Business Notes Photography

The 600 or so guests who gathered last week on the roof of the garage at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles were treated to a strange sight. As a chorus line of cheerleaders kicked and a bevy of multicolored balloons rose in the sky, a huge cloth dropped to reveal a two-story model of a camera. Polaroid was pulling out all the f-stops to introduce the Spectra, a new instant camera that will sell for a steep $150 to $200.

Polaroid hopes that the Spectra will revive its instant-camera sales, which plunged from a record 9.4 million units in 1978 to 3.5 million last year as more and more shutterbugs turned to superior 35-mm cameras. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company says that with the advanced chemistry of Spectra film, the new camera will produce sharper pictures with truer color than did previous models.