- Hi. - Good to meet you. What's your name?
- Knox. - Knox.
Go ahead and step up to our table here.
So, I'm gonna put a piece of tech in front of you.
- Give me your thoughts... - This part smells like paint.
- what you think it is... - This part smells like a car.
what it might do.
Does this open?
- What do you think it is? - I can't really tell
- but, like, a printer? - Great guess.
- You're on the right track. - Oh.
You're, like, halfway there.
- Yeah. - Oh!
- Now I know what this is. It's a camera. - What is it?
Technically, you're right about it being a printer.
- ( whirring ) - It's both a camera and a printer.
Knox:
I'm Marques Brownlee and I review dope new tech.
But on this show, I'm rewinding the clock
to discover the tech of the past
that changed our lives forever.
This is "Retro Tech: Polaroid."
Hey, what's up, guys? MKBHD here.
So, the tech I'm about to look at today
is the oldest piece of tech I have ever unboxed.
The Polaroid SX-70 came out 20 years before I was even born.
I'm a big fan of photography already.
The high resolution smartphone cameras,
the mirrorless world, but it was this camera
that changed the way we think about photography forever.
Oh, wow.
Is this the retro look or what?
I've seen Polaroids before,
but I've never actually used one, shot with one.
So, I'm excited to see what's in the box.
This is a tripod mount.
A bracket looking thing with some pins.
Close-up lens.
Holster accessory.
( sniffs )
I don't know what 50-year-old leather
is supposed to smell like.
This is the camera itself, and it's collapsible.
That's dense. That's real metal.
All right, so here's how to open and close it.
Hold it in the palm of your left hand.
Lift the small end of the viewfinder cap.
Pull straight up.
Why is this not opening?
Hold it in the palm of your left hand.
Oh, you really have to yank it.
Like, it feels like you're breaking it.
All right, I do have some Polaroid film.
Photos develop in 10 to 15 minutes.
Insert the film this side up.
Hey, there you go.
Big smile. Three, two, one.
( clicks, whirring )
Okay.
Now I try to find the photo I just took.
Hmm.
( clicks, whirring )
Okay.
I don't want this to be the first piece of retro tech
I've broken out of the box.
And as we know, I've had great luck
with fixing retro tech in the past.
So, this is really no problem for me at all.
Oh, man. This is gonna jam the same way printers jam.
( whirring )
And there we have it.
Okay, so I finally figured out how to take the photo,
but I still have a lot to learn
about the history of the iconic Polaroid SX-70.
- First of all, thank you for joining me. - Man, thank you.
I'm gonna ask you first off to go ahead and check underneath your seat.
Check under my seat. Is this liquor?
This is pristine. Mine is not.
Polaroid is kind of similar to Apple
in a sense that all of their products
just, like, feel good in your hands.
It's a pleasure to touch, this leather.
Even after 45 years, it still feels good.
- There's no film. - Marques: I thought we had film left.
Remember when that used to happen?
No.
- No, probably not. - Yeah.
What was it like to take photos
before the Polaroid was invented?
Depew:
photography was a much slower process.
Photographers would have to shoot their film, take it to a lab.
It was a process that would take days.
Wood:
and then somebody tells you it's a video?
That's what taking an actual photo was like back in the day.
You just stand there for like an uncomfortable length of time.
That's why every photo from back in the day, nobody's smiling,
'cause they're mad.
They're like, "How long is this photo gonna take?"
Santiago:
He was kind of a chemist more than a photographer.
Bonanos:
It's a filter that allows the amount of light getting through to be controlled.
So that was his first product,
and in fact that built the company.
Man:
See about them.
Depew:
he had no idea he would be in the camera business.
In 1943, he was on vacation with his family.
And he takes a picture of his three-year-old daughter,
and she says, "Dad, why can't I see this picture right now?"
Bonanos:
walking around the resort and worked out the rough plan
for how one would make an instant camera.
Depew:
but it took 30 years
for it to actually come to fruition.
The dream of being able to take a wallet out of my pocket,
and perhaps open the wallet, press a button,
close the wallet, and have the picture.
( music playing )
Depew:
of what Edwin Land had in mind
when he first created instant photography.
