It’s cool that this lens can work with a digital medium format camera. Those sensors are a bit smaller than some of the giant image areas medium format film will have, but that’s with a tiny pancake lens.
There are compromises, of course. The Fuji GFX 100ii sample above shows vignetting and fairly significant softening in the corners. Hasselblad X1D’s sensor also adds a purple-blue cast. But if you want a lens this light and this compact with your big digital camera, this would be the limiting factor with almost any optics you’ll throw at it.
A $2.5K purchase of a lens made with elements sourced from a point-and-shoot camera makes the same sense as finding the legendary Minolta TC-1 (analog.cafe/r/minolta-tc-1…) 28mm G-Rokkor lens in a M-mount. When Minolta made those outstanding point-and-shoot cameras in the late ‘90s, they also produced a limited number of the same lenses for Leica rangefinders.
Some point-and-shoot cameras made in this period have incredible optics; however, those cameras can not last forever. My TC-1 bricked after two years of use, which wouldn’t happen with the lens alone. The reliability is a huge factor when it comes to these cameras, no matter how well they were built.
The folks at Omnar went a little further with their rehousing, however, making the Pantessa in a way that it projects an enormous ~60mm image circle — which means it can work with medium format digital cameras.
This shot was made with the lens adapted to Fuji GFX 100ii.
My favourite samples of this lens’ renderings from all the digital Leicas (amongst the M9s, the M10s, and the M11s) were made with the Monochrom body. I’m not used to digital sensor colours, even the premium ones, which is why I found black-and-white ones more compelling. Can’t articulate why just yet.
In any case, this lens appears to make sharp photos, as you’d expect from Zeiss optics that brought Yashica back out of the hole (a bit of history here: analog.cafe/r/yashica-t2-f…).
This black-and-white image seems to be pushing the lens’ limits: if you look closely, there’s some softness and swirl in the corners and a tiny bit of motion blur in the leaves. Yet the photo has a nice contrast and a great overall sharpness (there are a few things that can affect the sharpness of your photos with any lens — I wrote about it earlier here: analog.cafe/r/how-to-make-…).
Yashica’s T* point-and-shoot cameras were and are relatively affordable (thanks to the all-plastic bodies) and well-designed. Of course, the handling or reliability that you get with them won’t be the same as on a M-mount rangefinder.
There were a lot of sample images in the press package for this lens. Hamish mentioned that he’s even got some on 35mm film in his Leica that’s almost ready to scan. Some reminded me of my experience with my Yashica T2, particularly the optics render the out-of-focus foliage. But of course, digital sensors do render photos differently.
This photo was snapped on M11. I think it shows this lens’s bokeh and low-light performance pretty well.
Omnar Lenses was found by Hamish Gill of 35mmc.com and Chris Andreyo of Chris Andreyo of Skyllaney Opto-Mechanics.
Omnar has released a few rehoused lenses, taking vintage optics and improving their performance (as they have with Pantessa FLB) and handling. The handling bit seems to be driving the price of these ultra-low-run creations: practically everything is made of machined metal, hand-finished and hand-assembled in the UK.
Even the screw-on lens cap is made of metal.
The Pantessa weighs 108g (3.8oz) and protrudes 16.5mm (.65”) from the camera.
The Omnar 35mm f/3.5 Pantessa FLB is a premium Yashica T* lens rehousing for Leica M-mount, with an image circle large enough for Fuji GFX 100ii and Hasselblad X2D¹.
“The optical formula has been modified[…] to reposition the glass elements into a continually optimized state[…] we have designed the lens so the position of the optical block subtly moves within the housing as the aperture is adjusted[…] This design feature, which is entirely unique to our rehousing, is the key reason the Pantessa lens maintains such high optical performance and rangefinder accuracy across the entire 0.65m through Infinity RF coupled focus distance.” — Omnar.
The Omnar 35mm f/3.5 Pantessa FLB is available to pre-order off the Omnar Lenses website today for £1950 (~$2,435).
This lens’s first limited production run has just 20 units, which Omnar expects to ship by the end of February 2025.
¹ — With adapter. Some vignetting on Hassy. See samples below.
