I wrote this guide four years ago after researching ways to personally take over the process that traditional scanning and film inversion apps obfuscate.
I needed to know how exactly the software affects the colours of my film to identify and control the visual differences between film stocks and measure the effects of my lenses, filters, and exposures.
Having learned a great deal about the transformative path of a negative with an orange mask to a digital colour image, I could confidently write film reviews where I measured and compared minute differences between film stocks (whereas others may’ve deferred to internet lore, marketing material, or inconsistent scanning workflows). I could also get more image data out of my scans and gain greater editing flexibility.
This weekend, I rewrote the guide completely and added new illustrations. It’s no longer focused on Photoshop or any particular editing tool, and the new article explains the theory much more diligently (with examples).
Lomography has updated its DigitaLIZA Scanning Kits.
The new DigitaLIZA+ and DigitaLIZA Max modular scanning setups allow phone or camera scanning for multiple roll formats: 35mm, 120, 110, and 127. Medium format scans can be as large as 6×7.
The new backlight included in both kits features CRI 97, which means it emits 97% of wavelengths compared to incandescent light bulbs. Keeping this number as high as possible is crucial for getting accurate colours out of your negatives. Plus, you can use your own backlight instead if you’d prefer.
Both kits use magnets to keep the film flat, whereas the Max includes a phone stand as an additional component.
film Q User Guide is now public, while the app is still in private beta.
film Q is a new app that inverts film negatives on the Analog.Cafe website without the need to install any software. It connects to your Dropbox account and processes your files in the cloud.
This app will have several advantages over traditional film inversion apps, such as hands-off batch processing, zero resource usage, and an open and consistent inversion algorithm.
My goal with this app is to show you exactly what the inversion software does so that there are no unanswered questions about your exposure, film development quality, or the impact of your software on the image.
This app is still in active development and is only available for testing upon request. However, you can get a glimpse of how it looks and works through the help docs that are now live:
If you’d like to try this app or have any questions or feedback, please let me know. I want this new product to be as helpful as possible for folks who scan film at home.
Cameradactyl is trading art sales for enormous RA-4 paper cartridge, camera back, and direct positive processor blueprints.
Last week, Ethan Moses of Cameradactyl posted a video about his invention, a new “film” format that uses roll RA-4 paper to make about 100 4x5 exposures in a giant daylight canister. The rolls can be used in Ethan’s enormous TLR-like camera or adapted to 4x5 cameras as a back.
Of course, shooting this huge format is just half the job to get an image. The other part is developing a thick roll of paper. This is why Ethan also built a contained conveyor-like machine that pulls the entire roll through the chemicals to produce a direct positive.
But Ethan isn’t planning on selling these devices as he does with the rest of his cameras. Instead, he’s proposing to trade sales of his photography (prints) in exchange for open-sourcing the entire project, which includes the canisters, camera back, and the film processor. Once Ethan sells $300,000 worth of his art, all files will be available for free (he will be releasing them incrementally as the sales progress).
An unusual proposition for a very cool project. I happen to have a roll of RA-4 paper in my closet and I’d love to use it in a 4x5 camera.
Here’s the video where Ethan explains his project and why he’d like to trade his art sales for 3D files: youtube.com/watch?v=PB0GPY…
You can find and purchase Ethan’s prints on his website: cameradactyl.com
Lomography released a development tank that makes loading film easier.
The fiddliest task of developing film is feeding it onto reels. Reels arrange it so that there’s spacing/no contact across the entire strip. This allows water and chemicals to flow freely across the entire surface, but it has to be done in darkness.
However, loading film onto reels can be difficult. Everything needs to be done by feel. Your hands are confined to a small space that can get warm quickly. As your hands get warm, the sweat makes the job harder. Films with a thin base, like Lomo 800, can be very frustrating to mount in these cases.
Lomography’s solution is a modular film loader and processing box. A core where you place your film roll is inserted into a plastic “doughnut” piece. You then wind the film from your roll into the “doughnut,” which houses the reels, remove the core with your empty canister and pour chems into the “doughnut.”
