Kodak Kodamatic 980L Instant Camera

 

This post will be venturing in the strange and fun side of Kodak cameras. This being the Kodamatic 980L Instant Camera, Kodak’s “declaration of war” against Polaroid.

I have already discussed Kodak’s history in my Kodak 200 Color Plus Film post and brief history of Kodak’s camera history can be found in my KODAK Pocket Instamatic 10 Camera and Kodak Instamatic 104 Camera.

So I will only be going over this camera’s bizarre history. Starting with (according to Fierstein 2015) the background of when in 1934 the founder of Polaroid, Edwin Land, sold Kodak his plastic polarizer sheet (“A sheet of plastic material containing microscopic crystals of herapathite or some other similar substance that transmits light polarized in one direction, but absorbs light polarized in a perpendicular direction…” (Photonics 2024)) and then by 1943, Edwin Land, was approached Kodak with the idea for developing a new type of film that can instantly develop without the need to send it to a lab to be processed. Kodak was the one who supplied Land with the necessary equipment and chemicals to test and experiment. 

Then “the first Polaroid one-step photography system was introduced in 1948, it was Kodak that manufactured the negatives, a function it performed for every film Polaroid introduced thereafter, including its first color film, Polacolor, released in 1963. By the mid-60s, Polaroid had become Kodak's second largest corporate customer, trailing only the tobacco companies for whom Kodak manufactured plastic cylinders for use in cigarette filters.” (Fierstein 2015)

All was well in the land of film photography, until Kodak was struck by fear. Because in 1968 Land gave Kodak the opportunity to join him in his latest idea “an instant system featuring a film unit that could be ejected from the camera following exposure, could develop in the light, and would require no further physical manipulation: no peeling apart, no timing, no coating of the print for stabilization.” This made Kodak unease, due to the fear that this new instant film could ruin their reputation as the manufacturer that made cameras and film for the everyday man and amateur photographers. So to make sure they had the upper hand Kodak insisted that the film used by the Polaroid camera be sold in their signature yellow boxes. (Fierstein 2015).

This did not sit well with Land, so the two companies split in 1969 (Blank 2024). Land went on to design “and built its own facilities to manufacture the film for its new system…” (Fierstein 2015) and Kodak terminated their contract to supply manufacture Polaroid’s Polacolor film, by giving them a two-year notice and raising the price of the negatives. To further try and bring down Polaroid, Kodak, announced that they will also be manufacturing film for the Polaroid cameras, which was “a knife to the heart for Polaroid as film sales were what made Polaroid profitable…” (Blank 2024). 

Blank (2024) also goes on to mention that this wasn’t the only reason why Kodak went to war with Polaroid. According to Blank (2024), Kodak worked with the CIA in supplying and developing film that was used to take pictures of the Soviet Union from satellites during the cold war in the 1950s. By the 1960’s Kodak developed the GAMBIT satellite which had better cameras and higher resolution capabilities. But the CIA partnered with Perkin Elmer to design new cameras for the HEXAGON satellite. This created conflict in 1969 when Nixon wanted to cut costs in the CIA. Two projects where in development: the HEXAGON satellite and the MOL space station that would be using the DORIAN KH-10 camera made by Kodak (as well as two other projects that Kodak was working on).

It was decided by Nixon that it is the HEXAGON that would be cancelled and Kodak would stay and make a pretty penny with their projects. However, “the CIA fought back. The next month, in April 1969, the Director of the CIA used the recommendation of CIA’s reconnaissance intelligence panel – headed by Edwin Land (Polaroid’s CEO) to get President Nixon to reverse his decision. Land’s panel argued that HEXAGON was essential to monitoring arms control treaties with the Soviet Union.” Land even went on to state that the DORIAN KH-10 on the MOL space station is inferior to the cameras by Perkin Elmer, because the KH-10 could only take pictures of small areas, whereas the HEXAGON “covered so much territory that there was simply no place for the Soviet Union to hide any forbidden bombers or missiles.” (Blank 2024) 

