Understanding how instant cameras work is made a lot easier if you start by thinking of the sheet of film as the film cell or digital sensor. After all, this is what the light hits and ultimately exposes when it enters the camera. Today, Fujifilm dominates the best instant camera market with its Instax brand, having started to produce instant cameras in the 1980s, but it wasn’t one of the earliest adopters.
While the first instant camera available to consumers is somewhat contested, there’s little doubt that the instant camera as we know it today was invented by none other than Polaroid co-founder, Edwin Land, and first made available in 1948. Long before the Instax Mini 12 and Polaroid Now+ Gen 2, the Land Camera Model 95 paved the way for Polaroid’s undisputed rule, which peaked during the 1970s and 1980s. And truth be told, how instant cameras work hasn't changed all that much.
