Analog.Cafe

654 Reviews, Guides, and Essays

“Greenscaling” Aerochrome + New Film Inversion Tool
A Monthly Newsletter for GOLD Members
March 21, 2025
In this newsletter, I’ll share my initial results from the ongoing experiment of redscaling Aerochrome and talk about another project that’s been occupying most of my waking time this March: film Q.
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VueScan Professional Review
A Scanner App & Driver for Legacy and Modern Film Scanners
March 11, 2025
VueScan is an app that works with over 7,400 scanners, many of which were manufactured over twenty years ago. After switching from SilverFast, which I felt was cumbersome, expensive, and frustrating, I’ve stayed with VueScan for over five years. In this review, I’ll go over the interface, capabilities, drawbacks, my workflow, and the reasons why I think VueScan is indispensable for any photographer who scans film at home.
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A New Kind of Negative Film Inversion Tool
Coming Soon
March 6, 2025
This article redirects to the film Q User Guide, where you can learn how it works and how to use it.
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Film Photography News — February 2025 Recap
February 25, 2025
New colour film from Harman, film prices are lower than they’ve been in years, Lomography releases two new instant film cameras, their (and Ferrania’s) accounts get hacked, and ONDU Pinhole stops making pinhole cameras.
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Film Prices, Aerochrome, and the Members’ Handbook
A Monthly Newsletter for GOLD Members
February 21, 2025
Now is a good time to buy film as the prices have actually lowered worldwide. A new market report breaks them down by type, currency, and availability. Speaking of prices, I’ve got plans for the most expensive roll of colour film you can buy. I’ll share them right after I introduce the new Members’ Handbook and update you on my progress with Film Q.
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Members’ Handbook
What You Get With Your GOLD Membership
February 20, 2025
Thank you for joining the Analog.Cafe GOLD membership program! You are supporting a small, ad-free, privacy-friendly independent publisher. This handbook summarizes all the things you get in return for your patronage.
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Kodak Vision 3 250D 5207/7207 Film Review
Shot as Stills and Developed in C-41
February 18, 2025
Kodak Vision 3 250D is a colour-negative film made for motion picture cameras. Its image quality is on par with Kodak Portra 400 and other colour-accurate fine-grained low-contrast emulsions when developed in ECN-2. But for this review, I’m processing it in C-41. I also compare my results to CineStill 400D, which has been claimed by many to be 250D w/o the remjet. (It is not.)
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Nikon AI-S Nikkor 50mm 𝒇1.8 Lens Review
And Its Five Siblings
February 11, 2025
Nikon AI-S Nikkor 50mm 𝒇1.8 is a lightweight normal manual focus lens for Nikon F cameras. In this review, I’m sharing my experience with it on my Nikon FM2n and FE cameras, a bit of history, and identification for the SIX variants. Plus: my thoughts on whether the Nikkor is worth the extra ~$75 as compared to the cheaper Series E.
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Colour Film Prices Are at Their Lowest Since 2022!
As Long as You Have the Right Kind of Money
February 4, 2025
Film is a vital consumable for the analogue photography ecosystem. Whenever it becomes more expensive or less available, the community feels the impact. Lucky for us, the past twelve months brought us favourable pricing after years of steady increases. In this article, I will break down the latest findings from the annual retailer survey, discuss how costs may differ depending on where you live, and explore some of the best film stocks to buy today.
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Film Photography News — January 2025 Recap
New Lens, New Film, HP5+ @ ISO 100,000, Four-Ish New Cameras, and a New App
January 28, 2025
Nine new things have launched or were promised to launch for us film photographers: a fancy new Omnar M mount pancake lens, new cheap colour film, (maybe) four new film cameras — one of which is Fujifilm’s Instax WIDE Evo — two new gadgets from Reveni Labs, and a new chemical dilution calculator app. I’ve also performed two experiments and shared detailed notes about drastically altering the sensitivity of a popular film stock.
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HP5+ @ISO 100,000, Film Prices & Private Beta
A Monthly Newsletter for GOLD Members
January 24, 2025
2025 is off to a fast start with an outrageous film experiment: pushing and pulling one of the world’s most popular black-and-white emulsions beyond anything anyone has ever done. As for next month, there’s a new app that’s been in development for over three years that I’d like to run by interested GOLD members. Plus, a note about film prices in 2025.