I use to shoot film back when was a lot younger. I have some very nice and expensive digital camera equipment now. Taking several hundred and even a couple thousand pics at sport events is the norm. You still have to get settings close to right but Photoshop can make an ugly picture look good. I’m totally disgusted with digital and AI. You have a very well enhanced fake picture by the time you finish editing. But that’s what sells. You no longer need to master the art of photography. All you need to do is master the art of Photoshop. Make one click on your preset and you’re for the most part done. I have a Minolta Maxxum 300SI. It’s not a fast camera but it’s fun to shoot. My father-in-law recently gave me a Canon AE-1 Program and an Olympus OM-1. I’m concentrating on refurbing the Canon right now. One thing that I did forget is buy 12 exposure film and not 36. Take 12 pics, send off to get developed, receive your pics, laugh and ask yourself, what was I thinking. Make adjustments, improvements and have fun. It’s a slower process than digital but more fun.
In this month’s article on the future of film, you mention the interest in vintage digicams. I just bought a CampSnap 103B digicam. Fixed focus, fixed aperture, wide angle lens, optical viewfinder, 8MP, NO on-camera controls beyond camera on-off and flash off-on-auto.
Why? I started back into analog photography earlier this year with my old Minolta 110 SLR. That was fun, but the all-in purchase/processing/shipping cost of $1.20/exposure was a choke point. I was strongly considering a refurbished Olympus Pen EE2 on Ebay (Japan-based refurbisher) to get that cost down to $0.45/ exposure when it occurred to me that I could get essentially the same user experience with the CampSnap camera, minus the costs of film. And without the worries of mechanical failure in a sixty year old camera that hardly anyone knows how to fix.
Update: it appears that consumer laser rangefinders are generally considered safe. Still, I can’t imagine pointing one of those things at someone’s eye during a portrait session, street, or event photography is a good idea.
Rveni Labs made a special holder that adapts a portable laser rangefinder device to film cameras.
Zone focusing isn’t difficult, but if you’d prefer to have *laser focus* with your manual film camera, there’s now an affordable way to do this. Reveni Labs, a Canadian startup that manufactures film camera accessories, made a holder with a mirror that lets you clip a small laser rangefinder tool, AquilaPro, on top of your camera.
AquilaPro, which sells for $30, is very accurate, down to 0.078”. There’s about an inch of discrepancy between the actual and measured distance due to the gap between the rangefinder and the mirror introduced by the holder — which won’t be consequential unless you’re shooting with an extremely narrow depth of field. The rangefinder’s limit is 98’ (30m), which can be assumed as an infinity mark (assuming reasonable DOF).
NONS CAMERA, a startup from Hong Kong/Shenzhen known for its Instax film cameras with high-quality lenses, is teasing the release of a new Hasselblad Instax Square back. youtube.com/shorts/3YK6AJM…
You may’ve noticed in the above video that the photographer mounts a filter on top of the lens and one more on top of the viewfinder. Here’s why it’s important:
The challenge of using the Instax Square format with Hasselblad is that the actual 6x6 frame of a medium format camera is 56mm × 56mm, which is smaller than Instax Square’s 62cm × 62cm by 3mm on each side, producing a black border.
NONS modified the projection focus via an additional lens element further back, which made it larger. This allowed them to “enlarge” Hasselblad photos to snuggly fit in an Instax Square.
NONS’ earlier Hasselblad back (reg: $279) produced a thin black border inside Instax Square exposures. The new version does not.
The new back is expected to launch in Q1 2025, according to their Instagram announcement: instagram.com/p/DDeO1-iS0c…. NONS also confirmed (in the link above) that they do not intend to discontinue their earlier back (one that produces borders), and the new version will have film ejection and darkslide operation similar to that of the classic Hasselblad backs (i.e., “less awkward,” according to some commenters’ implied feedback).
Filmomat, a German premium lab tool maker, has released the 135 Autocarrier, a $1,500 automatic film scanning rig for digital cameras.
135 Autocarrier can scan and advance film up to three frames per second (!) via an automatic frame detection system. It uses twenty full-spectrum LEDs (5000K) for accurate scanning colour, and it’s compatible with uncut film and precut strips that are as short as three frames. The rig also triggers your camera’s shutter button automatically.
