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For all his success, Land was convinced as early as 1963 that if Polaroid owners could get a small, easily portable, nonmessy instant-picture camera, they would buy huge numbers of them —and far more of Polaroid's high-profit film than they now do. Thus, Land undertook the greatest camera quest of his career: development of the SX-70. "The program to create our new camera was like a siren," he says. "She never came clean to say whether she meant to succeed or not, but she never let us escape."
The effort was divided into separate projects for film and camera, and Land plunged into both, often disappearing for weeks at a time to work 18-hour days in his laboratory. His constant shuffling between projects unnerved some associates. Recalls Assistant Vice President Christopher Ingraham: "When we seemed to be putting all our efforts into camera design, someone would say, 'God damn it, Dr. Land, how about making the film?' And he would reply, 'Oh, that's all taken care of, don't worry about that.' Actually, the film people couldn't believe their ears."
Disappointments littered the way.
Land originally wanted to design a camera that did not have to be unfolded before becoming usable. But after testing several mockups, including one that electronically scanned the picture area, he decided that the negative needed for Polaroid photography was too large for any lens that could not be extended outward simply by a bellows. By the time he returned to the concept of a pop-out model, two years had been lost.
Yet the time was probably gained back by moments of sheer inspiration, scientific and otherwise. While searching for a small but powerful motor to run the new camera, a Polaroid engineer had the unusual insight one afternoon that the motors used to run his son's toy race cars might work. The next day Polaroid researchers invaded a Boston hobby shop and eventually modeled the SX-70 motor on an electric-train engine that they spotted there. While mulling over the complaint of a Polaroid owner, who had phoned all the way from Africa to protest that he could not find a replacement for his used-up battery, Land decided that the power cells that ran the complex mechanism of the SX-70 camera should be put in the film pack rather than inside the instrument itself. Polaroid engineers designed a wafer-thin battery that will be packaged inside every container of SX-70 film. The film is exposed by a tricky system of mirrors, including one that lifts up to reflect the final image (see diagram, page 82).