This camera ushered in a whole new film line
called an integral film.
So this is film that's in a sandwich.
The positive and negative and developing chemistry
live together under a Mylar sheet.
There are three chemical pods,
and these all contain a bunch of magical chemistry goo.
Bonanos:
and they coat the layers of film inside the packet.
Then a number of reactions take place.
Depew:
Everything you would need in a traditional dark room process
is happening within this very thin sheet of film.
It cannot really be overstated
how much of a quantum leap this was
in photographic technology.
The very fact that you could see your image so quickly after taking it
was an absolutely mind-blowing thing
for everyone in the world.
All right, want to try to take a selfie with it?
Has anyone ever taken a selfie with a Polaroid?
- Probably not a very good one. - All right, let's try.
But I think it's worth a shot.
- Wait, what does that knob do? - That's exposure,
and I think all the way white is all the way open. I think.
This is gonna be a terrible photo.
- We'll see how it goes. - Let's just try.
- All right. - ( clicks, whirring )
Yeah, that's a terrible photo!
Turns out I didn't check the focus.
Imagine if a fourth of your iPhone memory was wasted
on one photo and the photo looked like this,
and you only got eight shots left.
What are the eight things you want to remember forever?
Marques:
are light years beyond the Polaroid SX-70,
many photographers still love using this camera today.
So we're out here in New York City.
I'm with Phil V., who I think--
would it be safe to call you the mayor
of instant photography in New York City?
You've shot Polaroids of everyone from artists to celebrities.
- First of all, why Polaroid? - It's a tool for communication
because this camera is pretty much like a conversation starter.
I'm looking for the best experience between me and that person.
That's just something that you can't get with digital photography,
especially on the spot, instantly.
I'm so used to having all the manual controls.
The ironic thing about control is that you literally control
everything that's going on with this camera.
This actually has, like, an exposure meter,
which is the black and white bar.
This is a glass lens, as opposed to other
Polaroid cameras that come with a plastic lens.
So with this, you can get a very extremely sharp image
if your exposure is right, if your lighting is right.
There's no room for error, but if you know what you're doing,
then you know you can get the perfect photo.
All right, so what's the plan today?
We got eight shots in our camera each.
We're gonna make every photo count,
and we're gonna go around shooting Polaroids
of people in New York City.
( music playing )
What's up, bro? You want to take a photo?
You gonna take one and I take one. Same spot.
He is in the shadow, but you can leave the exposure
right in the middle since it's good lighting.
And also you wanna think about, like, do you want a close-up portrait?
A little further away to get the background?
I'd like to get a close-up right now.
So I'm gonna take a similar photo.
P.V.: All right, ready? Three, two.
( whirring )
Another thing, too, it's super light sensitive.
So I want to keep out of, like, the sun.
Out of the sun, yeah. At least the first ten minutes.
I wanna get you to write something on it.
You can write anything you want.
So, that's actually what I do, too,
is I get people to write on the Polaroid
and it creates another story within the Polaroids.
Still developing. I definitely got some overexposure happening.
Framing and the sharpness is perfect.
You wanna maybe just get it a little less exposed.
Excuse me, bro. You got a little bit of time? We're shooting photos.
- All right. - Thank you.
So I bumped the exposure down a little bit,
and I feel like when I get everything developed, it'll look pretty close.
I can feel my photography skills getting better as we go.
P.V.: What's up, bro?
I'm gonna get you before it melts. Before it melts.
There we go.
Maybe you get a shot of these two guys. What's up, guys?
- So you down to take a Polaroid? - Yeah.
All right, thank you.
There's the classic New York City shot.
Three, two.
So that's seven down,
- one to go. - Seven down, one to go.
Marques:
about what I've been doing for the last couple of hours
should come down to this shot.
Amazing. Thank you.
So let's see what we got.
All right, let's check these out.
I like your exposure on some shots more than the exposure on mine.
I think my best photo might be this one here in front of the flowers.
I got focus right, I got exposure right,
and I think everything just sort of fell into place from there.
I think from this I learned a lot about the photography basics,
like you gotta frame it right. Can't change that later.
- You gotta nail focus. Can't change that later. - Yep.
