Analog.Cafe

622 Reviews, Guides, and Essays

Film Ferrania Orto 50 Film Review
High-Contrast and Orthochromaticism (With and Without a Green Filter)
November 5, 2024
Film Ferrania’s Orto 50 is a newly reissued (2023)¹ orthochromatic black-and-white film by the famous Italian film factory. It features fine grain, high contrast, and blue light sensitivity (which makes it blind to the red colours). Orto 50 shares its fine grain, strong contrast, and some development times with Film Ferrania’s first product, P30 — but it’s not the same film.
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Minolta MD Zoom 35-70mm 1:3.5-4.8 Macro Lens Review
October 30, 2024
This zoom glass caught my attention for its incredibly light 189g/6.7oz frame and the apparent fact that it’s optically the same as the Leica Vario-Elmar-R 35-70mm 1:3.5. There’s also a version of this lens with macro capabilities that weighs a bit more but can focus at 33cm/13” with a 0.25x magnification factor.
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Film Photography News — October 2024 Recap
No More Vision 3 Film Reels, All B&W Films Look the Same, Lomo’Instant Wide Glass, and More!
October 29, 2024
Kodak is no longer selling Vision 3 film reels for bulk loading, photographers are terrible at telling which black-and-white film a photo was shot on but we can expose it with LEGOs — which is pretty cool. Lomography released Lomo’Instant Wide Glass, “the world’s sharpest instant camera,” and a fancy version of their Lomomatic 110 camera. Jagglé’s Berlinova daylight film processing units are on Kickstarter, Polaroid’s new film is Reclaimed Green, Crown & Flint app gets an update, and Analog Sparks declares competition winners. Plus, a new guide to editing film scans.
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Photographers Are Terrible at Identifying Most B&W Films
573 Participants Guessed Correctly Just 37.6% of the Time
October 28, 2024
What guides your choice of black-and-white film? Is it the contrast, the grain, or something else? Last year, I built a game, “What The Film ?!” with Daren and Yvonne. It randomized black-and-white photos and asked players to guess what film they were shot on. This weekend, I brushed through the entries and found a few interesting stats about our understanding of black-and-white films… One of which is our apparent inability to identify most of them correctly.
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Fine-Tuning Film Photography
A Monthly Letter for the GOLD Members
October 25, 2024
Should you edit your scans — and if so, how would you do that, if the film was exposed with a few LEGO bricks? And what about doing that for a living? In this monthly letter for GOLD members, I’m introducing a new course on editing film photos, sharing some bonus content related to the unique and rare LEGO film camera, touching on the challenges of being a full-time creative, and setting the expectations for the next month on Analog.Cafe.
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How to Edit Film Scans
Bring the Best Out of Your Film
October 24, 2024
This course will teach you the nuances of colour balance and a few simple methods for applying colour corrections. You will learn how to get the best colours and detail out of your film scans and how to draw viewer’s attention to your photos through editing without going too far.
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Accidentally Wes Anderson: Adventures
Book Review
October 22, 2024
Accidentally Wes Anderson: Adventures is the second book from the Webby Award-winning namesake team, Accidentally Wes Anderson. Like the first edition, this book contains a collection of photography created and selected for its embodiment of the filmmaker’s cinematography. Yet, I think this second book is a little better than the first.
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Nikon FE Film Camera Review
Zero Compromise for Purpose and Price
October 21, 2024
Nikon FE is an SLR with a delicate balance of features to accommodate portability, practicality, build quality, speed, and price. It is also built with exceptional attention to detail.
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Lomography Color Negative 800 Film Review
A Portra in Disguise?
October 18, 2024
Lomography Color Negative 800 film is a high-speed medium-high saturation film sold in triple packs of 35mm and 120 rolls. It features accurate colour reproduction and fine grain. Though Lomography does not reveal the exact origins of this film, it’s most likely manufactured by Kodak — but it’s not the same as Portra 800 — as the controlled experiments suggest.
