St. Louis, Missouri Jul 21, 2018 (Issuewire.com) - Live for only five days on Kickstarter, The Standard 4x5 reached its $15000 goal. The Standard 4x5 is a 3D printed large format camera. It is the first project from Standard Cameras, a new startup founded by the artist Drew Nikonowicz in Saint Louis, Missouri. Reaching this funding goal will launch the company’s camera production, but also initiate a suite of additional educational programming and services they have planned.
The Standard 4x5 is only the beginning. The core of the Standard Cameras mission is to increase accessibility into photography, especially large format photography. They strongly believe visual literacy is imperative in our growing visual culture. Large format is an important component of the educational process for students of photography. Through workshops, educational programming, and grants, they will work with schools and institutions of all sizes to achieve their mission. They will grow their line of affordable equipment to further empower people to become photographers.
Designed with these new photographers in mind, The Standard 4x5 is affordable, lightweight, and robust - all without sacrificing the rigidity and features you would expect from a large format camera. Cameras of comparable weight and specification often cost over $800, but Standard Cameras has chosen to keep their 4x5 at $350 to increase accessibility. For the ambitious LEGO builders and IKEA junkies, they also offer a DIY kit for $320 where you assemble the camera yourself. They are achieving this price by utilizing 3D printing to manufacture the camera parts. This has the added benefit of making the camera extremely lightweight, recyclable and easy to repair. Replacement parts can quickly be reprinted by Standard Cameras or by the owner. This is possible because in the coming months the design will become open source for anyone to download and build at home.
A 4x5 camera produces a negative which is almost 16 times larger than a single 35mm frame. Despite being one of the earlier forms of photography invented, large format photography remains one of the primary sources of high resolution and high dynamic range imagery. These cameras can also precisely manage image quality through perspective correction and strict focus control. Educationally, this precision invites young photographers to consider their images in a brand new way. In contemporary art, large format continues to be an incredibly common tool for photographers. Important artists and photographers like Ansel Adams, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Mickalene Thomas, Berenice Abbott, Sally Mann, and Alec Soth have all utilized large format in their work. Despite all of this, it remains an incredibly expensive and therefore privileged form of image-making. This closes off the practice to many artists and universities who lack the funds necessary to buy in. Standard Cameras is correcting this by lowering the cost of entry.
The Kickstarter campaign went live on Monday, July 16th, and will remain live until August 5th at 11:59 EST. You can visit the campaign by visiting http://4X5.XYZ
Founder Bio:
Drew Nikonowicz (born in St. Louis Missouri, 1993) earned a BFA degree from the University of Missouri - Columbia in 2016. His work employs analog large format photography as well as computer simulations to deal with exploration and experience in contemporary culture. While still in undergrad, Nikonowicz earned the Aperture Portfolio Prize and the Lenscratch Student Prize in 2015. He went on to have a solo exhibition at the Aperture Foundation in New York. Before graduating, he was invited to participate in a year-long residency at Fabrica Research Centre in Treviso Italy. His work has exhibited both nationally and internationally. Nikonowicz’s first photobook, This World and Others Like It, will be co-published later this year by Yoffy Press in Atlanta GA and FW: Books in Amsterdam NL. Nikonowicz founded Standard Cameras in 2018, after developing his 3d printed camera, The Standard 4x5, in his spare time for 4 years.
Media Contact
Standard Cameras contact@standardcameras.com 314.808.8233 http://standardcameras.com
