Littlest Black Box

Amid glove-tight corporate security and waves of speculation, the nation's two photography giants have been racing for months to bring out new products that will make big money out of small size. Last April Polaroid Founder Edwin Land pulled a camera the size of a cigar case from his shirt pocket for his stockholders to get a glimpse of--but no more. There are rumors that the audience at next month's annual meeting will get a much longer look, perhaps at the finished product. Last week Eastman Kodak Co. introduced a series of five ingenious little cameras, each about as big as a wallet and only one inch thick; they also easily fit into a man's shirt pocket.

The new Pocket Instamatics are successors to the fuller-sized cameras of the same name, which have sold more than 50 million units since they were brought out by Kodak in 1963. Although purchases of regular Instamatics will undoubtedly trickle off as a result of the smaller model's convenience, Kodak officials are convinced that they have tapped a far wider market with their compact. Half of all cameras in use in the U.S., they contend, are older and less sophisticated than the original Instamatic. During the new camera's first year on the market, Kodak reportedly hopes to sell 4,000,000 of them at prices ranging from $28 to $128 (v. $10 to $145 for regular Instamatics). Says Van Phillips, a Kodak vice president: "People are going to find that you can carry this camera around as easily as a pack of cigarettes."

The trickiest problem in developing the new camera was finding a narrow-width film that would produce color prints of sufficient sharpness--a challenge that Germany's Minox and other manufacturers of minicameras have never quite met. Kodak scientists came up with fine-grained film that converts negatives only about a third as large (17 mm. by 13 mm.) as those recorded on regular Instamatic film to 3 1/2 in.-by-4 1/2-in. standard prints--some 30% larger than the old ones. Photographers will pay the same as before for both film and printing. Says Kodak President Gerald B. Zornow: "The key technology in the project was in coming up with the right film."

It may be a handy key to increased profits as well. Because of the reduced film size, Kodak will save on the cost of film base, plastic and other materials. In addition, the nation's 650 print processors must buy new equipment to develop the smaller film; naturally, the only company that sells it is Kodak. For photographers who want to shoot transparencies, Kodak is manufacturing a new series of slide projectors sized to show the 16-mm. film.

To Kodak officers, the sound of clicking shutters comes through as the music of prosperity--and for the past several years the music has not been quite as sweet as it might have been. Not that the company is in trouble; last year it posted after-tax profits of $419 million on sales of nearly $3 billion. Still, partly because the market for highly profitable Instamatics was becoming glutted, earning levels have lagged slightly behind sales increases. But in recent months, largely in anticipation of a flashgun reception for the new compact Instamatics, investors have pushed up Eastman-Kodak's stock from 72 to an alltime high of 113 1/2. Last week it closed at 113 1/2.

Kodak's archcompetitor Polaroid has hardly dropped out of the race. Within the past few months the company has begun manufacturing its smaller camera at a new plant in Norwood, Mass., and will probably have the compact on dealers' shelves in time for Christmas. Polaroid scientists are also hard at work on a new film process that will produce instant slide transparencies. Also in the works: instant film for home-movie cameras.

Both companies stand to benefit from the deepening U.S. fascination with the photographic image, especially on the part of the young, who have enthusiastically made a new Pop-art form of poster-size photographs of everything from rock groups to Rocky Mountain scenes. Kodak's newest--and smallest--little black box will undoubtedly have wide appeal to the majority of amateurs who want to keep their equipment uncomplicated and lightweight. It marks the introduction of a new era of compact cameras and pocket photography.

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