Galaxy Hyper Speed - Direct Positive 120 Paper

[Carl Hall]

I've just seen this on Kickstarter and thought it was quite interesting. Galaxy the people that recently had the 4x5 direct positive paper on Kickstarter have now announced plans to create Hyper Speed direct positive paper in 120 size as well. Not sure if I'll back it as I've already got the 4x5 paper that I don't have a developer for, but it's interesting, and I'm always excited to see new film related things being tried.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/114183606/galaxy-hyper-speed-120-for-medium-format-camera

Here's a quote from their page

With our first project, we created a new photo paper "Galaxy Hyper Speed" with extraordinary ISO 120, which made it possible to use the paper directly in the analog cameras. Our first project was dedicated to large format and pinhole photographers. Now we are taking the next logical step - introducing this paper to medium format photographers.

Basically, we took the format that was always used for film and replaced film for our photo paper creating new unique (or reviving long well-forgotten - see "The Story" below) photo medium.

However, our 120 photo paper is not a replacement for a classic medium format film. They work and serve us in different settings and situations. Film has a long history of doing a fantastic job for many photography professionals, and we don’t need to advocate it here. But with the film, after you take pictures, you are running the full marathon with all the pit stops - develop film, dry it, use an enlarger, print pictures on paper, and dry the prints.

Galaxy Hyper Speed 120 works differently - you just develop the paper. You don’t even have to go to the darkroom because with our RC-based positive photo paper you can develop your photos using just a changing bag and a small tank, and the pictures can be ready in about 7 - 10 minutes!

 

[skysh4rk]

I've just seen this on Kickstarter and thought it was quite interesting. Galaxy the people that recently had the 4x5 direct positive paper on Kickstarter have now announced plans to create Hyper Speed direct positive paper in 120 size as well. Not sure if I'll back it as I've already got the 4x5 paper that I don't have a developer for, but it's interesting, and I'm always excited to see new film related things being tried.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/114183606/galaxy-hyper-speed-120-for-medium-format-camera

Here's a quote from their page

I saw this earlier today. I was very interested until I found that it wasn't the usual develop, stop, fix, wash process for negative film and traditional prints. If I'm reading it correctly, you also need to do a second exposure and development?

 

[s162216]

I saw this earlier today. I was very interested until I found that it wasn't the usual develop, stop, fix, wash process for negative film and traditional prints. If I'm reading it correctly, you also need to do a second exposure and development?

That's how it gives you positive prints, the re-exposure and development essentially inverts the negative to a positive - E-3 process films used to use the same kind of method for transparencies (for home developing the recommended procedure was to move a 10W lamp along the film from a certain distance away) until Kodak introduced the E-4 process that did it chemically without the re-exposure (but used an incredibly toxic reversal agent, hence why the much safer E-6 process was introduced a few years after). You probably could formulate a direct positive paper that requires no re-exposure or re-development (like the Ilford Direct Positive), but I imagine its probably a lot more complex to formulate in comparison to just re-exposure.

You can also do it by bleaching like the other kit they're talking about, but they say they're having problems shipping it in Western Europe so it's likely the bleach they're using contravenes environmental laws or something. Originally Kodachrome development used special selective dye bleaches until they developed a simplified method using re-exposure to the various light colours a few years after, which considerably reduced the number of processing steps (and improved the process safety).

 

[RumpFace]

No sorry sir we can't do that one.
Paper neg belongs in history in my opinion.
I've done it with mixed results and don't like it at all.

 

[Morinaka]

Galaxy Hyper Speed 120 works differently - you just develop the paper. You don’t even have to go to the darkroom because with our RC-based positive photo paper you can develop your photos using just a changing bag and a small tank, and the pictures can be ready in about 7 - 10 minutes!

It's pretty deceptive to call this a direct positive paper when you have to do the extra developing work to turn it from a negative to a positive, you look at that quote from the page and it seems easy but the real developing process is wayyyy down the page.

Ilford's direct positive paper can be developed with the usual easy dev/stop/fix process using any common developers.