Long time Phogotraphy advocates will know all about our eternal struggle to find a decent camera, film or even lens based photography Kickstarter. If not ego-inflating projects, the vast majority of crowd funding attempts tend to be little more than money spinning cons.

Then we discover this. A no frills 4×5″ film loading system.

Introducing the Sp-445, the smallest, lightest most proficient home developing system for 4×5″ film. Its inventor, Timothy Gilbert is an engineer who has gone to great lengths to redesign the traditional method reducing chemical usage by over three times!

We were frustrated by the lack of an easy to use, affordable film processing system for large format sheet film. After several prototypes and lots of experimenting, we’re ready to launch the SP-445 processing system. It will process up to four sheets of 4×5 film in only 16 oz (475 ml) of solution.

We love that Timothy has seen a market, discovered a problem and addressed it with such simplicity. There’s no glossing over with a fancy video advert either. We’re treated to the inventor himself sat down in front of a video camera (hello 360p we meet again) explaining the project. There’s no music, no attractive models, no skateboarders, no beard trim champions in sight. Just Tim and his SP-445. And we’re going to back it.

At just $47 this is affordable and we dearly hope the funding goal is reached. As of posting this article it is roughly 33% funded with 33 days left to go. The only nagging point is the expensive ($27) shipping to Europe. We’ve reached out to Timothy to see if we can help rectify this.

If you want to back the SP-445, the funding goal must be met by mid January 2016 with shipping expected three months after.

You can join Phogotraphy in backing the campaign right here.

UPDATE: 17th December 2015 17:35 GMT

After several potential backers expressed concerns with regards to the agitation solution, Timothy has responded with an article from Practical Photography that discusses agitation. He has also promised to release a short video over the weekend with a further demonstration.