New55 COLOR Kickstarter!

adelorenzo said:

Doesn't seem too ambitious considering that they raised nearly half a million dollars from enthusiasts with the original New55 kickstarter.

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Further to my point, perhaps. Still, I do hope they can regroup and find a way to make this happen. It's actually the first Kickstarter effort that I've backed.

bvy said:

Further to my point, perhaps. Still, I do hope they can regroup and find a way to make this happen.......

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I wonder if their time (and money) would be better spent partnering with CatLabs, which has already stated that they’re going to produce pack film.

Mackinaw said:

I wonder if their time (and money) would be better spent partnering with CatLabs, which has already stated that they’re going to produce pack film.

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In a recent interview, Florian Kaps said that CatLabs, New55 and Impossible Project are all talking to each other. It's my impression that the price is a real obstacle: even if pack film is revived, it will be much more expensive than Fuji's instant film. No one is sure if there is a market for an expensive instant film. Even when Fuji's pack film was dirt cheap, it didn't sell much.

I backed the project because I wanted New55 to succeed, and I would have shot the film rewarded happily, but I'll never buy a pack even if they decide to make it now that the kickstarter failed.

Personally I feel like New55 should work on perfecting New55 PN (perfect reagent spread, mechanically-assembled envelopes, prices cheaper than at least expired Type55 on eBay, etc) before worrying about branching out to new products. But that's only my opinion and I'm sure many will vehemently disagree.

I tend to agree, though I wonder if branching out to color would have given them more and better resources to perfect the black and white product.

bvy said:

I tend to agree, though I wonder if branching out to color would have given them more and better resources to perfect the black and white product.

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I think that was the goal - the New55 COLOR kickstarter was more to mechanize the production since they can already get the color materials from Impossible - they use it to produce their instant 8x10 film. It's just a matter of buying/building machines so that they can more easily create both types of film. They burned through the 400k they got from the original kickstarter without having the machines needed - it was more expensive than they thought to create New55 PN. Today they are hand-assmbling every pack that is sold under an IR camera in a dark tent. In reality, it will cost 800k to get New55 PN to be a real Type 55 replacement - mechanized production for perfect consistency sheet to sheet. The color film is essentially a freebie because they can already get the materials from Impossible - it's just a matter of changing out the material on the machines that day.

Packfilm was never part of the goal and should have never been mentioned in the kickstarter or on their advertising materials for the campaign. It's an entirely different undertaking, and would likely have spawned its own kickstarter campaign later on.

I don't know if they have a real path forward now without the extra cash to improve their manufacturing capability. It will be interesting to watch their next moves.

No. It was not more expensive then New55 thought. It has always been clear what the cost would be and it has always been communicated that way.
To claim that color is a freeby because New55 can get the materials from Impossible is not correct either. The chemicals from Impossible cannot be used because that is integral material and not peel apart. Yes the negative is delivered but the rest still needs research and development to the DTR process needed for peel apart film. In the end when all that has been figured out it will be simply changing materials to produce black and white or color New55. But machines are needed to automate the process and have a better quality control and steady goor performance of the film.

whomever wants to recreate pack film should start by having people recycle the existing packs (the plastic parts). Those are going to be the expensive thing to reproduce, and I am sure there are still many thousands of them out there (From Fp100c) that could and should get saved and recycled. Those could be re-used until such time as $ is procured to redo the injection molds, etc. That would save a lot of up-front cost. Maybe sell the film on an exchange basis - have to send in an empty set of FP100c plastic parts to get a new box of film.

That might help yes. But since the first packs of film needs to be hand assembled like the New55PN is now the prices will be high. Higher than the average packfilm user is willing to pay. I would geuss it would be in the range of $40,00 per pack of 10. And a lot of people has already said that $40,00 is to much. So the market would shrink even more then it already is. :-(