Happy New Year!
That aside, the news for silver halide and light sensitive processes is moving at a fast pace. The first week of the year nets several new stories that will be touched on here.
Silberra concluded their crowdfunding campaign with about $35K in funding. The funds were released at the end of last year, but Russian banking holidays will delay receipt of the cash until January 9th. For this reason, Silberra has announced that they will not be sending out rewards until that time. The rewards scheduled for December are being packed, so should be ready when the funds arrive.
Silberra has contracted with Foma Bohemia to package 120 format film, and they are working out a contract for 35mm film. The ULTIMA100 and ULTIMA160 films are ready and will be hand rolled initially.
Silberra hopes to open their virtual online store soon, so that their products will be available to order. Speaking of online shops...
The Film Ferrania online shop is still not open and there has been no news since August of last year. The Kickstarter for this project was successfully funded over 3 years ago. The promise was the manufacture of an emulsion similar to the Scotch brand E6 slide film. So far, the project redeveloped the venerable P30 B&W film from Ferrania's past. Despite the demand for this product, only one campaign for an Alpha run of the film has been made. The project had hoped to sell the film on demand from its online store.
While we cannot count out Film Ferrania yet, there are two other projects that have concluded production.
The first is the 20x24 project, which used a stockpile of 20x24 format Polaroid film stock, chemistry and pods to produce giant instant prints. The project also owned one of the huge 20x24 Polaroid studio cameras. The camera rented out for $1750 a day and each print cost about $125. The hope to fund the production of new materials just never came to be. So now that the existing materials will soon expire, and no longer produce quality prints, the project is shutting down this year.
The second is the New55 project, which produced 4x5 instant two part film. This project depended on the 20x24 project for chemistry and pods for the developer. An unsuccessful Kickstarter attempted to raise the funds necessary to produce the equipment to manufacture their own pods and chemistry. Without the 20x24 project support and no equipment, the project had no means to continue and shut down at the end of last year.
On the bright side, Kodak has promised Ektachrome will hit the market in 2018, and they have this podcast on their progress on bringing Ektachrome to market.
