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New55 4x5 Polaroid Film Kickstarter Project
14 April 2014
The New55 Film Kickstarter project has raised over $116,000 of its $400,000 goal with 21 days to go. The project hopes to produce "a new instant 4x5 film that produces a superb negative and a positive print too."
Bob Crowley, who publishes the New55 Film blog, described the project:
The initial motivation wasn't anything glamorous: I just noticed that The Impossible Project said they were not going to work on 4x5 and so I said, on Twitter, that I would look into it.
The gamut of my inventions runs though all things that detect something such as heat, radio and light waves or sound. In this case, lightwaves through a lens appealed to my inventor's instinct, along with the knowledge that a new era was opening up in materials science and nanotechnology -- which is plainly evident in the diffusion transfer reversal process that Andre Rott and Edith Weyde invented for Agfa just after World War II.
Like any project, New55 FILM started with researching patents and papers, buying the important books that exist in any field and contacting people with knowledge who are willing to talk. After establishing a basic understanding of the technology, I set out to locate the pieces: industrial resources, vendors and others who could supply the materials -- often materials that nobody has made for a long time -- in some cases things that nobody makes anymore. That job isn't done and there are more places to explore after a successful funding effort.
While New55 is similar to Polaroid's type 55, Crowley said the new film will have "its own unique tonal characteristics."
The film, which will be sold in boxes of five sheets if the project meets its goal by May 5, will require a holder like the 545 Polaroid Land film holder. The Kickstarter page shows a Chamonix Saber camera fitted with the holder.