Film Photography News — February 2026 Recap

☞ This is the 83rd monthly Analog.Cafe Newsletter with the latest film photography lore. Sign up to get it via email on the last Tuesday of every month (it’s free).

February has been a remarkably busy month for film photography this year:

I’ve learned about a new ISO 400 colour-negative film from China: Lucky C400; Fujifilm’s “secret” Japan-made colour-negative film, a new mystery film from Harman, Kodak’s updated Ektachrome film boxes (I also wrote about developing positives at home with Rodinal), several new panoramic film camera projects, updates on the Leica Monopan, and a new* packfilm project.

And to top it off, I have a few updates about this website and Analog.Cafe’s film inversion app, film Q.

🎁 Try GOLD free for 14 days — You may even win a free lifetime pass just by signing up! Members get to download full PDFs, invert film scans with film Q, and access premium guides, apps, and newsletters.

In this newsletter: Lifetime GOLD membership giveaway. Lucky C400 (乐凯C400). Fujifilm Superia Premium 400. Harman Switch Azure 125. Kodak Ektachrome E100 via Eastman Kodak Company. An easier, cheaper way to develop slide film at home. New panoramic film camera concepts. The return of Leica Monopan. Packfilm by Light Lens Lab. Website and film Q (film inversion app) updates. Download and print this newsletter. Latest on Analog.Cafe. Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!

Lifetime GOLD membership giveaway.

If you aren’t yet a GOLD subscriber, here’s a little incentive for you: in celebration of the 200-year anniversary of photography, I’m giving away forever-free lifetime membership passes!

To enter, you just need to be an existing member or sign up.

This month’s winner of a lifetime GOLD membership on Analog.Cafe is:

Venkata!

Congratulations, Venkata. I’ve applied a perpetual 100% discount to your account. 🎉

The next winner out of the 12 this year will be announced on February 24th.

What does GOLD membership offer? Invert film negatives without altering the colours or crushing shadows/highlights with film Q. Track your film and chemicals with the least effort and avoid disasters with Film Log & Chem Log. Download and keep any article as a printer-friendly PDF document — especially handy with book-length ones, like “A Beginner’s Guide to Film Photography.” Learn how I pushed HP5+ to ISO 100,000. Access all 700+ articles on photography. Etc., etc.

Lucky C400 (乐凯C400).

Colour-negative film is in high demand. Easy to develop, accepted at most labs — alas, expensive for most.

Two years ago, I learned about a film factory in China that was planning resurrect colour-negative film production. Better yet, the film was rumoured to cost 40RMB (~$5.60). The factory had previously worked with Kodak to make colour film. It all sounded too good to be true.

But it was true. The film launched later than promised, and it sold for 52RMB (~$7.33) in China, but ~$10/roll or more after shipping and taxes in the US & Canada.

I didn’t mind the wait and expected a higher price. The result: Lucky C200 — reviewed on Analog.Cafe.

✪ Note: All dollar values are listed in USD.

According to Chen Yan, deputy general manager of Lucky Film Co, Ltd., for QQ, over 1.5 million rolls of film are bought and sold annually in China.

Lucky is already meeting part of that demand with their black-and-white SHD100 and SHD400 films. C200 is a new (ambitious) addition, given how tough it has proven to render realistic colours on film: Film Ferrania failed after trying for 10 years, ORWO took six years to develop life-like greens, and Harman’s Phoenix lacks realism to be an everyday stock.

Lucky C200 can be an everyday film stock. It renders more colours, more accurately than Phoenix; I think it’s comparable to ORWO NC200 (KONO Color 200/OptiColour 200) in terms of grain and colour sensitivity. In fact, Lucky C200 is almost on par with Kodak Gold, except for grain size.

 ☝︎ Further reading: “Lucky C200 (乐凯) vs. Kodak Gold.”

But there’s more.

Last week, I learned about another colour-negative film from Lucky Film Co, Ltd.: Lucky C400. A pre-production version of this film has already been tested and reviewed by @小丁不是器材党 (Xiao Ding) on Douyin (Chinese TikTok). It looks a lot like C200 and may be comparable to Kodak Ultramax.

See my summary of his review in English with links to several sources.

Fujifilm Superia Premium 400.

Fujifilm discontinued their Superia line of films outside Japan two years ago. Their current colour-negative film options are made in the US, presumably by Kodak.

However, in Japan, you can still buy locally produced colour-negative film: Fujifilm Superia Premium 400.

This month, the film briefly peaked on the Anglophone internet as fears of its discontinuation rose, then dispelled — by Fujifilm.

Harman Switch Azure 125.