When you get really good at those basics,
then you can take timeless photos.
So, did you make eight shots count?
I progressed enough
that I did make the eight shots count.
( music playing )
Marques:
with a Polaroid may seem retro now,
back in the '70s it was a huge leap in technology,
and Edwin Land knew he needed to help people
understand its capabilities.
Stern:
He understood early on that you couldn't just talk
about this technology.
It was gonna be too much for people to grasp.
So he would demo that.
Depew:
of doing these corporate shareholder meetings,
Often in very theatrical ways.
He's largely accredited with creating this format
that Steve Jobs, Apple,
and now many, many other companies also use.
The first generation SX-70, it was expensive.
Wood:
would've been, like, a thousand dollars today.
It's basically an iPhone XR--
I don't know the iPhone letters.
The film would be ridiculous, too.
It's like $40.
That's basically $4 a photo, $6 a photo.
Whatever it is, that's a lot.
Bonanos:
fast enough to satisfy the demand.
It was the hot tech item of that year.
By the early '80s, the basic Polaroid camera
was as a familiar a piece of household tech as your phone.
If you don't have a Polaroid Sun camera,
something's left out of your life.
Marques:
but it wasn't Polaroid's only camera.
They had 70 years of instant camera innovation,
and today we're gonna check out
a few of their more unique designs.
So this is "Dope Or Nope."
( whooshing ) Intro.
That's actually gonna be the intro now.
All right, so we're here with Peter McKinnon.
First of all, thank you for joining me today.
Dude, thanks for having me.
What's up, everybody? Today, we're talking about
how to make your photos look better.
Marques:
fellow YouTube creator, and an expert
in getting the most out of any camera.
Whoo! Look at that.
All right, so let's get into it.
We first have something released in 1995.
This called the Polaroid 600 Talking Camera.
Talking camera? You know when you have
one of those products and you can just hear--
- like, listen to that. - ( crunching )
It's the sound of 1995.
So there's a speaker in the front. That's interesting.
Do you talk into it or does it listen?
Why is there a talking camera? I need to figure this out.
All right, this is a really interesting shutter button.
- I'm gonna half press to focus. - Camera:
What?
I half pressed to focus and it said--
Camera:
- That's amazing. - Wait, okay.
If I switch it to two, is it gonna say something else maybe?
Camera:
Everybody, cheese-a-roo!
Cheese for me! Cheese for you!
- I mean, that's smart. -
- How do you not laugh doing that? - Oh, my--
The record button. What does the record button do?
- I'm still confused by that. - Record your own sound.
Oh, if you can record your own--
- Okay, ready? - Ready?
( laughs ) Smile!
- Here we go. The suspense is killing me. - Here we go.
Three, two, one.
Camera:
That's amazing.
- That's so cool, man. - I'm so glad that worked.
- What are you thinking? - When I just saw the first pre-recorded ones,
I was, like, "Oh, this is not that--
but the recording your own message
- is what put it over the top for me. - Yeah.
- So, I think this is dope. - Dope for sure.
( music playing )
Camera:
All right, next up we have the Polaroid JobPro.
It came out in 1985, and I guess it was made
specifically for construction sites.
I would expect no other color scheme than that.
It looks like the box my drill came in.
I guess it's gotta be somewhat rugged.
I don't know if it feels any more sturdy than any other.
I mean, it's rectangular.
- Should we do a drop test? - Drop test. Wow.
Oh! Oh!
- The top closed. - Perfect.
I guess now I gotta take a picture, huh?
- Bam. - Like nothing even happened.
Let's drop it again.
I think they may have thought it's more robust
and it's got the construction colors,
but to me it's the same as any other Polaroid.
- I'm gonna go with nope. - That's my impression, too.
- Yeah. - It's nope.
Sorry.
So our next one comes at us
straight from 1973.
- Ooh. Black and white. - Pretty big box.
8x10 film holder and processor.
Huh.
Ten negatives, ten positives.
- Four of these. - I can't imagine
how big a camera it would have to be
to shoot film this big.
- Ooh. It looks like an accordion. - Oh.
- That's the cable release for sure. - That's the trigger?
Oh, I've always wanted to push one of these.