Land’s main argument was also that the MOL station used film cameras, which took long to retrieve and develop, whereas the Perkin Elmer cameras took images and converted them into electronic images which could be received much faster. After that Land also went on a campaign to end any film based camera satellites produced by Kodak and succeeded in 1971 and then “Nixon gave the go-ahead to build the CIA’s KH-11 KEENAN electronic imaging satellite – dooming film-based satellites – and all of Kodak’s satellite business.” (Blank 2024)

To read more about this and get the full in-depth story click here:

https://steveblank.com/2024/05/16/secret-history-when-kodak-went-to-war-with-polaroid/#:~:text=In%201963%20when%20Polaroid%20launched,year%20to%20manufacture%20that%20film. 

After that Kodak went on to research and develop their own Instant Polaroid-esque type cameras (Blank 2024) and by 1976 Kodak when they entered the Instant camera market and managed to do what all other companies failed to do, be a competition and threat to the popular Polaroid brand (Rowbotham 2013). Kodak released two cameras the EK-4 and EK-6.

Kodak EK-4 Instant Camera. Image Source: https://farm1.static.flickr.com/118/271877085_bf13913593.jpg

Kodak EK-6 Instant Camera. Image Source: https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3147/2892648894_4a24c7529a.jpg

But this didn’t last that long because all Kodak Instant and Kodamatic cameras because they were discontinued and taken off shelves in 1986 and stopped making anything that could be considered competition to Polaroid (Rowbotham 2013).

This was because Polaroid sued Kodak on the grounds that “Kodak had infringed on Polaroid patents...” (Blank 2024) and that “during the 10 years the Eastman Kodak Company produced instant photography materials, they had cost the Polaroid Corporation $12 billion…” (Rowbotham 2013). This lead to a nine-year long fight until in 1985, Polaroid won and was awarded $925 million in 1991 for damages sustained by the Kodak company (Blank 2024). 

But this leads to the question, why did Kodak, a major company, knowingly and willingly infringe on Polaroid patents? The answer is simple.

As Fierstein (2015) writes:     

 “Kodak recognized that it had to change course radically for its development program to have any chance of producing a product that would be competitive with the Polaroid system, even if that product were not released until 1975. This was a formidable enterprise. As observed many years later by industry commentators, Kodak, feeling ‘hemmed in by Polaroid’s vast portfolio of patents,’ had indeed ‘panicked.’ In apparent desperation, a KPDC memo directed Kodak engineers to ‘not be constrained by what an individual feels is a potential patent infringement.’ Although the memo did go on to direct the researchers to ‘consult’ the patent department in such instances, the excerpted passage would, commencing in 1976 when Kodak finally introduced its competing instant camera and film system, later serve as the signal call for Polaroid and its legal team for years to come—all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Now, time to have a look at the Kodamatic 980L, which according to a Kodak customer service pamphlet (Pacificrimcamera), was released in 1982-1986.

This camera was also the only one with autofocus and was the top model of the camera series (Instantphoto) as well as the most expensive (Pacificrimcamera). It should be noted that when Kodak released this series it was first called the Kodak Instant cameras, but this name would often get confused with the Kodak Instamatic cameras (see KODAK Pocket Instamatic 10 Camera and Kodak Instamatic 104 Camera posts), so when Kodak switched from PR film, which the Instant cameras used, to HS film they rebranded the series to Kodamatic Instant Cameras (Land List 2004). There are also only a handful of cameras with the Kodamatic name.

Kodak PR and HS instant film cartages. Image Source: https://www.instantphoto.eu/jpgother/kodak_cartridge_P1010203.JPG 

This camera came with the box and original manual. The only thing missing is the neck strap.

Kodamatic box with strap. Image Source:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/352356041251

Kodamtic strap. Image Source:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/NrQAAOSwJENik-TR/s-l500.jpg

The box itself is pretty cool. It is Kodak’s signature yellow and covered in retro designs that really draws the eye and makes the product look very appealing.

Now for the lens.