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Minolta MC TELE Rokkor-X 135mm 1:2.8 Lens Review
A Beautiful, Well-Built Portrait Lens for SR Mounts, One of 16 135mm Models
October 15, 2024
Minolta MC TELE Rokkor-X 135mm 1:2.8 is an affordable, well-built manual focus lens for Minolta SLRs. It has enough speed and focal length to capture fast action at a distance and bokehlicious portraits up close. One of the nicest lenses (by feel and looks) in my collection!
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SMC Pentax-M 100mm 𝒇4 Macro Lens Review
October 14, 2024
SMC Pentax-M 100mm 𝒇4-32 is an affordable macro lens with 0.5x max magnification that can be converted to 1:1 with extension tubes or used as a telephoto.
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Shooting Northern Lights on Film
No Screens, No Distractions: Just You and the Nature
October 11, 2024
Learn to pick the most appropriate film cameras, lenses, and accessories for photographing northern lights, select the best films for the job, understand your exposure settings, and how to apply appropriate development and scanning techniques for the cleanest results on film.
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How to Remove Remjet & Develop Cinema Film in C-41
Also, What Is Remjet?
October 10, 2024
Kodak is the world’s leading producer of colour-negative film, but not all of it is meant for still cameras. In this guide, we’ll examine Kodak’s cinema film options, what makes them unique, how to use them in still cameras (your regular rangefinder/TLR/SLR), and how to develop them at home or in a lab.
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Hands-on With ZH1, a WORKING LEGO Film Camera
Made From Just the Official LEGO Components, It Takes Real Photos on Film
October 8, 2024
This August, I had the chance to interview Zung Hoang , the inventor of the first fully functioning (yet to be official) LEGO film camera over chat. A few weeks later, I met with the man to learn more about the project, see the camera stripped down, and borrow it for an entire month. This is the story of LEGO ZH-1, a fully functional film camera and its creator.
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Becoming a Creative Professional
A Brief History of Analog.Cafe, a Side Hustle That Changed My Life
October 7, 2024
I worked on this blog for so long that I can no longer imagine my life without it. In this essay, I’d like to take you on the journey of this creative project’s evolution — which ultimately transformed me into a full-time, independent film photographer.
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How to Bulk Load 35mm Film
October 3, 2024
Bulk loading film saves money, frees you up to use any (reasonable) film length in a canister, helps upcycle 35mm canisters, and even simplifies home film development. With the right tools, you can roll your own cinema film or stage photography experiments that wouldn’t be possible with store-bought film rolls.
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How to Develop Black-and-White Film at Home
As an Absolute Beginner
October 1, 2024
It’s easy to develop black-and-white film at home. The choice of chemicals, timings, and formulations may seem daunting at first, but once you understand how it works, you’ll find it to be a simple, forgiving process with lots of opportunities to excel and advance the quality of your images.
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How to Use Extension Tubes on Film Cameras
Macro Photos for Less
September 30, 2024
Extension tubes are simple mechanical devices that let you to focus your regular or macro lens closer to your point of interest. This can help you fill more of your frame with your tiny subject. However, there are some limitations and a few formulas that you should be aware of.
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Fujifilm Fujicolor PRO 400H Film Review
Discontinued but Not Forgotten
September 27, 2024
Fujifilm Fujicolor Pro 400H is a pro-grade colour negative film with excellent dynamic range and unique colour reproduction thanks to its fourth colour layer. In this review, I’ll cover my experience with this film in 35mm and medium format, share a few samples, and discuss its technical properties.
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Kiki Pan 320 Film Review
Meow 🐾
September 26, 2024
Kiki Pan 320 is a medium-speed black-and-white film by a Hong Kong analogue photography distributor, Camera Film Photo. Kiki Pan is a German-made emulsion packed in a super-cute box with its DX-coded canister and negatives featuring a design inspired by the shop’s resident cat, Kiki. 🐾
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