Although the quality of my photos increased immensely when I switched to conventional film, I greatly missed the instant gratification of a Polaroid. When I sent the film off to a commercial lab, it was days before I could see the results. In time, an outfit called "Photomat" established drive-up booths in shopping-center parking lots where you could drop off your film one day and pick up the finished product the next day.

The purchase of a 35-mm Nikon F in 1964 put more quality into my photography, but it was the Polaroid that proved to be an an ambassador of good will when I went exploring countries under communist rule.

In 1980, on a flight from Guangzhou to Beijing in China, I was seated beside two young Chinese men, neither of whom spoke English. One of them ran his hand along my hairy arm, then pointed to his own smooth arm and smiled. I responded by taking a picture of them with a borrowed Polaroid camera and laying the paper face-up on the food shelf in front of them. It was worth the trip to see the utter amazement on their faces as the image developed.

By 1987, when I made my next trip to China, the Polaroid was a familiar sight to citizens of the People's Republic. I was walking the streets of Beijing with my Nikon slung over my shoulder. A Chinese man appeared on the street corner opposite me and began mugging for the camera. I obliged by taking a shot. He motioned for me to open the camera and show him the photo. When I told him, as best I could in sign language, that I couldn't show him the picture, he thrust out his hand, forefinger extended.

The Polaroid was a big hit in 1983 during a visit to a farmer's market in Erevan, Armenia. The building was a cornucopia of fresh vegetables and some of the juiciest fruit I ever tasted. Brian Dickinson, my friend from Providence, R.I., who has since died of Lou Gehrig's disease, took his Polaroid into the market. Soon everyone was crowding around the group of Americans touring the place. We were not allowed to buy anything; everything was free.

An Armenian pickpocket snatched Brian's wallet. Brian quickly sounded the alarm. Before the thief could make it to the exit, the vendors had grabbed him and recovered the wallet. They wanted nobody disrupting their session with the Polaroid.

My photography went steadily downhill after I gave my Nikon F to my elder son. That old Nikon had no electronic components at all. You set your aperture and shutter speed by the seat of your pants, or with the aid of a hand-held light meter. Successive Nikons came with electronic gee-gaws that tried to do your thinking for you. The camera communicated through signals in the viewfinder that required that you thumb through the owner's manual. Mostly they signaled that the camera couldn't do what you wanted it to do. To this day, I detest equipment -- especially computers -- that insist on making decisions I'd rather make for myself.

The arrival of the digital camera greased the skids under the Polaroid camera. With the digital, you could see your image instantly and go back to get another shot if you didn't like what you saw. There were no bulky film packs to carry around. And you didn't even have to wait for the image to develop. The picture was there, ready to be uploaded onto a computer disk or printed out on a photo printer.

Just before I retired from the Mobile Press-Register in Alabama, the newspaper moved from its antiquated building -- a former car dealership -- and into an ultra-modern plant. The new plant had no photo lab; the newspaper had converted to digital cameras, most of them well beyond my means. So when I shot film to accompany my columns, I had it processed at a commercial lab.

After I retired, one of my first purchases was a Sony Cybershot from Wal-Mart, which cost about what I had paid for my latest Nikon. I've used it exclusively ever since. The Nikon still sits in a cabinet somewhere in our apartment, but it needs a new battery and I have seen little reason to shell out the $20 or so that it would cost.

In 2001, pummeled by the digital competition, Polaroid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. A private investment firm picked it up in 2005. In 2007, production stopped on the Polaroid camera. Its name will still be seen on digital cameras, digital photo printers and LCD TVs. The company is producing enough film to last until 2009, so owners of cameras using Polaroid film have about a year in which to switch to digital.