Photographer's Formulary newsletter features 20X24

http://stores.photoformulary.com/images/store_version1/news.pdf

This is the same link you can get by going to the PF site, so also here for a quicker way to find it.

Bob's Leitz Microscope

Monocular biological microscopes are not very common today. The curve and style of this 50s era Leitz is well captured with New55 FILM.

Bouquet of Wires

Ted McClelland's pod still life test shot done with New55 FILM as he gets up to speed with the mechanics of the pod, sleeve and insert which all have to fit, be straight, with well attached clips and of the exact size to fit into the 545 holder, all accomplished in this photograph.

Tobias Feltus and Rachel Rayns on New55

Edinburgh: February 8, 2012:  Artists Tobias Feltus and Rachel Rayns recent collaborations include the first uses of New55 FILM in Europe, marking a milestone in the progress to bring 4x5 instant film back to photographers.  Rayns, noted for her self portraits, experimental motion pictures, and the highly visible "Soup Lab" posed for this portrait in a portrait for artist and photographer Tobias Feltus of Edinburgh, Scotland during a visit there.

"We got one decent shot out of the five" remarked Tobias Feltus, who is part of the New55 group and is recommending improvements. "The pods are too full, and we could only get them in [to the 545 holder] by opening it first." he remarked.

Despite this, the New55 negative yielded a photograph showing Rayns and one of her trademark expressions on The Impossible Project film.

"We have a way to go", said Bob Crowley, who has financed New55 to-date. "The progress has been good, and there is no reason we cannot produce this film without defects in the future if we have adequate financing."

Mind the gap - again

Yesterday, Ted McClelland of 20x24 performed some experiments, of which this is one, showing the effect on the negative of too-thin a reagent gap, and what happens.

In the upper left, there is sufficient gap for smooth and complete processing with no solarization after pulling either. On the lower right, the mottled appearance is where the reagent was exhausted before the process was complete, resulting in an uneven appearance.  All this matters to the construction of the pod, and the rails.

The difference between these two areas in terms of thickness is slight, perhaps a tenth of a mm, or less.

Other artifacts that look like little wings if you zoom in close are the receiver sheet top coat pulling away from the substrate. This happened, I think, because we over humidified the receiver, which has been severely curling on us due to the very dry weather.

Summer was a better time to build New55. Our lab is not climate controlled, and there is no way to humidify it.

Frequently asked questions

Here is a link to Frequently Asked Questions about New55.

This has been well-received and some people have offered to help with the early development of this new 4x5 material now that they understand what is involved in R&D and bringing such a product to market. There are three things that need to be done:

1. The design must be shown to be feasible
We've done this up to a point, and feel it is well enough defined and demonstrated.  Here are some examples.

2. The product must lead to or contribute to an ongoing business.
We think that is possible and have a variety of scenarios that could fulfill it.

3. There has to be an investment made to pay for labor, tooling, materials, infrastructure, and to support the steady rollout of the product that would be mass manufactured.
This is not in hand. Kickstarter would not provide this, because Kickstarter represents a preselling of a slug of materials or product, not an ongoing steady sales pattern needed to establish a going activity. Fortunately, the investment dollars are not very large and those with vision see how it may lead to other new products, technologies, and the ability to license or sell into new and growing fields.

Please read the FAQ

lively black and white

Dmax will never be the same

Just for fun, here is a link to my work on UBA tm, the Ultra Black Absorber. Its use is primarily in optics, in optical receivers, and for solar thermal systems.

it looks like this, from here



to here.

Too much goop or not enough seal

Fine tuning amounts and how we put things together have unexpected results, witness this diptych by Nafis Azad, who wrestles with 20x24 camera by day, and even has his own 30x30 camera. The miniature format of mere 4x5 is no problem to Nafis.

A happy accident as some of the reagent pulled away from the face, or is there some visual intelligence within the DTR process itself?

We need to get some tools to seal the pods so they travel well. Right now the pods do open on their own too easily, but that could be corrected with a new heating and sealing tool. The many successful New55 FILM examples to date have all been hand-assembled by Jack Willard, so we know we are close to a good design, but once we scale up, (assuming we do) we will have to have some custom built machinery.

Too much solarization

After one minute of processing, New55 produced this surreal headshot with surrounding reversal and other oddities. It is amazing, however, that the effect can be so selective and controllable. In fact this was the inspiration for the photograph of the model and camera showing the camera reversed, but the model nearly normal in presentation. That one is in the slide show. I have several of these "too weird" examples that  in retrospect appear to be at least fun to see. On the left is the edge of goop, the limit of reagent spread. Just enough is used to cover the entire area or in this instance, not quite enough. But close.

Collodion tintype

I've been looking through Youtube searching alternative photography and find there are hundreds of posts about tintypes, transfers, collodion, Daguerreotypes, and much more. This one caught my eye though, as it looks pretty easy to do and a lot of fun. I doubt you really have to make a mess like this one shows to be successful, but it may be inevitable. Here is a link to more on collodion, including some big ones. Another site, Scully and Osterman, I've pointed to in the past and is quite relevant here.