Lomo’Instant Square Glass lets you take unlimited multiple or double exposures, which has been a big selling feature for many of Lomography’s cameras. Here’s one sample I got with the press release (shot by Lomography Hong Kong staff):
Lomography has been regularly updating its cameras with new cosmetic designs and “artist editions.”
Last year, Lomo’Instant Automat received several new skins (analog.cafe/comments/sqra), and so did its 110 camera. I expect the brand to release more colourful editions this year for at least two of its products (Instant Square Glass being the first).
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).
Well, the “yet another film emulsion” could lead to think that there are lots of them. Apart from Kodak, Ilford and Foma, most nice film boxes in the market are rebranded Kentmere (Ilford) or Foma. Sometimes some Agfa film for special purposes (the regular Agfa APX film itself is Kentmere since years ago). A truly new BW emulsion, specially if it is T-grain is something we haven’t seen in a while.
The other point that you missed is the anti-halation layer. LLL made very clear that this is only for the tests they are doing currently. The film that would reach the markets would have one.
Other than that, yes, LLL is showing ambition here. And you pointed correctly the reason: film production is increasing due to a higher demand. Something very unexpected only 10 years ago!
Update: Michael got back to me with corrections and additional info about handling curled film:
“Myriad handles flat and moderately curved films very well indeed. Although very badly curved films may not feed through it, you can simply remove the top panel and lay the negatives directly onto the diffuser, then replace the top panel. This allows them to be digitised as normal. It’s a workaround, but effective, and mentioned in the documentation.”
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.
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