Film Photography News — November 2024 Recap

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What’s new?

Kodak pauses film production, the Polaroid puppet show, new apps for film photographers, a camera + film giveaway, and other deals.

Plus: What’s the best glue for replacing leatherettes? And a new Valoi digital camera scanning rig.

💛 GOLD members get access to premium Film Log features — for tracking film across your cameras, archive — and a new app, Chem Log — for better home development.

🎁 GOLD memberships are on sale until December 31st! Use GOLD24 during checkout to get your first 2 MONTHS FREE. You’ll get access to all premium articles, apps/features, and help support this ad-free independent blog. In this Community Letter: What’s new? Giveaway: 3 rolls of film and a Kodak Ektar H35N. Kodak pauses film production. New app for home film development. What’s the best glue for repairing film camera leatherettes? Best Film Camera Finder. Polaroid puppet show with Fred. Valoi launches “easy120,” a multi-format compact film-scanning solution. Latest on Analog.Cafe. Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!Film and film cameras on sale at FilmBase: Up to 25% OFF🏷️

I’m giving away a half-frame camera and three rolls of film to one lucky winner!

Giveaway: 3 rolls of film and a Kodak Ektar H35N.

How to win: Subscribe to Analog.Cafe GOLD membership before December 16 and you’ll be entered into the draw. If you are already a subscriber, you will be entered into the draw automatically.

When will the winner be announced? I’ll announce the winner in this December’s Community Letter, which will be coming early this year, on December 17, 2024.

Find more details about this giveaway here.

Kodak pauses film production.

The news that Kodak paused production this month dominated November’s later half. I hope you weren’t assuming bad things when you read this — it is, in fact, good news. Based on a recent earnings call with Eastman Kodak’s CEO, significant factory upgrades will be added to the Rochester plant.

I wrote about this development along with Kosmo Foto and others. The responses varied from optimistic expectations of better pricing and film selection to cynical assumptions that the consumer would not benefit. FWIW, I’m hoping for a middle ground where the business earns benefits from its investment and uses that new value to win more photographers with better film options.

New app for home film development.

Have you ever had trouble remembering which film is in which camera? Or the date your chemicals were mixed?

As analogue photographers, we sometimes have a few cameras loaded with film. It’s easy to forget exactly what’s in which camera, especially if you shelf one for a month. Guessing wrong can yield an entire roll of bad exposures!

Keeping diligent notes helps avoid disasters and improve image quality, but it can be burdensome (who wants another chore?)

If you develop your film at home, you may be familiar with the fact that reusable colour film developers need more time after each session for consistent development, fixers need replenishing after ~200 rolls, and bleach can expire after a couple of months. That’s another thing to keep track of.

Film Log & Chem Log are the two sister apps that make the job easier.

Film Log was initially released last year (here’s my overview of the app on 35mmc). This month’s update adds premium features (like data downloads) and enhancements for FREE accounts (like field highlights so you spend less time looking for pieces of data and more time shooting film).

Chem Log is a standalone app that uses Film Log data to track rolls processed. It reports expiration dates and helps calculate extended development time for exhausted chemicals. Very helpful if you’d like consistent quality and good scans from your home-developed rolls.

What’s the best glue for repairing film camera leatherettes?

Though many film cameras can last multiple lifetimes, all will require maintenance at some point (here’s how you can do it at home).

Some cameras hide screws under their leatherettes, which means that removal and replacement must be a part of the process.

I’ve been apprehensive about mounting leatherettes back onto camera bodies. My worst fear is a glue that’s so strong it makes removal of the leatherette (during thus future maintenance) impossible without damage.

It turns out that @the120ist on YouTube also worried about this and took the time to test various glues in his recent video. Both he and I came across Pliobond 25 as the top recommendation for a strong, semi-permanent, dissolvable glue in high-concentration ethanol. Unfortunately, this brand is hard to come by which is why the tests covered a variety of options available at most hardware stores, like the E6000 glue (which “won” @the120ist’s competition as the best option).

I’ve since been testing E6000 in my repairs. It seems like a good option, but this glue isn’t easily solvable in ethanol.

Best Film Camera Finder.

Another web app of the month is Best Film Camera Finder, a fun, free tool to help others discover the best film cameras for their needs.

Forums and socials are full of questions about camera purchases. Especially Threads, where the algorithm promotes questions.

I don’t mind helping others with my suggestions. I’ve done that a few times and it usually goes like this:

The question-asker concisely asks, “Looking for a film camera, what’s the best one?” But a helpful answer demands knowing what the question-asker wants to accomplish with their camera. So we go back and forth a few times, at the end of which I share link(s) to reviews of the most suitable cameras for their needs. I like doing this, but the task can become time-consuming if it happens a dozen times a day.

So, I spent a couple of evenings building a web app that recommends film cameras based on a pool of curated camera suggestions and a programmed decision tree.

Give it a try. The app is an interactive quiz-style web page that features my first attempt at pixel art!

Polaroid puppet show with Fred.

Polaroid’s YouTube channel isn’t regularly updated. But when it is, the content is diverse and often note-worthy.

Last year, they had Rhiannon Adam talk about her upcoming trip to space with a Polaroid camera — a trip that was unfortunately cancelled .

This year, there’s a new series of a singing, talking puppet named Fred with a thick French accent.

The Fred series features an ambiguous tone that seemingly aims to simultaneously educate the viewers about better ways to use their instant cameras and make fun of pedantic photographers who may be worrying excessively about details. Check out this thread where I explain what I think is happening.

Valoi launches “easy120,” a multi-format compact film-scanning solution.

Over the past decade with film, I’ve tried numerous scanning solutions and stuck with dedicated scanners. Top models can produce outstanding resolution, and they often take up less space than a digital camera standing rig.

A friend’s setup taught me that stray light can degrade DSLR scan quality, so can minute focus inaccuracies, imperfect level, and film curl. Besides, digital cameras that can match a good film scanner in resolution aren’t exactly cheap either.

Vaoli’s new product (now available for pre-order at CineStill and Kamerastore ) aims to solve many of the issues. The new rig is fairly compact (as it doesn’t require a copy stand), protects the film from stray light, and (I’m assuming here) keeps the level and film as flat as possible. I would seriously consider this device if I had a digital camera.