Polaroid SX-70

World-defining History

It all started when Edwin H. Land, the founder of Polaroid, introduced the SLR SX-70 at an annual meeting in April 1972. It was then revealed publicly on stage, where the world was shocked to see Edwin H. Land pulling one out, folded, from his suit, and unfolding it to take 5 separate photos within 10 seconds.

The SX-70 made photo-taking easier than ever, as photos were automatically ejected, would fully develop in 10 minutes without any lab equipment, and eliminated many troubles with developing chemical residue, unlike previous land cameras (like the Polaroid Model 95). Over 700,00 units were sold in the mid 70's when it made it to international shelves, each unit at a cost of about 180$ in the day, and nearly 7 dollars for each 10-pack film cartridge. With exemplary design and convenient operation, the SX-70 quickly became the most popular instant film camera to ever exist.

Newer models using the SX-70's design and functions would later lead to their newer standards, in regards to capabilities. One such model was the Sonar OneStep SX-70, introduced in 1978. It was similar to the original one, only that it had a built-in autofocus that used sonar sound waves to focus the image from any distance the user sees fit. It still kept the manual focus if the sonar focus wasn't working the way you wanted. Another one was the Polaroid SLR 680, which looked the same as the Sonar OneStep, but it used 600 film, which was much better than the SX-70 film.

The SX-70 came with a few accessories, more so after The Impossible Project. You can attach a flash bar at the top that was originally disposable, but rechargeable bars were created by MiNT when the SX-70, and ultimately polaroid, was resurrected. External lenses for different colors were also created, and even MiNT made *modified SX-70's so they can use the more reliable 600 film. (*refer to the Extras section for this)

General:

Product type: Camera
- Camera type: Instant film SLR
Brand: Polaroid
Production: 1972-1981
Successor: 600 series cameras

Technology:

Lens: 4-element, fixed glass
- size: 116mm
- aperture: f/8
Focus:
- Manual focus sensor with geared wheel
- Sonar autofocus system module (exclusive to sonar SX-70s)
Shutter speed: 1/180 to anything higher than 5 seconds
Body material: Thermoplastic polymers
- Glass-packed Polysulfone (Model 1)
- ABS (Model 2 and 3)
Battery: inside SX-70 film pack
- Type: Polapulse cell
- Voltage: 6 volts
- Capacity: 650mAh
  - Uses zinc chloride chemistry