The lens is a 110mm, with an autofocus of 0.9 to infinity and has auto aperture settings f/stop of 11, 16 and 27 (Instantphoto). Now the lens is hard to determine, but if we look at another Kodamatic, the 930, which came out the same year as the 980L, then it is possible that they both have the same type of lens, the Kodar Lens (Halgand 2024).

Koadamatic 930 Instant Camera. Image Source: https://www.collection-appareils.fr/kodak/images/kodamatic930.jpg

More evidence of this is due to the fact that even later models, such as the 950, that came out a year later also uses the Kodar lens (Halgand 2024), we can assume that this combined with the fact that there are only a hand full of Kodamatic cameras, that most if not all, use the same lens.

Kodamatic 950 Instant Camera. Image Source: https://www.collection-appareils.fr/kodak/images/kodamatic950.jpg

Another piece is that, according to Camerapedia (not a reliable source, but bear with me), is that the Kodar lens is usually on cameras with bellows, which all three Kodamatics I mentioned have. The definition that Camerapedia gives is as such for the Kodar lens: “A 3 element triplet design produced for Kodak's mid-level cameras, in a Kodak No. 0 shutter. In this case, unit focusing was provided by the camera's adjustable bellows.”

Which is similar to Mike’s (2011) definition: “a mid-level product, situated between the older standard Rapid Rectilinear and the later three-element Anastigmat design.” (Mike 2011)

So to get a basic understanding is that it is a combination of an Anastigmat or three element lens (which I explain in my Agfa Billy Record 7.7 Pocket Camera post) and a Rapid Rectilinear lens (“A double meniscus system in which two achromatized meniscus lenses are arranged symmetrically on either side of the aperture stop, reducing or eliminating distortion, coma and lateral color.” (Photonics 2024)).

Next to the lens is the Electric Eye (used to detect light and determine the focus and exposure).

Now as mentioned above this camera does extent and fold with the use of bellows (see Agfa Billy Record 7.7 Pocket Camera post for more information), but unlike traditional bellows, this camera’s is smooth with only a few folds and is made of rubber.

 

It is also impractical, as it makes the camera awkward to hold and it feels bulky. The purpose of the bellows is to fold the camera so that it doesn’t take up space, which it sort of does, but not all that much. It is still quite bulky and impractical to carry around unlike other foldable cameras like the Kodak Vest Pocket cameras (or the Agfa Billy Record 7.7 Pocket Camera which has a similar design).

Kodak Vest Pocket Model B camera. Image Source: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRX4S0JGauTCVSHAr1PbpWSiCCywVKkzpYlhkUMbFP_ehwRoS0IP7hgJZgLcOLthARlYR8&usqp=CAU

Underneath the lens…

Is the Lighten/Darken control. This is used to compensate for the lack/overabundance of light, the temperature and background light.

Next to the lens on the body is the viewfinder and built-in flash, that has a distance of 3-14 feet.

 

 

The viewfinder is off center from the lens, which leads me to the thing I always talk about in my see Sounex YN-9000 Re-usable Camera and KODAK Pocket Instamatic 10 Camera posts about the complications this can cause.

The flash is a Thyristor flash (Instantphoto), which is a piece of “technology that allows the flash to conserve the stored power in the flash capacitor for future exposures, which decreases the recycle time needed between flashes. Stated another way, thyristor flashes use only the amount of stored power needed for each exposure. The rest of the stored charge is saved for future flashes to speed recycle times. When used in auto mode, these old flashes have very fast recycle times…” (Wright 2021).

On the back (or bottom depending on your preference)…

Is the other side of the viewfinder with the Auto Flash Control next to it and the Ready Light above to indicate that it is on and ready.

This control is activated when the camera is unfolded and is put into default of Auto Flash. To turn this off and not activate the flash, the user must manually push the button up to the off position, hold it there and then take the picture with the shutter located on the other side. 

