Why are Polaroids always thrown in with toy cameras?

[Truzi]

I chimed in on this before, stating that I feel "toy" cameras are made for children, and that I do not consider a Polaroid a toy. My Great Grandmother's The 800 certainly isn't a toy.

The more I think about it, though, many today think of Polaroids only as the plastic One-Step style cameras. While still not toys, they are not as "serious" as some of the other (and older) offerings from Polaroid. Also, even though they were not made for children, often they were given to children as a first camera. They are fairly durable, easy to use, and give immediate gratification. Maybe this contributes to the perception.

 

[AgX]

Let's call them Toys for the Boys...

 

[BobCrowley]

Diffusion Transfer Reversal (DTR) uses noble metals and has a permanence greater than most silver based photographs. It is incorrect to say that instant photography is not archival. One only needs to look at the now 60 year old monochrome DTR examples at the George Eastman House to see many perfectly preserved examples. And on the subject of GEH - it is apparent to me that instant photography and its technology is under-represented. DTR is the most important (commercially, socially) advancement made in 20th Century photography and is the basis for the nanotech revolution, and other important industrial advances. To lump it all in the toy category represents a prejudice that disregards the reality of history.

 

[AgX]

I consider it farfetched to consider images resulting from a DTR process to be more stable as such.

Not only noble metals had been employed in DTR proceses as nuclei. And if, likely in the ion form. The image consisting of metallic silver, as in classic, non-DTR images.

And we do not know how those early samples had been treated.

In a receptive layer which has not been washed or where no stabilizing means have been employed there are elements that facilitate the process of the image-forming silver turning into oxide, then ion and being either bleached or sulphidized. Both leading to the image deteriarating or vanishing.

 

[BobCrowley]

There are a number of beliefs about black and white instant photography that possibly started with the very earliest Polaroid prints, done before the process was well understood, and refined. One such misconception is that the positive image is formed of metallic silver. Since DTR is one of the earliest important commercial forms of nanotechnology and self-assembly, I recommend

PHOTOGRAPHIC SILVER HALIDE DIFFUSION PROCESSES – ANDRE ROTT, EDITH WEYDE - FOCAL PRESS

For basic information about image formation in DTR mode. It is interesting that Edith Weyde actually first appears to have invented the process leading to instant photography.

In the nanotech world, silver DTR is a hot topic today.

 

[AgX]

I know Miss Weyde. And of course I got that book on my shelf.

 

[BobCrowley]

Excellent! I would be most grateful if you could find one of the interview tapes that Agfa offered in 1978, and any biographical information, especially a nicer photograph of Ms. Weyde.