I had never owned a Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera but apparently a lot people did. And they have memories of buying their first one.
It is still a very collectible camera, and every now and then one comes up for auction and sparks frenzied bidding. Two were on the table this week at one of my favorite auction houses. Looking at them there I could see the allure. They were tan leather with chrome trim, as streamlined as a new wallet.
The camera could easily slip into a purse or wide pocket and be pulled out as easily as a Droid for taking photos. The difference, though, is that the SX-70 would put a photo in my hand instantly.
The cameras lying there elegantly on the table drew the attention of several people. As I stood near the table, an auction regular asked me about them. I love cameras and buy them often at auction, so he figured I’d likely have some thoughts on these. They are sought-after, I answered, noting that these appeared to be in good condition. Both still had film in them, apparently forgotten by the previous owner.
“I gave my wife one of these when we first got married,” he said. “That was 30 years ago.” He still had it, he said, and like a true vendor, wondered if he could sell it.
The cameras do sell well on eBay but the prices are all over the place. I found them going for as high as $490 and as low as $14. This one looked to be among the earliest SX-70s, which were first introduced and tested in 1972 in Florida for the whopping price of $180. The name on the front was POLAROID SX-70 Land Camera. Land was the last name of the inventor of instant photography, and the cameras and film that made it possible – Edwin H. Land, founder of the Polaroid Corp.
Land began fiddling with instant film in the 1940s after his daughter wondered why she couldn’t see photographs they had taken the day before (where this actually happened depends on who you read). Land came up with an idea of instantly developing film and a camera that could use it. His first such product was the Model 95 (named after its price) and Type 40 film in 1948.
When Land came up with the idea, according to one site, he wanted a camera that would fit in a suit-coat pocket (I guess he had men in mind), with no peeling of layers and no touching with human hands. His dream forced the invention of new technologies to carry it out. The SX-70 was used by such designers and artists as Charles and Ray Eames, a husband and wife design team that created an ad explaining the camera, and Andy Warhol, who shot many photos with the Polaroid Big Shot. Here are others, including photographer Christopher Makos, who loved the SX-70.
The camera was the first folding single lens reflex – or SLR- camera: single lens meant that you had one lens for both taking and viewing the picture (earlier cameras had two lens) and reflex referred to the mirror in the camera and how it moved. It was also the first instant film camera that didn’t require you to tear off a layer to reveal a photo. One person writing about the camera in Popular Science magazine in 1973 told of wowing a friend with this revolutionary camera that allowed you to take a picture, and watch as a card slid out the camera and the photo automatically developed in the daylight. Like magic.
Kodak and other companies had made folding cameras for years with stiff bellows that folded back into the camera. The SX-70 had soft thin leather-like bellows that folded flat like a pancake.
Some enthusiasts consider the SX-70 the best camera that Polaroid ever produced. The company updated it over the years, producing different styles – including one in black, white and plastic – and adding a split-image prism inside the viewfinder to make focusing easier and automatic focus. Polaroid stopped making the SX-70 around 1981.
At the auction, both cameras were sold as a lot. Since I was the only one of several auction-goers who tend to bid unalterably on cameras, I figured I could get them at a small price. Another regular who mostly buys trinkets for her shop zeroed in on the cameras, too, and we went tit-for-tat past $100.
She finally backed off and I got the two cameras, a Polaroid case, flashbulbs and manual. When I examined the cameras, I noticed that the bottom front of one of them did not close tightly. I was sure that it was caused by too many people who did not know how to open it. For me, that’s one of the camera’s flaws. The obvious way to open it is by pulling the top and bottom sections apart. It actually opens by pulling up on the back of the viewfinder where there are ridges to catch hold.
Seeing me with the cameras, another auction-goer wandered over. “I bought my husband one of those when they first came out,” she said matter-of-factly. These must have been popular among spouses, I thought. She said she no longer had the husband. “I could’ve saved my money.”
She didn’t mention who got the camera. Maybe she should have kept it.
