Pathfinder was the name given a series of cameras manufactured by Polaroid and Yashica from the early 1950s until 1964. These models were the professional-market Polaroid camera, equipped with a fast and sharp lens and made with durable steel construction. Unlike other Polaroid cameras, the Pathfinders were set to expose the film fully manually, with no aid from an electric eye. This provides the photographer with precise control over the camera.

he Polaroid Land Camera 180 looks superficially much like the other folding cameras in the Polaroid 100-400 series. All use the same 3¼×4¼" instant peel-apart instant film. Like Polaroid's higher-end folding models such as the Automatic 250and 350, the 180 has a metal body with a tripod socket, and similar single-window folding Zeiss rangefinder. So what is different?

First the 180 has a 114mm f/4.5 Tominon lens manufactured by Tomioka, and offers fully manual exposure settings. The aperture settings go from f90 to f4.5 with 18 click stops. The shutter speeds run from 1s to 1/500 with B. The focusing arms also have distance (3.5, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 15, 25 ft and inf.) listed instead of pictograms. On the lensboard a lever selects the flash sync setting, M for bulb or X for electronic flash; "V" is a self-timer setting. An accessory shoe is also mounted on the camera body next to the viewfinder. Also on the lens is an EV window with settings from 5 to 22 EV. The design of the lens rings make it easy to use EV exposure settings on this camera. The EV numbers can be set at 1/2 EV click stops. Once the correct EV setting has been set, It is very easy to twist both the aperture and shutter dials at the same time to maintain a particular EV number; but it is also easy to set the aperture or shutter independently. The EV scale is similar in concept to that used in the Pathfinder series of instant cameras.