Polaroid SX-70 (variant 2)
I acquired this camera from one of my best friends, the landlord of his art studio he was renting sold the property and the next owners didn’t want any tenants and so he was forced out. He had over the years collected several cameras himself with many people bringing them in as donations to add to his collection, when space became an issue for his new studio he turned to me to keep his collection safe and so I owe almost a third of my collection to him.
The Polaroid SX-70 came to us from the engineers of the Polaroid Land company who revolutionized instant photography. The story goes that Edward land came to his team with a small cigar box that could fit in your pocket (vest pockets, they were larger back then) and told them that he wanted an SLR type camera and when the image is taken the film come out as a single frame with no further action required of the photographer. Up until that moment all Polaroid films were peel apart you had to peel the negative away from the positive and then use a chemical to fix the print from developing further.
After several months the engineers came back with this wonderful piece of history we now know as the SX-70 back in 1972 and the original continued production till 1977.
The reason why the SX-70 was such a hit with the population was in part of many features that haven’t been seen before from Polaroid.
Compact folding design to allow for an SLR to properly frame your subject with focusing as close as 10.4 inches to infinity.
Integral film holding 10 frames that when exposed were forced out through the camera’s rollers spreading the self contained chemicals over the film and produced the print on that all too famous white frame.
Hassle free for the user as by changing the film pack you also change the battery
An automatic exposure with shutter speeds of 1/175 of a second to 10 seconds
Was the smallest at the time camera making very portable and easy to use.
The SX-70 I have in my collection is the second variant of the original as it has a split screen focusing glass and the focusing wheel has markings of distance. However that being said Polaroid offered those with the Original to be retrofitted with the new additions of the second variant at a small cost so I could have a retrofitted original.
Famous photographers, artists, and the like always enjoyed using polaroid. Ansel Adams used the SX-70 to see how a composition worked before using his large format cameras. Andy Warhol also used the SX-70 to both document his life and to shoot prints to serve as the basis for silkscreen portraits.
The Specs:
Type of camera: Manual focus instant camera
Film/picture format: Polaroid/Impossible SX-70 pack film. Picture is square 3.1 x 3.1”
Lens Mount: Fixed lens
Lens(es): Polaroid 4-element 116mm f/8 glass lens
Shutter: electronically controlled shutter of speeds ranging from 1/175 of a second to 10 seconds.
Exposure metering: electronically controlled by the electronic “eye”
Viewfinder: SLR viewfinder
Focussing screen: Ground glass with split screen focussing.
Reflex mirror: yes, automatically returns after exposure
Depth-of-field preview: no
Frame counter: Yes, reductive counting showing how many frames are left
Power source: yes, flat batteries contained in film pack
Camera Back: none
Body Finish: Chrome body with typically tan leatherette