And speaking of the Shutter…

It is on the side of the body opposite the Flash and Viewfinder. It has an automatic shutter speed setting between 1/4-1/150 of a second depending on the settings that the electric eye sets and the lighting.

Also on the back (or bottom) is the film compartment and battery compartment.

The battery compartment uses four AA Batteries.

The film compartment is behind the battery compartment and is locked/unlocked with a Latch and uses Koadamtic Instant Color Film HS144-10.

 

Kodamatic Instant Color Film HS144-10. Image Source: https://i.etsystatic.com/8161191/r/il/2566d8/1579256053/il_fullxfull.1579256053_cq3q.jpg

The film compartment is also where the Film Rollers can be found that automatically eject the film out of the Exit Slot once used and the picture is ready.

 

This Exit Slot is found on the top (or back depending if folded or not).

There is also an Exposure Counter Arrow above the Film Compartment to indicate the amount of film left.

As mentioned, this camera uses Koadamtic Instant Color Film HS144-10, which is what all Kodamatic cameras (second generation Instant cameras) use. It is a film with an ISO of 320 (or 300) and was introduced in 1982. Its predecessor was the PR10, which was later renamed the PR144-10 which was introduced in 1976 and had an ISO of 160 (Instantphoto).

But before the HS144-10, Kodak was planning on releasing a 600 ISO film to compete with Polaroid’s 600 film, but Kodak went with the “320 ISO for compatibility reasons. So either Kodak system could use both films by setting the lighten/darken control to high on Kodamatic cameras with old film or too low on older instant cameras with new film. Trimprint was Kodamatic ISO 320 film released in 1984 with the possibility to separate the picture layer from the negative layer and to trim the picture to your needs.” (Instantphoto)

It is important to note that the PR144 can still be used but the Light/Darken Control should be set all the way to the light setting.

Now there is a difference between Kodak’s instant film and Polaroid’s instant film, but the fundamentals should still be the same. So I will be going over those and then look at what Kodak added to make theirs unique.

Blank Instant Film Slide. Image Source: https://support.polaroid.com/hc/article_attachments/115022031047

 As Harris (2024) writes, it is similar to traditional film (see Kodak 200 Color Plus Film post), but with some extra steps.

And to keep it simple and stop me from going into a long and deep discussion I will start with an excerpt from Mckay’s (2023) article:

“Polaroid film is made up of three layers: the top layer is a transparent plastic cover sheet, the middle layer is the film emulsion, and the bottom layer is a developing agent. When light enters the camera and hits the film, it initiates a chemical reaction that starts the development process. The film emulsion contains millions of tiny dye molecules that are suspended in a gelatine layer. When light strikes the film, it causes the dye molecules to become excited and move around in the gelatine. The developing agent in the bottom layer of the film then draws the dye molecules down into the layer, where they become trapped in a clear plastic layer that forms the final image.”

Layers of Instant Film. Image Source: https://media.hswstatic.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJjb250ZW50Lmhzd3N0YXRpYy5jb20iLCJrZXkiOiJnaWZcL2luc3RhbnQtZmlsbS1sYXllci5naWYiLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjI4NX0sInRvRm9ybWF0IjoiYXZpZiJ9fQ==

This dye layer is called the developer layer, which is on top of three other layers “image layer, the timing layer and the acid layer. This arrangement is a chemical chain reaction waiting to be set in motion…” (Harris 2024).

But these reactions also have to be activated by a reagent which is a mix of white pigment, opacifiers, alkali and other chemicals, which is first in the border of the film sheet away from the other layers to prevent it from developing too early. Once it is in the camera and the picture is taken, this reactive agent is spread across the other layers to start developing the image by the rollers as the film is ejected. It is also the opacifiers that prevent any more light from further exposing the film.

