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 p.1 #6 · Film photography in 2024 and 2025 - where we're at, and where we're going? | |
bjhurley wrote:
One of the things I like about film is its unpredictability. This unpredictability extends to the future of film and film cameras. If I had to guess about the year ahead, though...
1. New cameras: Apart from Pentax and a few smaller companies that make new film cameras (e.g., Mint, Lomography), I'd be surprised if we see many new film cameras coming on the market. It's hard for new cameras to compete with the thousands of old film cameras available today, many in reasonably good working order. You could argue that the cost of a CLA brings old cameras into a similar cost range as new ones, but it's still a hard sell when in some cases you can buy 10 or 20 good-quality old film cameras for the price of a new one.
2. New films: I do think we'll see some new emulsions but that's also a big, expensive undertaking. It seems Kodak wants to reserve its cinema films for cine users now and is stopping sales to respoolers, although the respoolers are figuring out workarounds. But I think there's demand for new films, even if only for the sake of variety. Trying out different films is one of the big pleasures of film photography.
3. Fashion: It's still seen as cool to be shooting film, especially among people in their teens and 20s, but like all fads this could change on a whim especially when it becomes so commonplace that nobody pays attention anymore. Those of us who shoot film for other reasons benefit from the demand, which has helped sustain businesses that might otherwise have died out and helped create new options. But if the fashion dies out we'll be be outliers again....Show more →
1. New cameras -
frankly I see this differently - it's getting harder obviously, but yes I can still find a nice SLR body in good condition (at least cosmetically) for about 80 to 150 EUR / USD where I am.
Yet this year three suddenly died on me (shutter behaving erratically on all three - with two of them it's most likely a dead capacitator between meter and battery - not a hard thing to fix per se, but hard to get to with these models, so at least 120 EUR per camera, maybe more, I've been told - what's wrong with the third body I don't even know).
This has cost me a lot of time / nerves, not to mention ruined shots.
So I'd actually rather spend a larger sum on a brand new camera with warranty than buy another 40 year old one that might act up the following week.
The Pentax 17 is not for me, neither is the Rollei 35 AF, so the only option right now is a 6K Leica - I wish there was another, say, 1-2K option. Depending on mount / features I'd probably buy it.
2. New Films -
There's a lot happening indeed - and while I don't care much for the cine stuff (don't like the halo thing, it's often expensive, or ECN2 process - which only very few labs do around here, not cheap..) I do agree with you, variety is a good thing, and I'm curious what we'll see next year. I forgot Kodak brought back Ektachrome! Haven't tried that yet (super expensive here, but will get a roll soon)..
3. Fashion -
I agree the "serious shooters" benefit from the youngsters that probably just do it because it's trendy.
Although.. at least over here, when I look at the people in the waiting line at my local lab, it's not so much teens and people in their 20's, but rather hipsters in their 30's, mint Minolta CLE's or Contax's around their neck.. probably the same logic applies though, they'll maybe find something else to do in a while? We'll see..
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). Yes, that we reached the peak of the film renaissance hype is my suspicion simply judging by more and more YouTubers who focused in the past on analog photography are now converting to digital with either monochrome cameras or going with Fuji MLC and their film repro JPGs. Many of them mention that they are no longer willing to pay the actual film prices.