- 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: Cool, very cool.

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: So before the innovation of Polaroid,

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: You know how when you pose for a photo

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: In walks Edwin Land.

He was kind of a chemist more than a photographer.

Bonanos: He was a Harvard student when he invented the polarizing filter.

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: Cool-Ray Polaroid sunglasses.

See about them.

Depew: In the beginning of Land's pursuits,

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: The story goes that he spent the rest of the evening

walking around the resort and worked out the rough plan

for how one would make an instant camera.

Depew: So it was in 1943 that instant film was conceived,

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: The SX-70 was really the ultimate realization

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 the rollers shmush the chemistry

and they coat the layers of film inside the packet.

Then a number of reactions take place.

Depew: All these timing layers are firing at the same time.

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: Even though today's digital cameras

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: I feel like all my knowledge

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: While walking around New York City