After that this reactive agent goes in further through the layers and changes “the exposed particles in each layer into metallic silver. The chemicals then dissolve the developer dye so it begins to diffuse up toward the image layer. The metallic silver areas at each layer -- the grains that were exposed to light -- grab the dyes so they stop moving up. Only the dyes from the unexposed layers will move up to the image layer. For example, if the green layer was exposed, no magenta dye will make it to the image layer, but cyan and yellow will. These colors combine to create a translucent green film on the image surface. Light reflecting off the white pigment in the reagent shines through these color layers, the same way light from a bulb shines through a slide. At the same time these reagent chemicals are working down through the light sensitive layers, other reagent chemicals are working through the upper film layers. The ac­id layer in the film reacts with the alkali and opacifiers in the reagent, making the opacifiers become clear. This lets you see the image below. The timing layer slows the reagent down on its path to the acid layer, to give the film time to develop before it is exposed to light. When you watch the image in a photo film come into view, you're actually seeing this final chemical reaction. The image is already developed underneath -- you're just watching the acid layer clear up the opacifiers in the reagent so the image becomes visible.” (Harris 2024).

The developing takes about 60 seconds (Mckay 2023).

Now there is something that Kodak added to make their film different and that is that they added a chemical called Satinluxe, which gave the film a glossy and silky finish (Land List 2004).

Wow, what a story! From a tale of friendship, to backstabbing and deals with the CIA, this was definitely a wild one. But this is still a cool camera, impractical, but still cool and carries the Kodak philosophy of making photography as easy as possible.

Thank you for making it to the end and I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did researching it.

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List of sources:

Blank, S. 2024. Secret History – When Kodak Went to War with Polaroid. https://steveblank.com/2024/05/16/secret-history-when-kodak-went-to-war-with-polaroid/#:~:text=In%201963%20when%20Polaroid%20launched,year%20to%20manufacture%20that%20film.

Camerapedia. Kodak Lenses. https://camerapedia.fandom.com/wiki/Kodak_lenses

Fierstein, R. 2015. Why executives at Kodak were so miserable when the Polaroid camera was invented. https://www.businessinsider.com/kodaks-response-to-the-polaroid-camera-2015-2

Halgand, S. 2024. Kodak Kodamatic 930. https://www.collection-appareils.fr/x/html/camera-541-Kodak_Kodamatic%20930.html

Halgand, S. 2024. Kodak Kodamatic 950. https://www.collection-appareils.fr/x/html/camera-426-Kodak_Kodamatic%20950.html

Harris, T. 2024. How Instant Film Works. https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/everyday-innovations/instant-film.htm

Instantphoto. Kodak Instant Film and Cameras. https://www.instantphoto.eu/other/kodak_instant.htm

Instantphoto. Kodamatic 980L. https://www.instantphoto.eu/other/kodamatic_980l.htm

Land List. 2004. Non-Polaroid Instant Cameras. http://www.landlist.ch/landlist/nonland.htm

Mckay, P. 2023. The Magic of Instant Photography: How Polaroid Film Works. https://analoguewonderland.co.uk/blogs/film-photography-blog/how-polaroid-film-works#:~:text=Polaroid%20film%20is%20made%20up,that%20starts%20the%20development%20process.

Mike. 2011. Shooting the No.1 Pocket Kodak. https://connealy.blogspot.com/2011/02/shooting-no1-pocket-kodak.html

Pacificrimcamera. History of KODAK Cameras. https://www.pacificrimcamera.com/rl/01541/01541.pdf

Photonics. 2024. Rapid rectilinear lens. https://www.photonics.com/EDU/rapid_rectilinear_lens/d6597

Photonics. 2024. Sheet Polarizer. https://www.photonics.com/EDU/sheet_polarizer/d6981#:~:text=A%20sheet%20of%20plastic%20material,polarized%20in%20a%20perpendicular%20direction.

Rowbotham, C. 2013. Polaroid versus Kodak: The Battle for Instant Photography. https://library.torontomu.ca/asc/2013/08/kodak-versus-polaroid-the-battle-for-instant-photography-2/

Wright, M. 2021. Everything you wanted to know about auto (thyristor) flash photography …but were afraid to ask. https://emulsive.org/articles/guides/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-auto-thyristor-flash-photography-but-were-afraid-to-ask