Lomo Daylight Developing Tank works for single 35mm rolls. The twist agitation looks a little messy in the video (youtube.com/watch?v=XyGh79…), but the inversion lock looks reassuring.
The tank & accessories are $79 at shop.lomography.com/us/day… — all you need is your film chemicals (and tools to mix them) to get started.
Harman, the company that makes the famous black-and-white Ilford emulsions, has just released a redscale version of their Phoenix 200 film.
Redscaling means loading colour film into your camera “upside-down,” which produces strong red tones on a darker exposure.
You can redscale any colour film at home (see below), even Phoenix 200.
Harman’s Red 125 has new packaging with an updated DX code to reflect the film’s lower sensitivity to light. The factory also printed the edge markings on the correct side so that all commercial labs could easily identify, develop, and scan this film.
A technical document about Red 125 (found here: harmanphoto.co.uk/amfile/f…) prints characteristic curves which show about 4 stops of composite dynamic range (3 for the red channel) and a very cool spectral sensitivity graphic.
Whereas the “normal” Harman Phoenix 200 came with special scanning instructions for commercial labs, the Red 125 document suggests standard settings for all scanners.
Film Ferrania’s Facebook page has been in the hands of alleged scammers for almost two years. It can be rough on the Internet, even for well-known brands.
Though I haven’t had my account stolen 🤞, it appears that restoring one can be difficult. In Lomography’s case, they were able to regain full access, but all of their content and followers vanished, prompting the company to ask us, the community, to re-follow as they rebuild their presence on the platform. See attached.
Film Ferrania’s Facebook page still has all of its original posts and comments up. Ferrania’s last post was on April 2, 2023; you can see the comments related to film photography under it. But the photos and the caption are in Vietnamese, and the profile name is now Bảo Lasvegas. Bảo’s subsequent messages are cryptic cringe, advertising a service that has the appearance of a pyramid scheme.
My understanding of these hacks is that they aren’t personal — rather a programmed automated attack designed to take over popular, poorly secured accounts and sell them to someone looking spam or appear reputable.
If you’re worried about your account, I suggest using a password manager service (1Password is good) and enabling two-factor authentication. You can go a step further and use an authenticator app like Google Authenticator.
Last week, Lomography updated its premium *multi-format* instant film camera designs with Pemberley (pictured) and The Blues.
Lomo’Instant Square Glass works with Instax Square *and* Instax Mini films via an interchangeable film back (compare film dimensions here: analog.cafe/r/instant-film…). It uses a 95mm lens (45mm equivalent — presumably with the square format), and its two apertures: 𝒇10 and 𝒇22 that you’ll need to zone focus (how to zone focus: analog.cafe/r/how-to-zone-…). Its fully automatic shutter can fire between 1/125s and 8s with a 30s max delay in Bulb mode.
With ‘Instant, you get to control flash, multiple exposures, and exposure compensation — but it’s otherwise a fully automatic film camera.
Glass lenses are a relatively new offering for a brand that’s been known for its plastic “toy” cameras, like the Diana Mini (analog.cafe/r/diana-mini-7…). Yet, Lomography is serious about their designs (see my Nour Triplet 2.0 review: analog.cafe/r/nour-triplet…) and a transition to a higher quality and pricepoint products in their lineup (they were the first in a long time to release a glass lens 110 camera: analog.cafe/comments/0jn2).
Film prices for Canadians should not be immediately affected by the new tariffs but 2026 may get expensive for all Kodak customers.
Kodak will be raising film prices this year for its distributors (analog.cafe/comments/snzw). In addition to those manufacturer-originated price hikes, the US’ new tariff measures (nypost.com/2025/02/01/us-n…) may affect what Kodak pays for raw material imports from Canada, Mexico, and China to make its products.
Now what?
