The Polaroid Camera: Where did it come from? | Stuff of Genius
When Edwin Land's daughter asked why she couldn't see a photograph immediately after it was taken, inspiration struck. Learn how this prolific inventor polarized light and made every camera user an amateur film developer in this episode.
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Behold…. The Polaroid camera. But where did it come from?
Meet Edwin Land, born in 1909 in Connecticut.
Edwin was a bright student who started inventing early.
He created filters to polarize light in 1929, while he was still an undergraduate at Harvard University.
There were dozens of ways to use these polarizers -- for example, in sunglasses and military hardware.
In 1937, Land formed the Poland Corporation to market his technologies.
Things were looking pretty good. But Edwin's most famous invention was yet to come.
When his daughter asked why she couldn't see a photograph right after it was taken, Edwin felt that old rush of inspiration.
His answer? The Polaroid camera.
Normal camera film uses chemicals to capture patterns of light. Polaroid film uses layers of microscopic, dichroic crystals that polarize light.
Three of these layers are sensitive to different colors of light. Several other layers participate in a chemical chain reaction that develops the photo -- it's a complicated process, with more than a dozen separate layers for each piece of film.
The first Polaroid camera hit store shelves in February, 1947.
Instant photography took the world by storm.
Land continued work on the camera, and in 1963, he introduced the Polacolor, a type of full-color film.