The curious tale of how Fujifilm Instax cameras survived a brutal patent war to become an instant success selling over 100 million cameras!

To understand the phenomenal success of Fujifilm’s Instax instant cameras we have to look at the intertwined histories of both Polaroid and Kodak.

On 21 February 1947, Edwin H. Land demonstrated a prototype instant camera and associated film to the Optical Society of America. News reports of the day talked of gasps from the audience as Land peeled apart the negative–positive “sandwich” to reveal the finished photograph 60 seconds after exposure.

Just before the Christmas of 1948, 57 of the original 60 cameras made were offered for sale during demonstrations at the Jordan Marsh (now Macy’s) department store in Boston. Because of the camera’s high price ($89.95 - the rough equivalent of $1,100 / £740 and AU$1,400 today), Polaroid incorrectly guessed that the camera and film would remain in stock long enough to manufacture a second run. But all 57 cameras and 60 rolls of the film were sold on the first day of demonstrations.

Demand was so strong for Polaroid film that there is no way Polaroid could make enough. So, in 1963, they quietly entered a long-term contract with Kodak to make film for them – a contract that would end prematurely in 1969 when Polaroid declined to license its patents to Kodak.

At the annual shareholder meeting of 1972, Edwin Land took a folded SX-70 from his suit pocket, easily popped it open and in 10 seconds shot five pictures. All actions that were impossible with the previous Land Cameras.

The ‘flat pack” film for the SX-70 was an incredibly complex and ingenious film. It contained 16 different emulsion layers and an opaque chemical layer that protected the developing image from light. After the developing action, this opaque layer gradually became transparent, revealing the developed color image. It was said that the "S" stood for secret, while the "X" stood for Experimental. The number "70" was an arbitrary choice "that sounded good".

Also in 1972, having gained much experience manufacturing Polaroid's instant film from 1963 through 1969, Kodak introduced its first instant camera, the EK4, also known as the "Colorburst 100." Kodak's instant film was different from Polaroid's in several ways.

Kodak’s film reversed the order of the color emulsions, so its film could be exposed from the back without a mirror, such as in Polaroid's SX-70, which was exposed from the front using the mirror to reverse the image. This means that both the cameras and film are simpler to manufacture, and the prints could use a matte surface to reduce glare on the face of the photo. The film path is also much simpler, allowing the use of a simple mechanical crank to spread the developer and eject the print, instead of an electric motor, as in Polaroid's cameras. With these and other improvements, Kodak had hoped that it would qualify its film as a “new” product.

In 1976, Polaroid sued, and in 1985, a judge found Kodak guilty on seven of the 12 patent infringements, and Kodak was forced out of instant photography the following year.

Finally, in 1981, Fujifilm entered the fray, with its Fotorama (フォトラマ) cameras and instant film, sold only in Japan. Fuji used its own patented technology and some licensed from Kodak. When Kodak lost the patent infringement suit, in 1985, Fuji licensed patents from Polaroid, but this arrangement prevented Fujifilm from selling its cameras in much of the world.

When the last of Polaroid’s patents expired in 1998, Fujifilm entered the US market with its INSTAX Mini 10 camera & film. It was a simple matter of “last man standing”.

Unlike Kodak, the Fuji films were produced with Polaroid’s blessings but only introduced in the USA after Polaroid’s patents expired. Fujifilm also moved the battery and the pressure plate springs from the film pack to the camera, simplifying construction of both the film packs and the cameras, which lowered costs.

Instax film also has a higher ISO 800 sensitivity versus Polaroid's ISO 640, enabling better low-light performance and sharper, more vibrant colors with consistent exposure. They also made improvements to the chemistry, so color balance and tonal range were improved over Polaroid’s flat-pack instant films. With these improvements and little competition, Instax quickly became Fuji’s biggest-selling product line.

Instax camera sales hit 1 million annually by 2002, but then dropped amid the rise of small, inexpensive digital cameras, hitting a low of just 100,000 units in 2004. But after Polaroid discontinued all film production in 2008, Instax quickly filled the market gap, surging to 5 million units per year by 2015 and 10 million per year by 2019. The popular square format followed in 2017, with hybrid digital-analog cameras enhancing Instax’s appeal.

Despite all the advances of digital cameras, the immediate gratification of instant photography remains. So much so that in 2025, Fujifilm celebrated sales of 100 million Instax cameras and printers in over 100 countries.

Since 1998, Instax revenues have far exceeded that of Fujifilm’s better-known and more expensive digital cameras.

Given such huge success, it makes you wonder where Polaroid went wrong!

Read more of David Young's ongoing series on classic cameras.