The Impossible Lab: Funded, and Then Some

Been a busy week, and I am late reporting on Tuesday’s announcement from The Impossible Project: a new product, financed through Kickstarter. It’s part-and-parcel with Impossible’s new camera, which has been in the works for some time, and thus far takes the form of (more or less) the bottom half of an SX-70/600-style camera: the motor, pick, processing rollers, and surrounding structure. Eventually, there’ll be cameras built atop that base. This week’s product announcement was a little simpler: a collapsible mount by which you can fit your iPhone to that base, and thus print your digital photos quickly and simply onto a sheet of analog instant film. It’ll be $299 retail when it arrives.

I have to admit that it’s not for me. I much prefer the other direction: shooting on analog film for its look, and then scanning for digital transmission. But apparently I am in the minority among Impossible’s fans, because the Kickstarter goal was $250,000, and it was met in about a day and a half. Impossible is still raising funds; as I write this, the total is headed toward $340K with 25 days to go. A bunch of people have pledged more than $2,000 apiece. I’m impressed, and also delighted to see all that cash headed toward this little company with big plans.