The Photofilm Industry Needs New SLRs

Ajit Nathaniel
5 min readFeb 24, 2020

Film photography is attracting new devotees. Fujifilm just revived Acros 100, a medium speed Black & White film that seems to be popular with creative photographers. Kodak too, is said to be facing ballooning demand for its 35 mm films — so much that it’s actually expanding production and brought back Ektachrome — a film that it discontinued in 2012. Harman Technology Limited, the company founded to rescue Ilford Photo from receivership in 2004 operates a thriving film business. Harman reported an operating profit of GBP 3.12 million for the year ended December 2018, up from GBP 2.14 million the previous year. Peanuts, you may say, but the pile is growing by 45% each year. Gaps in the supply of photo film for budget sensitive users are being filled by small businesses that splice cine film into still camera rolls. Other film manufacturers such as Ultrafine and ORWO also service a rapidly growing space.

The bottleneck to wider adoption of film is the poor availability of decent cameras. At present, there are only a handful of quality 35mm cameras in production. Leica, the hallowed German manufacturer has a few rangefinder models, but these cost upwards of USD 4,000 for just the bodies. Leica’s outstanding M mount lenses that fit these bodies start at about USD 2,000 apiece. The only film SLR still in production is a Nikon model that costs about USD 3,000.

From hanging around the film photography forums, it appears that most new film photographers use either hand-me-down equipment, or buy used equipment from sources such as Ebay and KEH. However, this supply is shrinking too — the prices of used Soviet and Japanese cameras, aged between 20 and 60 years, are ticking up steadily. A Zorki 4 Rangefinder with an Industar lens could be had for USD 60 in August last year; the going price at present is between USD 100 and USD 150 (including shipping to India) for a “cleaned, lubricated, and adjusted” (“CLA”) example. More frequently, these cameras are showing up without native lenses, as the lenses themselves are valuable to digital photographers who can use them with inexpensive adapters.

Some of these vintage cameras are outstanding — Asahi Spotmatics, Prakticas, and Zenits can still be found in fully functional condition and can deliver years of faithful service. They’re mostly mechanical, with the only electronic component being a light meter to calculate exposure. However, when things do go wrong, you’re stuck. With replacement parts only available by salvage, repairs may be impossible. Furthermore, supply of these cameras is declining sharply because many people who desire them buy and hoard multiple units — perhaps as a hedge against age-related failures. It’s common to see some “collectors” with five, maybe ten such cameras, and twice as many compatible lenses. I own a Praktica L, which has intermittent technical issues. A CLA by a local technician may resolve these problems, but if I need to write it off and get a new camera in a couple of years, I may have to end my journey with film because a replacement may then be unaffordable. If things keep going as they are, film photography’s resurgence will be cut short — not because people don’t want to shoot film, but because the barrier to entry will be the unaffordability of decent film cameras and hobbyists looking to test the waters will decide to stay with digital.

Though there is market talk of renewed research into photo film emulsions that are easier to develop and more eco-friendly, manufacturers may find their optimism betrayed. As the number of serviceable film cameras declines, demand for film will slow and eventually wither. Commentators who term the current resurgence a “dead cat bounce” will have the last laugh.

So what would it take for someone to produce something like the Praktica L or the Asahi Spotmatic today?

Certainly much less than what it took in the 1970s.

It would be ideal if someone with skin in the game — Ilford Photo or Fujifilm for instance — would look to engage a design team to analyse a few popular cameras — the Spotmatic, perhaps the Canon AE1, Minolta SRT 201 and such, review feedback on user forums about common problems (dead lightmeters, inaccurate speeds, light leaks etc) and build prototypes that do a good job. The same internals, with a few minor changes, could be used for an all manual camera such as the Praktica L; a slightly pricier version with TTL metering and a hot shoe; and a premium model with bells, whistles, and design gimmicks such as napa leather covering and an onyx shutter button that will allow them to sell it for a couple of thousand dollars. Once the prototypes are in place, put it up on Kickstarter or Indigogo. At $500–1000 a pop, I expect this campaign to raise at least USD 500,000. This will underwrite a part of the development costs and leave them with the Intellectual Property for a mass market product. If ingenious engineering can push the price below USD 300 without compromising reliability and repairability, we’ll probably be at the dawn of a renaissance in film photography.

Advances in milling and metals technology should enable a manufacturer to produce a high quality, durable, and repairable mechanical film camera with Through The Lens (“TTL”) light metering for well under USD 500. There are capable digital cameras such as Fujifilm’s XT 200 that cost as much, though most of the cost there is the price of the sensor, processor, high speed memory, and depreciation on the tooling that will be obsolete in 18–24 months. Our mechanical SLR will be insulated from these price pressures. With a little ingenuity, a modular lens mount system should allow users to switch between ubiquitous mounts such as Nikon F, Canon EF, Sony E, Leica M, and perhaps legacy full-frame mounts such as M42, Pentax K, and Minolta MD. With people flocking to film photography, I’m sure many would love to have a brand new film camera for the price of a decent digital mirrorless body.

For film manufacturers, this is critical — if they want to survive.

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Ajit Nathaniel

I am a writer, corporate ethics specialist, film photographer, and investor based in Hyderabad, India. www.boethius.in