Film price at the counter typically changes long after the manufacturer’s increase announcements. This is because retailers and distributors hold stock and have varying business interests and opportunities that delay the effect of manufacturers’ price changes by 1-6 months (data: analog.cafe/app/film-price… can be correlated with Kodak’s price announcements).
Kodak’s long production chain, from raw material sourcing to packaged, shipped, and delivered products, means that the effect of the tariffs on photographic film may not be known until 2026 (also: film manufacturers have historically limited their price increase announcements to no more than 1-2 a year).
Canadians: our Kodak film prices should NOT be immediately affected by the new tariffs: canada.ca/en/department-fi… (not listed).
ONDU Pinhole stops making pinhole cameras to focus on large format and “other projects.”
For film photographers in the know, ONDU has been synonymous with a high-quality pinhole camera for over a decade. Unfortunately, for those who grew to love their lensless products, the Slovenian camera maker is abandoning their namesake practice.
In their recent email (thank you, Kari), Elvis Halilović announced that ONDU Pinhole will no longer manufacture pinhole cameras in order to focus on large format and “other projects.”
Understandably, the news disappointed fans of some of the best lensless cameras on the market. However, ONDU isn’t the only pinhole camera maker, and perhaps their departure will make space for other ambitious projects, like Mania MFZ (analog.cafe/comments/r336).
I messaged ONDU earlier to get a statement from them but haven’t heard back yet (will update this post if they reply).
***
On Instagram (instagram.com/p/DFf3jkusN56), Elvis mentioned his desire to explore creativity in new ways. No one wants to feel stuck. Best of luck to ONDU and I’m looking forward to seeing more products from the shop.
ONDU’s latest large format camera was announced last year on Analog.Cafe. Read about it here: analog.cafe/r/film-photogr…
Myriad is a new multi-format holder for scanning film with digital cameras.
This new design by CUTASUNDA (run by Michael Swift from North East of England) accepts virtually all roll film sizes 110, APS, 126, 135, 127, 120/220, etc. The holder is available from the CUTASUNDA website for £99.95 ($125): cutasunda.com/products.html — or you can try your luck at Pentax Forums, where a Myriad giveaway is running until February 21st: pentaxforums.com/articles/…
Myriad was in development for over two years to ensure safe, scratch-free film transport, reliability, and perfectly flat film scanning.
For it to work, you must supply your own light source — a high-CRI LED light panel (such as the excellent Raleno PLV-S192) is recommended. Of course, you’ll also need your digital camera and a stand.
Myriad will let you scan negatives up to 6x9 in dimensions and keep your film flat with no more than 0.4mm variance (however, it may have trouble with exceptionally curly film). The holder is made from premium plastics that are precision laser-cut, which melts the material in the process, leaving it perfectly smooth. The finely-textured diffuser panel ensures there are no Newton rings. The adjustable film guides let you switch easily from one film size to another. More info: cutasunda.com/resources.ht…
I’ll add a couple more images and scan samples to this thread shortly. 🧵
Light Lens Lab has announced yet another new film emulsion just in time for the Lunar New Year.
Their current project is a T-grain black-and-white film — a modern-style fine-grained emulsion, the results of which Light Lens Lab shared on their blog: lightlenslab.com/blogs/upc…
The new film does not have an anti-halation layer (thus producing a similar effect as the CineStill 800T made popular — but in black-and-white). In monochrome, the images produced in this film look sharp, with a bit of haze around brightly lit objects. That, LLL said, will be fixed in the new batch.
The fact that a relatively young lab managed to produce a T-grain emulsion (which is the most advanced tech we have for producing small, tightly packed crystals — more: analog.cafe/r/ilford-delta…) is very impressive. Yet LLL’s ambitions do not stop there as their announcement lists all modern film chemistries (including colour films) in their future plans. Can they manage that? We’re yet to see.
One thing’s for certain is that the demand for film is now reaching a critical mass — enough to encourage well-resourced businesses to enter the market and attempt to compete with the likes of Ilford, Kodak, and Fujifilm.