So, the funny thing with these cameras
is you have to preset everything ahead of time.
So, it's kind of like backwards from digital.
So, pick a pose that you can hold,
'cause when we nail focus, you can't move.
This is my presidential portrait.
Here we go. Oh, wow.
This is insane.
That is all set. Boom.
Oh, it's happening.
Drop the holster in.
- I have to itch my shoulder. - Don't move.
- ( clicks ) - I saw it click.
- Yeah, we did it. - I think we took a photo.
- Okay. - ( sighs )
So now we bring it over to our developing station.
All the chemicals are in those little packets at the bottom.
What does it say about the chemicals? "Don't touch anything."
"If you do get it on your skin, consult a doctor."
- We have a doctor standing by. - Of course we do.
( whirring )
- That's it. - Let's see our masterpiece. Let's see it.
- Oh, there it is. - McKinnon: Bam. A little light leak.
There's a light right behind me when we took the photo,
so it's like a little flare, actually.
- Oh, I'm dying. - Oh, you got blue on you.
- ( McKinnon gasps ) - I got blue on me.
I can't feel my whole hand.
- Really? Are you serious? - Yeah. Completely numb.
Yeah, I'm just kidding.
Marques: It's higher resolution than I imagined it would be.
I have a brand-new appreciation for this
just because even though it's instant,
it's a lot more work than what we're used to.
All right, verdict. What are you thinking?
It's pretty dope.
Super dope.
Marques:
both amateur and professional photographers in the '70s and '80s,
but years later, it was the catchy lyrics of a hit song
that would inspire a new wave of Polaroid enthusiasts.
In 2003, OutKast came out with the infamous "Hey Ya!"
It brought so much attention to Polaroid as a company.
♪ Shake it like a Polaroid picture ♪
Polaroid was like, "This is great,
but you also shouldn't actually shake the Polaroid."
You should not shake it like a Polaroid picture.
- Don't shake it. - Don't shake it.
Don't shake the picture, you'll just crack it.
I was today years old when I found out
that you're not supposed to shake it
like a Polaroid picture.
But I blame Polaroid.
Polaroid should've said, "André 3000, shut up.
That's not what you're supposed to do, Mr. Benjamin."
♪ Leave it, leave it, leave it ♪
♪ Leave it on the table like a Polaroid picture ♪
But that's not catchy, and that wouldn't have went platinum.
Marques:
and despite the bad advice, Polaroid scored some major publicity.
But even that wouldn't be enough to protect them
from an oncoming digital revolution.
Polaroid actually did create a digital camera,
and they were one of the first companies
to actually begin to do this.
But, unfortunately, they were making tons of money with their Polaroid film
and they didn't really pursue it in the way that they should have.
Stern:
you had Sony, Cannon, all these big names.
Polaroid wasn't talked about.
When it came time for Polaroid to reinvent itself
for it to take itself into the future,
they were flat-footed.
Brian Williams:
that used to be the height of technology.
Polaroid as we once knew it is fading away.
Bonanos:
that was destroyed by the digital revolution.
Although, curiously,
it is having a small scale resurgence now.
Depew:
that they have firmly adopted the square image.
( whirring )
When you take a picture with this camera,
the picture that comes out is the picture you get.
There's a lot of happy accidents that occur.
There's a weird light leak or a ray of sun coming in--
that's now a part of your picture.
If you go on Instagram, you'll find a whole set of filters
solely dedicated to emulating the analog effects
that cameras like this would give you organically.
Marques:
we're so used to be being able to edit and manipulate
our photographs into whatever we want.
( whirring )
But part of the charm of the original Polaroid is
what you see is what you get.
Or is it? To help figure that out,
I'm here with model, entrepreneur,
and fellow YouTuber Karlie Kloss.
My favorite feature on this phone, quite honestly, is the camera.
Marques:
but she's also a coder and a lover of all things tech.
So, first of all, I just want to know,
Polaroid is older than both of us.
Do you have any sort of experience with this sort of camera?
I love Polaroids.
I do have a lot of experience with Polaroids,
especially in my profession.
- Right. - But not necessarily manipulating it.
Do you know how to load a mag at all?