Someone spotted a new film box with Harman branding — and a registered trademark in the UK. Another new colour film?

Kodak Ektachrome E100 via Eastman Kodak Company.

Eastman Kodak Company is in the process of taking over distribution from Kodak Alaris. Their latest addition is Ektachrome E100. Some suggest this should yield lower film prices — though that’s not yet clear.

In short, the factory that makes the film will now be distributing it instead of a third party. And the immediate result is a new box design.

An easier, cheaper way to develop slide film at home.

Even if Kodak manages to bring the price of Ektachrome down a bit, it is still an expensive film. In fact, slide film can cost three times as much as colour-negative film or quadruple the price of some affordable black-and-white options.

Lab fees for developing slide film can be steep, but developing at home can be just as expensive. The issue is in having to shoot and develop 16 rolls of slide film within two months of mixing the chemicals. This means that you may have to shoot and develop over $500 worth of film within sixty days or risk wasting chemicals.

But what if I told you that there’s an easy way to develop slide film as a positive with your regular C-41 chemistry? All you need is a bottle of Rodinal — a common black-and-white film developer.

The guide, “How to Develop Slide Film at Home With Rodinal and C-41,” explains how you can integrate occasional side film into your home development without spending a small fortune — while enjoying this unique process.

New panoramic film camera concepts.

Stitching and cropping are common methods for creating panoramic images with film and digital cameras. However, it’s possible to avoid the labour and wasted resolution on film via (pricey) classics such as the Hasselblad XPan/Fujifilm TX-1 and the Panon WideLux.

Masking can work, but it can also feel suboptimal, as parts of the film are wasted once cropped. There are several modern takes on this format, mostly comprising various bodies/modifications and adapters for medium or large-format lenses. And four more options to shoot panoramas on film surfaced this month:

BeerPAN is a new 3D-printed panoramic SLR with a top-down viewfinder that uses the Bronica ETR lenses and metal gear for film advance to expose 65mm × 24mm frames (1:2708) on 35mm film.

Kyle McDougall has recently tested a Pentax 645 camera modified to shoot “half-frames” on 120 film, yielding 32 frames per roll. Not only would you save film, but it would also be relatively easy to scan this format with a regular medium format setup.

NanoPano is a 3D-printed body that adapts various lenses to shoot slightly larger “half-frames” on 120 film than Kyle’s camera, yielding 25 frames (24mm tall by 56mm wide, 21:9).

The “Little Stupid Camera” is an idea by Japhy Riddle that involves feeding 35mm film backwards, masking the gate, and advancing the film in reverse in quarter-stops to produce 180 panoramic frames per roll.

The return of Leica Monopan.

Last Friday, I spoke to Take Kayo (@bigheadtaco) about Leica Monopan — a film that sold out almost immediately following its announcement last year. A new, bigger batch is on the way.

Packfilm by Light Lens Lab.

Packfilm has been a sore subject for instant film photographers for the past ten years. Discontinued in 2016, this instant film has a larger area, better resolution, and an included negative with a delightful peeling action, which caused the price of the remaining stock to skyrocket to hundreds of dollars per pack.

Last year, Light Lens Lab announced its plans to remake the product. They would not be the first — several projects attempted to take on this task, and all have thus far failed.

I wasn’t sure whether the project was still happening, given the challenges. But Take has informed me that, according to his contacts, the Light Lens Lab packfilm project is very much happening.

Website and film Q (film inversion app) updates.

You may’ve noticed that the Analog.Cafe website menu has changed slightly. On smaller screens, you’ll see a menu button on the top-right that opens up all the website sections, while on the larger screens, you’ll see the logo move to the bottom.

This change is in response to user feedback, with some of you asking for more screen space and fewer animations. You can switch between the two menu styles by tapping Settings on the bottom-left or Menu (three vertical dots) on the right and hitting “Hide/Show Floating Navigation.”

Another update this month is native support for HEIC image files in film Q. You can now upload your iPhone film scans and have them inverted without losing depth, resolution, or converting to JPEGs. Details.

Drag-and-drop plus native storage support are coming to film Q. This should make it the easiest and fastest app for inverting film scans. Being a web app, it’ll work on any device with a browser — and it will not use any of your system resources. This means that you can invert your film negatives on a vintage computer, a Linux system, a mobile device — anything with a browser. I’m hoping to release this feature sometime in March/April this year.

Download and print this newsletter.

GOLD members can download this newsletter as a high-resolution PDF file. Open this newsletter in your browser and click the “Download PDF” button at the top.

Hope you found this email a helpful and fun read. Feel free to add a comment or reach out anytime. 👋