Rediscovering the joy of film picture taking
There's nothing better than enjoying the process of taking pictures with a film camera.
There's the cathartic ritual of loading the film. The experience of winding the film on after taking a picture. The excitement of waiting for the pictures to be developed.
Film photography hasn't gone away and over the years it has always been lurking somewhere in a dark background, but some recent developments have hinted that the joy of film picture taking is going to become a little more accessible.
Ubuntu Film Co.
On the local front, a South African startup called the Ubuntu Film Co. is marketing and selling a non-disposable film camera, which is available also from Orms at a very reasonable price.
The camera looks very similar to our Kodak Ultra F9 camera (which was very thoughtful bought for us by 'our significant other' in South Korea a few years ago).
Ubuntu sell their cameras directly as a bundle too, which is a nice gift or spoil for anyone wanting to try out some analogue photo fun. Support local obviously - give these guys some love.
Pentax 17 Film Camera
Last year, Pentax released the Pentax 17 film camera, which BTW is notable because this is the first time since the early 2000s that a big camera brand has launched a film camera.
It looks like an absolute beauty (we also have a soft spot for Pentax, which was the very first camera that we got as a 21st birthday present) and the reviews of the camera have been quite favourable.
If the Leica is a bit out of your price range, this looks like the next best thing.
Leica's M6
The Leica M6 is so stunning it feels rude to even mention it here. In our world - if money were no object in life, we would build a massive library filled with beautiful books that we alone could visit and only shoot stuff on a Leica M6.
We feel a bit dirty even just watching this film.
Sadly ORMS are no longer selling reversal film (which we always preferred to use because we also own an old Kindermann projector which is desperate to show some some contemporary images) but maybe a growing demand for a more analogue approach to photography that welcomes more friction might change that.
If you have access to somebody's ear at ORMS - tell them you wanna buy reversal film [slide film]. If enough of us ask for it, maybe they'll make a plan.
Personally I'm a bit tired of paying Apple and Google to store my own pictures (which they probably illegally use to train their AI systems) and can't stand the mad megalomanic whose in charge of Instagram, so film is looking so much more appealing to me in 2025.
The ownership and distribution of my own pictures really shouldn't be in the hands of people who are a hair-trigger away from destroying the entire world should the idea take their fancy.
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