I love shooting digital. It’s convenient and instant. But I still shoot medium and large format film. It reminds me of a recent New Yorker cartoon with the caption “I’m attracted to vinyl because of the expense and inconvenience”. It’s kind of the same thing with me and 4x5 photography.
I have a guilty stash of 4x5 sheet film that includes a small stock of Polaroid Type 55 PN and a couple of boxes of Fuji Acros 4x5 Quickloads. Why am I feeling guilty? Because my 4x5 Type 55 film is hopelessly expired and the Quickloads are also expired. Part of the problem was that when the Type 55 was discontinued, I panicked and bought everything I could get my hands on. Way more than I could reasonably use before it expired. Same thing when Fuji discontinued the quickloads. It's still cool though, expired Type 55 can produce some nifty effects (as long as the pods aren't dried out). The expired Acros is probably not much of a problem. I intend to test these assumptions soon. I need to get the big camera out and shoot something.
When Type 55 instant film was discontinued it was a big loss to the large format camera community. This film was superb and was developed by Polaroid with the assistance of none other than Ansel Adams. Type 55 came in a cardboard sleeve and you put it into a special holder, pulled out the sleeve which acted like a dark slide, made the exposure, then pulled it out of the holder and pulled it apart. It was really a lot of fun. The film was very slow, most people shot it at 25 to 35 asa for the negative so the grain was very fine and the negatives were creamy and gorgeous. Yes, a Polaroid film with a positive and a negative. The positive was rated at a different ISO so you had to choose between the positive or the negative before shooting. And everyone loved the gorgeous negatives.
Then, it seemed not long after that loss, Fuji’s Quickloads were discontinued and it seemed like they were kicking us 4x5 shooters while we were down. Quickloads have the film in a cardboard sleeve just like the Polaroid Type 55PN. But it’s not instant film. You just put the sleeve in a holder, then into the camera where the film holder would go. No need to load film holders in the dark before you go shooting which is inconvenient and leads to those dreaded dust spots.
All of this background is a way of introducing the new kid on the block, the New55 Kickstarter project. They have been working feverishly to solve the technical problems and produce a replacement instant PN 4x5 film. Over a year ago I signed up for a box of New55 with no guarantees that they can pull this off. So did a lot of other people. To help raise more funds to solve the production problems, New 55 has recently offered Quickloads they call “1 Shot”. I bought a small box to support them and to try it out. Check out their blog at http://new55project.blogspot.ca and maybe support them by buying a t-shirt or something. All of us 4x5 shooters will thank you.