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Fujifilm 400 Color Negative Film Review
An Unexpected Alliance With Kodak. Is This Just Ultramax?
January 21, 2025
Fujifilm 400 Speed Film is a new offering by a Japanese manufacturer made in the USA. It is a replacement for their earlier made-in-Japan Fujicolor Superia X-Tra, which, at some point, used a fourth cyan-sensitive colour layer to produce better tonality in mixed lighting—a technology famously used in their legendary Fijicolor Pro 400H emulsion. In this review, I’ll examine this film’s origins and technical and visual properties. I will also discuss how it may be the same as and different from the Kodak Ultramax 400.
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Nikon FM2/FM2n Film Camera Review
With Honeycomb Titanium Shutter
January 14, 2025
This camera’s 100% mechanically powered titanium honeycomb shutter curtains can reliably sync with flash speeds up to 1/250s and fire at a bullet speed¹ of 1/4,000s when needed. The FM2 is one of Nikon’s longest-living SLRs: it remained in production for 19 years! This review dives deep into this camera’s pedigree and features.
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Adox CMS 20 II: An Ultra-High Resolution Film Review
Tested With Adotech IV and a 400-Megapixel Scan
January 10, 2025
In this review, I share my experience shooting and processing this film with the specialized Adotech CMS IV developer as well as the non-specialized Ilford DD-X, discuss its technical specifications, and share the results of my attempt to produce a 400-megapixel scan (the absolute maximum I’m capable with my current hardware and software).
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Pushing Ilford HP5+ to ISO 100,000
Samples, Recipe, Discussion, and Development Times
January 8, 2025
This article is a follow-up to yesterday’s experiment with pulling HP5+ to ISO 3; whereas the former was fairly easy to do, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend you try what I’m about to share with you here. Still, this resource comes with all the techniques and recipes necessary to replicate the experiment, as well as suggested times for developing HP5+ at EI 12800, 25600, and 51200.
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Pulling Ilford HP5+ to ISO 3
Samples, Recipe, Discussion, and Development Times
January 7, 2025
Ilford HP5+ is a ninety-year-old¹ black-and-white film known for its versatility, sharpness, and controlled response to various development methods. Many photographers love to push-process it and occasionally pull-process. Yet, to my knowledge, no one has pull-processed it to this extreme; thus, this may be the first time anyone has ever shared the technique and the results with the HP5+ shot as if it’s an ISO 3 film.
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The Tsushima Cyanotypes
Book Review
January 6, 2025
The Tsushima Cyanotypes is a black-and-blue photobook of cyanotypes by KC Ahonen, limited to just 200 copies. I loved flipping the 76 pages of this A5-sized uncoated book and seeing the 30 masterfully printed blue-on-white cyanotype prints. Yet, the most impactful piece of this book was the artist’s statement, where KC revealed the source of his images and its uncanny connection to our modern lives within the parallel universe from ones and zeros.
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Rediscovering the Digicam With Pentax Optio E10

January 3, 2025
Digicams are making a comeback. To understand why, I read dozens of articles, spoke to the new digicam users and tried my hand with Pentax Optio E10, a nineteen-year-old six-megapixel camera. In this article, I’m digging a little deeper for reasons to use one today (including ways to do it better) and the trend’s relationship to the still-rising popularity of film photography.
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Nikon Series E 50mm 𝒇1.8 Lens Review
One of Nikon F’s Lightest, Most Compact, and Cheapest “Pancake” Lenses
December 30, 2024
Nikon Series E 50mm 𝒇1.8 is one of the most compact vintage Nikon F-mount lenses. The all-black version tested here weighs just 137g/4.8oz and protrudes about 2.5cm/.98” from the mount. Costing an average of $50 (depending on condition), it’s also an affordable one to try.
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An Experiment in Pushing Boundaries
A Monthly Newsletter for GOLD Members
December 20, 2024
This month’s “How to Make Sharper Photos on Film” has the most lessons I wish I’d learned earlier. In fact, there are 23. That’s a lot — good thing they’re ranked by importance. I explain how I did that below. This year’s last newsletter also covers a few blog updates and an Easter egg that’s a clue to the next month’s film experiment.
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