Last week I saw a social media announcement about a Kickstarter project, the goal of which is to start a company to manufacture a 4X5 positive/negative instant film to fill the void left when Polaroid discontinued its Type 55 film (along with all of its other film products—immediately after which it became a Zombie corporation. Anyone heard the name Polaroid lately???)

The project is called New55 and has been in development for over three years. The new film will not be exactly the same as Type 55, but from what I’ve read on their blog, it could end up being better in some ways. For one, they feel they’ve been able to achieve a good negative and a good print from the same exposure/development time, something Polaroid was not able to do. The ISO speed of the film will also probably be higher than Type 55, perhaps as high as 400.

The Kickstarter project is attempting to raise $400,000 (!) to fund the manufacturing start up costs. It’s an ambitious endeavor, but, if a lot of us who have long lamented the loss of so many great film products over the years are willing to step up and support the project, it has a good chance of succeeding. And I believe that, if the film actually does come to the market, there is a niche that it can fill and so it should be profitable for a long time.

Several of the images in my portrait gallery on this site were shot on Polaroid Type 55 and you can read my rant in this blog, here and especially here, when I found out it had been discontinued. It was one of my favorite films for black and white portraiture because of its fine grain and unmatched tonal scale. And the groaddy edges caused by the film packet were also very cool.

So buzz on over to the New55 page on Kickstarter and contribute to the revival of an important bit of photo history—and hopefully, its future as well.