Another year over
It's hard to believe that we are coming to the end of another year, it seems to have gone so fast.
Sticking with a tradition started last year, I’m reviewing my year in analogue photography and a few things that occurred during the year.
Films shot
This year I actually shot slightly less film than last year. A total of 28 rolls, again a combination of 35mm and 120, of these 7 were colour and the majority were shot in Scotland.
I did get to shoot 3 new emulsions Tri-X, Rollei Retro 400 and the dreaded Harman Phoenix. It is funny that in all the years of shooting film, I had never used Tri-X. I only really bought it because it was going cheap but I have to say that I do like the look of it and will probably shoot more of it in the future.
The Rollei was ok, although I was only shooting as part of an upcoming project and I did push it to 1600 so will need to use it again to get a better idea of it.
As for the Phoenix film, I've already had my say on it but I will add that Harman never got back to me, which is disappointing and I did receive comments saying that I shouldn't have really shot it in a Holga and I should of shot it at ISO 100 or 50. My feeling on that is, the film shouldn’t dictate what camera I use and if it's being sold as an ISO 200 I should be able to shoot it at that. It's a bit like buying a car and being told not to drive on a motorway, use it in the rain and don't drive over 30mph.
Photowalks
The photowalks have again been a good way of meeting people and the four I organised saw people come from as far away as Liverpool.
I love putting these walks on and always try to have them set around a theme, like worldwide pinhole day or Holga week. There are quite a few themed days in the analogue community, so I think I will have a few more along with ones that coincide with exhibitions worth seeing.
No new cameras but it was close.
This year we saw the release of two brand new cameras, the Pentax 17 and the Mint/Rollei 35af.
It's really good news seeing both these cameras come to the market. I was tempted by the Pentax, as I have grown fond of the half-frame format.
Hopefully in the new year, I will have the chance to try the 17 and do a review of the camera.
Other companies like Lomography and RETO also released cameras. Lomography with the Lomomatic 110 and another half-frame camera, the Lomourette, which looks like a Diana. RETO release was an update to it's Kodak H35. It seems that half-frame cameras are now a big thing in the film community.
One other camera that caught my eye in recent weeks but for all the wrong reasons is Film Never Die’s Nana camera. Last year we had the Cinestill controversy and this one seems to be the controversy for 2024.
A lot of this seems to have happened back in the middle of the year and it's covered much better than I can here, by Canny Cameras and Bellamy from Japanese Camera Hunter.
What brought it to my attention was that a well-known UK online seller was promoting this camera on Instagram and a user named ikigaifilmlab mentioned about the controversy, so I went looking to see what it was all about.
The main jist was the camera wasn't exactly being built from scratch, the company had backed it's own Kickstarter and most of the body was very similar to a £30 plastic camera available on Alibaba, the only difference is the FND camera has a metal front.
FND after getting found out, I’m guessing possibly panicked and posted an apology on it's blog.
I did post a comment on the online sellers IG post saying
So another company using underhand tactics, makes you wonder who you can trust.
There were a couple of other comments about this as well. Surprisingly a couple of days later the negative comments were deleted. I get that people have the choice to delete comments posted on their socials but as this camera is selling for £186, you'd think that people would need to know about these things and in my opinion gatekeeping like this isn't good for the community. All I can say on this is, do due diligence when buying these type of cameras and Buyer Beware!
Other news in the analogue world is that Kodak Alaris (KA) was sold in August to a private equity firm. As yet they haven't done anything to upset the apple cart, other than the usual price rise in January 2025.
Although in the last month Kodak Eastman (KE) has announced that it is stopping selling movie film to respoolers. Some are saying that this is the equity firm forcing Kodak Eastman to do this but the real reason seems to be that respooling is eating into KE pricing for it's core market, the movie industry. Apparently if this was to continue KE would have to raise the price of cine film and this would make it uncompetitive with digital capture.
As far as I am aware Cinestill is the only company that have a contract with KE to buy & sell the Vision3 film stocks. So a lot of the individuals and places like Reflx labs may have a hard time getting hold of this film, only time will tell.
Zines
My Zines collect hasn't grown this year, mainly because I haven't really had the time to look for new Zines on the market.
Although I have made a couple of mini zines. These are made from a single sheet of A4 paper then fold to A7, to give an eight page booklet.
If anyone is interested in them, they are over on my Ko-Fi page.
The Photozine Collective is in the process of producing it's 3rd zine in the new year and hopefully I will have some images in it.
Hopefully next year will be a better year, more good quality cameras on the market would be nice to see, along with truly new films coming to the market.
Just leaves me to wish you all a happy new year for 2025.
Great post George, a real pleasure to meet you in the flesh in 2024 too 👍
A pleasure to read your film photography wrap up and wishing you a ‘Happy New Year’ - 🤞with more photo walks/ meet-ups.