Filmomat sells beautiful, elaborate, and expensive tools for those who like to develop film at home. This rig even seems suitable for a small lab.
Film frame edge detection (built into 135 Autocarrier and attempted by other manufacturers) is tricky as film cameras may have a slight variance in spacing, frames can overlap, and they do not necessarily have edges (if there’s a dark shadow on the side of an image, for example). These are complex problems to solve, which may make the price of this tool understandable (but I am curious how/how well it solves these challenges).
A high-quality scanner can significantly impact the sharpness of your images (see: analog.cafe/r/how-to-make-…) more than a fancy lens. So, if you’re wielding something pricey, this rig may be the next step to improving your scans and cutting your scanning time down.
“2024 Film Wrapped”: See your film usage stats with the Film Log app!
This year, I shot 86 rolls of film, and my most active month for archiving it was November. But my most active month of all time was December last year: 17 rolls. How about you?
If you’d like to see a graph like that rendering *your stats*, check out Film Log: analog.cafe/app/film-log
Film Log is a free web app that helps you track film across your cameras and throughout its lifecycle — from packaging to the archive. See the overview of Film Log on 35mmc: 35mmc.com/07/05/2022/film-…
I’ve just added a card to the app that shows the number of rolls archived every month and a summary of total usage. You would need to have used the app to see your stats.
If you aren’t using Film Log to track your film, this may be a good time to start!
Most of the articles on this blog take hours, days, or weeks to create. But the news of a new film, a new camera, or something else happens much faster than that.
This is why I started sharing time-sensitive write-ups and shorter pieces as comments (rather than full articles) and tagged them as #editorial🔥.
Editorial comments are part of this blog’s RSS feed, and I also share them on Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads to inform the community. But until today, they were off to the side of the main blog content if you visited the website.
This new update (v3.25.76) adds the top three newest Editorial pieces at the top of the News page (analog.cafe/news). You can now get a glance at what’s new in the world of film photography just by visiting that page.
I try not to bother readers who come here for film photography-related stuff with software updates. This one, however, took days to get just right (animation, data transforms, layout) — which is why I wanted to flaunt it a little.
Better support for international readers on Analog.Cafe.
Even though I mostly read, write, and speak English here, film photographers are an international community. This blog was developed and first published out of Chiang Mai (Thailand), a small city with perhaps the most labs per capita in the world (see analog.cafe/r/where-to-dev…). I also get comments and emails in other languages, which is easy as translation tools are pretty good these days.
But because I still live in my anglophone bubble, some international readers (about 1% of you) have had a bad experience on this blog. It blew up with an error message suddenly and unexpectely, simply because of a translation plugin.
The issue is finally fixed. It was a challenging bug to track down and rectify (if you’re technical, you may find this github.com/vercel/next.js/… and this martijnhols.nl/gists/every… helpful). And it would’ve never gotten fixed if no one had told me it was happening (since I don’t use translation tools for English pages).
So thank you all for giving me feedback and reporting bugs over the years!
Please let me know if you ever have issues on this blog, would like to chat about film, or would like to submit an article of your own — nearly half of the submissions I publish here are written by non-native English speakers!
Paname Paper is a Parisian street photography print newspaper — shot entirely on film.
Photography books are tons of fun to explore. I reviewed a few of them here (analog.cafe/books-zines) and even made a couple. But a newspaper feels new.
My high school and early college days involved daily subway travel, where there was no reception. Lots of people, including me, read local papers on the train. I miss the feeling of thin, crispy pages.
I’ve seen and read a few thin magazines about photography, but I don’t think I’ve held a newspaper that featured a topic I care about a lot — film photography — so prominently on every page.
Grégoire Huret’s new project is just that:
Paname Paper, produced and entirely photographed by Grégoire Huret, explores a theme deeply rooted in Parisian identity: “Modes de Vie”. The name Paname Paper—combining Paname, the slang term for Paris, and Paper, symbolizing the journal—perfectly reflects the spirit of this visual project. It captures urban life in all its diversity, in a style that navigates between street photography and documentary photography.”
The first issue is 10€, 36 pages, and 260 x 370 mm. It’s printed in France on 60 g/m² newsprint sustainable paper and solvent-free ink. It’s available on Grégoire’s website:
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