Cool Camera Stuff Image Gallery
Cool Camera Stuff Image Gallery

With instant-film photography, you can watch the image slowly come together in a matter of minutes. See more pictures of cool camera stuff.

Instant camera film is remarkable because it has its own built-in developing studio. To understand how this works, you need to understand the basics of traditional photographic film. Film is a plastic base coated with particles of silver compound that are sensitive to light. Black-and-white film has one layer of silver compound, while color film has three layers -- the top layer is sensitive to blue light, the next layer is sensitive to green and the bottom layer is sensitive to red. When you expose the film, the sensitive grains at each layer react to light of that color, forming metallic silver at that layer. This gives you a chemical record of the light and color pattern.

To turn this into a picture, you have to develop the film. One developer chemical turns the exposed particles into metallic silver. The film is then treated with three different dye developers containing dye couplers. The three dye colors are cyan (a combination of green and blue light), magenta (a combination of red and blue light) and yellow (a combination of green and red light).


The instant camera developing process combines colors the same basic way as slide film. It has the same layers of light-sensitive grains as traditional film, all arranged on a plastic sheet. The film also contains several additional layers, however. These layers contain all the necessary chemicals for the development process. Underneath each color layer, there is a developer layer containing dye couplers. All these layers sit on top of a black base layer, and underneath the image layer, timing layer and acid layer. This arrangement is essentially a chemical chain reaction waiting to be set in motion.

See how instant camera film develops on the next page. ­