Negative Results?

Well, I finally got around to trying out the New55 instant film that I received in August.  I set up a table top flower arrangement still life with a black background, and used my 4x5 camera with my Polaroid 545 Pro film holder.  A bit of front tilt and  f16 at 4 seconds using the film at ISO 100.

The folks at New55 used a Kickstarter campaign to develop an alternative to the Polaroid Type 55 Positive/Negative instant film that was discontinued some years ago.  Another company,  The Impossible Project, managed to save some of the Polaroid manufacturing machinery in 1988 and they now successfully make “pack film” for instant cameras and sheet film for 8x10 view cameras.  In fact, they sold over 1 million films last year.  Unfortunately, they don’t make 4x5 film; the 4x5 machinery was destroyed before they could rescue it.  So 4x5 instant film was gone, dead, finis.  Until the New55 company came along.

The New55 people are upfront that their film is not the same as Type 55.  It is a “new” Type 55.  Different film, different developing chemicals, etc.  But it does provide an instant positive and an instant negative like the Polaroid.  In fact they claim the positive is the same sensitivity (ISO) as the negative which the Polaroid film was not.  So that's nice.

I won’t go into the trials and tribulations facing New55.  You can check out the blog at http://new55project.blogspot.ca  Obviously making this film is no easy task.  

Edwin Land, the founder of Polaroid, was pretty much a genius.  His quote “Don’t undertake a project unless it’s manifestly important and nearly impossible” is the basis for the Impossible Project company name and applies equally to New55.

Now the thing that made Polaroid sheet film incredibly cool was that the negative quality was amazing.  Excellent tonality, very little grain and high resolution made this film stand out from all the others.  And it was instant.  Well, maybe not instant, it was more of a I’m working on it, not long now, kind of thing.  But compared to needing a dark room, well yeah, really quick.

Is New55 excellent like Type55? 

The answer is no, but let me qualify that.  First of all New55 is decidedly less instant than Polaroid.  You actually need to use a 50% fixer solution on the negative after you peel it apart.  Polaroid asked you to dunk the neg in a clearing bath of sodium sulfite, but I never bothered.  I just washed the negatives and hung them up to dry.  No problem with many, many negatives.  But the New55 had me buying rubber gloves and Pyrex glass trays at the grocery store so I could put the film in the fixer, then wash it.

Second of all, the film is sensitive to fogging.  It seems you really need to keep light away from it while fixing and washing.  Wait a minute, that sounds like a darkroom.  I did the processing in the laundry room at night with the door just a bit ajar so I could see what I was doing.  Maybe I’m missing some secret instruction (no instructions were included with my film, just a list of supporters but I couldn't even find my name because the list wasn’t sorted) and dang it, I had fogging and weirdness happening.  If you need a darkroom, you can’t call your film instant.  Just saying.

Third of all, the fogging and weirdness are kind of cool.  Really cool.  They could call this stuff New55 Art Project Kit.  Instant Art Photos!  I’ve got 4 sheets of film left.  I’m going to find myself some kind of red light and give this a go again.  Maybe the fogging and weirdness will go away.  The film seems to have nice resolution and quality.  So I’m not giving up yet.  However, since I have acquired my Cambo Actus mini view camera which uses a Sony A7R back and Hasselblad lenses, using New55 in a View Camera seems almost medieval.  Real hair shirt photography.  Okay, okay . . . I’m just getting lazy.

New 55 Film Project

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.