Light Lens Lab was founded in 2018 by Mr. Zhou in Shangrao, China, “dedicated to optical research, development, and manufacturing of high-quality photographic equipment.”
Reveni Labs launches LUMO, a $140 compact incident/reflective light meter with a full-colour display.
The new meter can take readings for ambient and flash units. It can also provide incident colour temperature readout, flash-to-ambient light ratio, flash duration, and discharge curve analysis. It comes with Cine Incident and Cine Reflective modes with shutter angle/framerate selection.
LUMO uses a user-replaceable NiMH rechargeable battery that can be topped up with the built-in USB-C port. For flash, it uses a high-voltage compatible 3.5mm trigger port. The display is a 1.1” full-colour LCD.
While I don’t personally use external meters frequently (typically, it’s a built-in meter or the Sunny 16 rule: analog.cafe/r/master-the-s…), this device seems very useful for film (movie) production and photography metering when you want to reassurances or calculations involving flash.
This is Matt Bechberger’s (Reveni Labs’ owner) fifth Kickstarter project. It reached 20% of the funding goal in just a few minutes after going live at 9 AM PST. Given it reaches 100% in the next 30 days (it will), LUMO will go into production this March and ship later this year.
The new Fujifilm’s Instax WIDE Evo uses a 16mm 𝒇2.4 lens to capture images on its ⅓” 16MP sensor and print on film in 635 × 318 DPI.
The new $349.95 instant film camera (available in February) was announced earlier this week as a follow-up to Fujifilm’s earlier Evo Mini (analog.cafe/r/film-photogr…).
Evo is a series of *digital* cameras that capture images on their sensors and let the user edit or add effects before printing. The cameras use a built-in light-emitting printer to project the image onto film before it’s ejected/developed.
The WIDE Evo is an upgrade to their earlier Instax Mini model, which was criticized for its low-resolution sensor and printer. The new sensor resolves a lot more pixels (16MP vs. the Mini’s 5MP). However, the printer’s resolution has remained mostly the same with 635 × 318 DPI.
The digital sensor arms Evo with a top shutter speed of 1/8000s, ISO sensitivity of 100 to 1600, white balance controls, and 10 × 10 × 6 effects.
To take advantage of the above specs, you’ll need to insert a memory card and use the camera’s widest setting with its 16mm full-frame equivalent lens. That’s wide!
If the lens took photos directly on film, its true focal length would be 6.5mm, but with the camera’s ⅓” sensor, it’s about 100mm.
The autofocus (w/ face recognition) works between 10cm-∞.
Alas, there’s no viewfinder, so you’d have to compose using the built-in 3.5” display.
“According to a contact from Reflx Lab who recently visited Lucky Film’s headquarters in Hebei, China, the new color film is expected to hit the market in Q2 2025. It’s projected to be the most affordable color film available” — reflxlab.com/en-ca/blogs/n…
Lucky Film used to make colour film for Kodak but the new project will be an independent production. Lucky is (assumingly) not the same as Fujifilm’s new facility in China: analog.cafe/r/film-photogr…
Also, there were rumours online that Ferrania was going out of business. But it looks like *they are not,* although they have been difficult to reach recently, the website was down for some time, and their film stock is low. Eventually, someone from Ferrania (it’s a city; look it up!) came back with the good news: the company is still active.
When developing black-and-white film, you may need to calculate the concentrate vs water (dilution) measurements. These measurements change depending on how much solution you’d like to mix.
For example, 300ml or 10oz of developer solution will cover a single 35mm film — but what does that mean for water and concentrate volumes if you’re developing with Rodinal at 1+25 dilution?
To get the exact water and concentrate volumes needed for the 300ml mix, you’ll need to solve this equation:
x = (1/25) × (300 — x)
…Where “x” is the amount of developer needed.