( whirring )
That's the most gratifying sound.
It's a very satisfying feeling.
Marques:
to protect the complicated developing process happening inside.
So, to edit our Polaroid images,
Karlie and I will be disrupting the chemistry
with heat, acid, and bleach to see what kind of
homemade filtered looks we can achieve.
The first tool we're going to use is this.
- Very high tech. - Let's just go ahead and--
Yeah, well, this is all we need apparently,
so let's take that first photo.
All right, I don't know how to direct from behind the camera.
I'll just say three, two, one.
- ( clicks, whirring ) - Great direction.
I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so...
Okay, ready? Three, two.
( clicks, whirring )
- Ta-da! - Perfect.
So we can use this one as a control
and just let it do its thing.
For this one, we will literally just apply heat.
This one was taken first,
but it looks like this is actually developing faster.
Oh, wow, that's hot.
Are we gonna melt our photo?
I think it's very possible.
- Okay. Oh, my gosh! - Oh.
Wait. Marques, your photo is not even fully developed.
It looks two-thirds done maybe.
There's definitely some scientific explanation
that neither one of us really understands
of what just happened,
but I definitely think
the heat accelerated the development
and the chemical reaction.
Basically, the development of a Polaroid is...
- Heat based. Huh. - Huh. That's fascinating.
All right, so for the next experiment
we have household products.
- Kloss: Bleach. - Marques: And lemon juice.
All right, well, let's go ahead and see if we can take some photos.
- Cool. - All right.
( music playing )
We're gonna do two each.
Ta-da!
So, I'm gonna slice open the back,
and then do you want the lemon juice or the...
- I'll take the bleach. - Okay.
Spray it into a cotton ball
- and sort of dab around. - Ooh!
Marques, do you know what's gonna happen?
If I was guessing, lemon juice is acidic
and possibly damaging the photo.
- Kloss: There you go. - Marques: Oh, man.
It's so delicate.
I don't know what I expected to be back here, but--
I know! Like, little magical elves.
Oh, whoa. Okay.
- Oh, whoa. - That was super quick.
A little bleach goes a long way.
Quick reaction there.
Three, two, one.
Ta-da!
- Whoa. That's wild. - Cool.
Okay, so your bleach did have a stronger effect.
- 100% - Kloss: Totally.
You know what I wonder, if any of these started as an accident.
Like maybe someone spilled some bleach on a photo.
And was like, "You know what? I could do something with that."
But also, I have the control.
- So we can see exactly how much work we did. - Whoa!
This is darker and more contrasty.
This is lighter.
I think this effect is way cooler
than a filter you can use digitally.
It's cool when you think about, like, we continue to innovate in photography,
but yet also are so nostalgic
about the kind of photography that we've experienced
- in the past. - That came before it.
Awesome. Well, thank you again, Karlie,
- for being a part of this segment. - Thank you.
I feel like I've learned a lot today.
Really fun homemade filters.
- For sure. - Thank you.
What would you say is the legacy
of the Polaroid camera?
Stern:
to making sure that people
could see their photos instantly.
I don't think that's gonna be something
that goes away in the tech world.
Depew:
carries over into our daily use of smartphones.
In a way, every digital image is instant.
Polaroid was the first creator of that.
Bonanos:
that does not apply to any other kind of photography,
which is that you can take a picture of somebody
and then hand it to them, and it's a gift.
That is something that digital people
actually understand-- the word "share."
It's on your digital picture on social media. Share.
But that's what you're doing, you're giving it to them.
Wood:
on all of these apps
that supposedly are all futuristic,
but the first thing you want to do is make
your picture look like something from the 1970s,
is a nod to just how meaningful of an impact Polaroid had.
Santiago:
It's this moment of taking someone's picture.
We watch it come to life together.
Polaroids were that first really intimate moment.
That legacy will always continue on
as long as photography does.
Marques:
will be around for the rest of humanity.
And, I mean, what could be a bigger legacy than that?
Edwin Land and the SX-70 were at the very bleeding edge
of tech at that time.
Every photographer you know,
every smartphone photo you take now,
the way we capture and share memories
will never be the same because of instant photography.
So, thank you, Polaroid.
And thanks for watching.