, and a USB charging port. OneStep 2 is not yet on sale, but is available for pre-order. The camera uses i-type film, which was originally created for the original Impossible Project I-1 camera.
Since 2008, various companies have been able to obtain a license to use the Polaroid technology patent. But in 2017, parent company Impossible Project bought out all of Polaroid's patents, as well as all intellectual property rights. What does all of this mean? This means that it will soon 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 photographs. The main element of the system was a film cassette containing both the negative and the receiving layer of the positive, 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 compressed the film, destroying the tank wall, after which the reagent spread over the image area. As the reagents spread, the chemicals removed the unexposed silver halide from the negative, brought it out onto the positive layer in a smaller amount, creating the final image. And to this day, the process has not changed significantly.
Outside, the picture is protected by a transparent film.
Below is the fixer.
Even lower is the buffer layer. It delays the penetration of the 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 developing ink layers.
The three emulsion layers are sensitive to red, green and blue. They work like negatives for cyan, magenta, and yellow (or, in more familiar terms, cyan, magenta, and yellow) layers, rendering them unable to transfer onto paper. For example, a photograph of a blue sky will affect the blue emulsion, which will block out all the yellow paint underneath, allowing the magenta and cyan layers to pass to the surface of the positive, forming blue.
Video clip
In the format of an article, I prepared this Polaroid story for Giktimes, but initially we made a video, which I left below. It features voice-over with historical and technical illustrations, as well as a slightly more extended script.
There is hardly a dude among our readers who has not heard of POLAROID. However, not everyone knows what an interesting and thorny path the company has gone through on the way to success. Today we want to tell you the story of this outstanding brand.
Polaroid Corporation became famous for its optics and cameras that instantly print pictures. Polaroid is the brainchild of Edwin Land, who comes from a Russian family that emigrated to the United States. He was born in 1909 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Even as a child, Edwin was fascinated by optical physics, and most of his time was spent experimenting with lenses, stereoscopes, and light. During his school years, he was a diligent student, showing a particular interest in the natural sciences. Thanks to this, Harvard opened its doors for him in 1926. However, a few months later, Land decided to leave the university, not unreasonably believing that he was already ready for his own scientific achievements. Three years later, our hero receives a patent for polarizing filters and returns to Harvard in triumph. At the university, the young scientist was provided with his own laboratory. It was there that an invention called Polaroid was born - the first polarizing material for commercial use. In 1935, the first sunglasses with lenses designed by Edwin went on sale. The result of Land's work still faithfully serves as the main material for the manufacture of sun lenses, photo lenses and screens. The inventor taught seminars on the polarization of light, but he was more interested in the commercial side of inventions than in the scientific one, especially when such "monsters" as General Electric and Eastman Kodak became interested in his work. Edwin founded the Land-Wheelwright Company, which immediately acquired KODAK as a client and sold the license for the production of sunglasses to the American Optical Society. In 1937, thanks to the proceeds, Land-Wheelwright becomes POLAROID CORPORATION. Appeared absolutely new market sunglasses, and the POLAROID name has become a well-known trademark. The company's profit exceeded 140 thousand dollars.
A powerful impetus to the development of the corporation in the form of $ 7 million was given by the US government, which allocated these funds for army orders. Polaroid made binoculars, night vision devices, reconnaissance devices during World War II and became a supplier of special optics to the Air Force.
A key event occurred in 1947: Edwin Land introduced the first camera to take snapshots. They say that he owes the idea of creating such a miracle of technology to his daughter, who at a very young age asked: “Why don’t pictures immediately appear from the camera?” With film rolling between rollers and chemicals instantly applied to photographic paper, this idea was brought to life. A year later, the camera appeared on mass sale at a price affordable to the middle class, which made it even more attractive. However, the pictures themselves were expensive because of the photo paper cassettes integrated into the camera.
The first fully automated camera Polaroid SX-70 Land appeared only in 1972 and gained crazy popularity. Shares of POLAROID CORPORATION jumped 90 times, and it entered the list of the most investment-friendly companies.
In total, in the history of the company, Edwin Land made two misses. By the end of the 70s, Polaroid decided to surprise the whole world again with the release of the Polavision instant video camera. But, unfortunately, he was not destined to repeat the success of the camera. The videos turned out to be too short and without sound, and already in the background existing systems for video playback could not stand out. At the same time, the main competitor of Land's cameras appeared - an instant camera from Kodak, a giant in this industry. Edwin Land decided to take the hit and responded with a patent infringement suit. After a long 10 years, Polaroid prevailed and Kodak was required to pay Polaroid $600 million. Later, Kodak pulled out of the game, its developments in the field of instant photos could not catch up with the Polaroid locomotive that sped ahead. The failure of Polavision affected Edwin too much: he decided to leave the post of president of the Polaroid Corporation, selling all his shares, and observe the life of the company from the outside.
After the Kodak situation, other camera manufacturers began to release their own Polaroid-compatible models that work with Polaroid cassettes. In addition to Konica, Minolta, Fuji, illegal Chinese "know-names", the production of instant cameras was also taken up in the USSR. Two "clones" of Polaroid appeared, compatible with the original photographic materials, and a little later, the Polaroid 635 CL and Polaroid 636 Closeup cameras, jointly produced by Svyatozor and Polaroid, were born.
In the early 1990s, Edwin Land's company made a second and fatal mistake. The decision was made not to engage in the production of digital cameras, although Polaroid already had prototypes of them in the 80s. A story similar to the story of Colonel Colt, who abandoned the idea of an employee to produce revolvers with through drums, while still alive and without learning about the brilliant success of Smith & Wesson, which bought this particular patent in time.
In the early 2000s, in the face of fierce competition in the photographic equipment market, the company went bankrupt, and Polaroid went into all serious trouble, releasing TVs and DVD players, passing from one owner to another.
2009 was marked by the second bankruptcy procedure, but the company managed to stay afloat. A year later, the creative director and face of the company was appointed ... guess who? I bet you didn’t guess - the Queen of outrageous Lady Gaga, with whom Polaroid signed a contract and launched new line Electronics Gray Label. Under this brand, cameras, camera glasses and portable printers with her design were released. We don't know what school of marketing CEO Jamie Salter graduated from, but he rightly believed that such a move would return the hype to the company's products, and, apparently, it succeeded. Now the company continues to produce and develop new models of pocket photo printers, instant digital cameras and action cameras.
It is worth noting that Polaroid Eyewear, which was spun off in time, is still successfully engaged in sun protection and vision-correcting optics and belongs to the Italian SAFILO group of companies.