The answer is 11.54ml of developer, which leaves us with 300 — 11.54 = 288.46ml of water. To check the answer, we can divide 288.46 by 11.54, which gives us 25 (one part developer, 25 parts water). This answer should be rounded to the more practical 290ml and 12ml, or it can be converted to 10oz and 12ml for the US/UK beakers.
(Note that the rounding should ideally differ for ounces and millilitres, and it may be prudent to round the concentrate volume up.)
Chemical Dilution Calculator does all of the above. It also automatically switches default measurement units based on your location and lets you see the precise measurements if needed.
The Chemical Dilution Calculator is part of the Chem Log app. To use it, launch this page: analog.cafe/app/chem-log, and click the purple “Dilution Calculator” button.
I’ve added free trials to the GOLD subscriber-only apps and articles on Analog.Cafe to help you decide whether a membership is worth the commitment.
You can try Chem Log (analog.cafe/app/chem-log), Film Price Trends (analog.cafe/app/film-price…), and Bulk Roll Calculator (analog.cafe/app/bulk-roll-…) for 7 days with no limits and no credit card. On top of that, you can try all of the website features and member-only articles, like the latest, “Pushing Ilford HP5+ to ISO 100,000” (analog.cafe/r/pushing-ilfo…), for 14 days with a card. I will remind you a week before the trial runs out.
Memberships helped keep Analog.Cafe ad-free and 97% free for thousands of readers from 201 countries in 2024. Thank you all who have, are currently, or are considering becoming GOLD members in 2025. Your support means a lot to this resource and its full-time staff of one!
Analogue aF-1 is a new, relatively affordable, premium point-and-shoot camera expected to launch this summer.
The project, which has been in development for over two years, came across my radar late last year. Yet, given that the launch page (af1.analogueshop.com/) has only shared renders (i.e., not the actual photos of the product) and team Analogue has admitted that the sample image on that page was not taken with their camera in the comment on Kosmo Foto’s article (kosmofoto.com/2025/01/anal…), I wanted to do a bit more research before publishing this #editorial🔥.
First, the specs: the €399/$412 camera (with pre-launch discount, €339/$349) would feature a six-element 35mm 𝒇2.8 lens with a Lidar autofocus, autoexposure (only), motorized film transport, shutter speed up to 1/1000, flash, and DX-code reader for ISO25-5000.
When I reached out to Analogue, they added that the camera might also feature exposure compensation (+1.5EV) for backlit scenes and a flash override. However, they haven’t yet responded to my request for a chat or an interview (I’ll update this thread if they do).
I did find a video by Analogue Amsterdam, where a short clip featured a physical (dummy model?) of the camera in their customers’ hands: youtube.com/watch?v=SflI-y…
Mania MFZ is a wooden multi-format, multi-focal-length, multi-pinhole camera system.
A new Kickstarter project by a carpenter/photographer, Ralph Man, promises to “expand the boundaries of pinhole camera capabilities many times over.”
Ralph’s wooden pinhole camera system is expensive (as quality woodworking tends to be), and it may not pan out (given that it’s only 10% funded), but there are still 25 days to go. Whatever the case may be, I think you may enjoy learning about the most-featured pinhole camera design, probably ever:
- The camera can expose 6x6, 6x12, and 6x17 medium format frames (presumably panoramic 135 film formats as well with adapters).
- It takes 4x5 film holders and Lomo Graflock 4x5.
- It can take side-by-side exposures for panoramic exposures.
- It can make shift exposures.
- It takes gel filters.
- It can switch focal lengths from 35mm to 135mm in 20mm increments.
Year-end sale on film, lenses, and cameras: 25% off + free shipping.
I’ve tested a lot of gear this year, some of which are listed at the Etsy shop I run alongside Analog.Cafe, FilmBase. Every piece is thoroughly tested, and everything has exhaustive descriptions and product images. Cameras, lenses, film, books, and more.
FilmBase is a tiny seller that consistently receives five-star ratings and great reviews. I try to ship things as fast as possible and package everything in either upcycled or plastic-free materials. US and Canada only, unfortunately.
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