Film Photography News — November 2025 Recap

☞ This is the 80th 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).

Is it a fad if it lasted over a decade and continues to grow?

A hundred and eighty years after the first formula fixed an image, the interest in photochemistry crashed in favour of pixels that could be transmitted, manipulated, and now generated with ease. We nearly lost it all, but what do you know, a growing community of enthusiasts decided that this loss would be unacceptable.

In 2025, we’ve seen an unprecedented number of colour films launch again. Small and medium-sized businesses like Lomography took on the challenge of replicating the multi-billion-dollar technological successes of the ‘90s and ‘00s from brands like Olympus, Nikon, and Fujifilm with their new point-and-shoot cameras. This month is no exception: RETO Project, a brand that recently rose to prominence thanks to its success with a Nishika 3-D remake, RETO3D, has just released a new film camera: Kodak Snapic A1.

Meanwhile, a team of one is working on a movie camera that uses standard 35mm film to capture footage at higher resolution than Super 8, without the stock, development, and scanning pricing or restrictions of the traditional format: OKTO35.

And yet, there’s more!

This free & ad-free newsletter is supported by the GOLD members. Members can download, print, and forever keep any article as a high-quality PDF, invert film scans without losing any detail or control over the process with film Q, and access guides and experiments, like “How to Edit Film Scans” and “Pushing Ilford HP5+ to ISO 100,000.”

🎁 Try GOLD free for 14 days — You may even win free film!

In this newsletter: Kodak Snapic A1. Free film. OKTO35. Download and print all of Analog.Cafe! Is Film Ferrania back yet? Lucky C200. Latest on Analog.Cafe. Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!

Kodak Snapic A1.

RETO Project was incorporated in the same year this blog published its first post: 2018. In these short seven years, they became a go-to brand for affordable, well-made cameras with unique yet practical design features.

Not long ago, I published my review of the Kodak Ektar H35N, the first half-frame plastic film camera with glass and aspheric resin elements that rendered some of the sharpest images in that price range. This summer, I took RETO Pano for a spin — another ultra-wide reusable camera with a panoramic mask and some of the nicest design options out there (I still use it today). And you may’ve heard of their latest hit: Kodak Charmera.

Kodak Snapic A1 is RETO’s latest invention that packs several upgrades over previous cameras, promising to take sharper photos — faster — while costing significantly less than modern point-and-shoot cameras, which tend to sell for $500 and up.

The A1 is a zone-focus camera, but with an 𝒇9.5 25mm ultra-wide three-element glass lens and just two distance settings, it should be very easy to use. However, you may need to be mindful of your lighting if you want the best-quality images, as this camera has a fixed shutter speed of 1/100 (with flash, you’ll be able to use it indoors — here’s how).

To get an idea of the type of film and light this camera will work with, you can try the Sunny 16 calculator app — set it to 𝒇8 with 1/125 (you can allow up to 2 stops of overexposure with many modern film negatives).

Kodak Snapic A1 is available for pre-order today with shipping dates estimated around December 15th.

Full specs:

- 𝒇9.5 25mm ultra-wide three-element Kodak Lens MC.

- Auto film loading, rewind, and film advance (no more cranking to get to the next frame).

- Zone-focusing with two settings: 0.5m-1.5m-∞ (1’8”-4’11”-∞).

- 1/100s fixed shutter.

- Built-in flash (GN8) with red-eye reduction.

- Requires 2 AAA batteries (should last ~10 rolls of 24exp.).

- Dimensions: 118mm × 62mm × 35mm (4⅗” × 2⅖” × 1⅖”) 117g (4.1oz).

- Double-exposure switch to make photos like the one above ⬆️.

I haven’t tried this camera yet, but I am getting a copy soon and will post a review on Analog.Cafe once I take it through its paces. Watch this space.

✪ Note: RETO licenses the Kodak name from Eastman Kodak Company for some of its cameras, which is why this one is called Kodak Snapic A1!

Free film.

I’ve been giving away film to GOLD members at the end of each month all summer and fall. This is the November giveaway announcement. One more left and then I’m out!

The winner of the triple-pack hand-wound black-and-white film (made by Ilford), Cinema Shorts BW 200 and Cinema Shorts BW 3200 is:

🎈Filips, 🎈

Congratulations! You won three rolls of free Cinema Shorts film. I’ve sent you an email with the next steps.

The next winner will be announced in the coming month. Learn more.

If that’s not you, but you’d still like to try the film and support the blog, it’s available at the shop (with optional lab services).

I only have a few rolls of this film. The film is packed in upcycled metal cartridges and plastic canisters, with a short, home-printed brochure, in 100% plastic-free padding and a recycled-paper cardboard box.

OKTO35.

Before film photography completely took over my life, I dreamed of shooting movies — on film. But my lack of skill and financial backing made it completely unattainable. Over a decade has passed since, and there’s finally an invention on the horizon that could make that a reality — at a fraction of the price of even the cheapest film stock to date — Super 8.

OKTO35 is Blaž Semprimožnik’s brilliant invention that fits four video tracks on regular 135-format film. Not only does it make finding and developing the film cheaper, but this new format also opens up the possibility of shooting stocks previously inaccessible on video, such as Adox CMS 20 II (the highest resolution image medium ever created), Aerochrome, any type of slide film, expired film — you name it.

But that’s not all. The camera can help scan the film; it has a higher resolution and a faster frame rate than Super 8 — and there’s still more to this incredible product. Though some time will pass before it’ll be available for sale, as it enters its final prototype production stage.

This month, Daren and I sat down to interview Blaž about his invention on the Analog.Cafe Podcast — find links to the episode on your favourite podcasting app here, along with the show notes.

If you’d like to learn more and see some exclusive clips from the camera, check out this article. You may also find this read helpful for parsing the podcast since we’re talking about a movie camera on audio!

⚠️ This is our first podcast interview — please excuse the technical challenges along the way — we’re still learning! In fact, this is the second taping, as the first had no usable audio.

Download and print all of Analog.Cafe!

If I were to print the contents of the Analog.Cafe website, they would span over a million words and 4,900 pages (these are actual stats). And yet, until recently, they could only be read on a screen while connected to the internet.

This month, I’ve put in considerable hours building a tool that compiles articles into pretty two-column booklets with high-resolution images and selectable types you can download and print at home. This layout is inspired by photography books, magazines, and scientific articles that are typically printed on regular-sized paper to feature large photographs and easy-to-parse text.

You can now download and keep practically any article ever written on this blog as a pre-formatted two-column high-quality PDF!

Just look for a button under the title that says “Download PDF.” You can even download and print this newsletter.

There are some limits: 10 articles per month for GOLD members or 100 articles per month for GOLD+ members. As far as I know, this is the only film photography resource on the web with this much content you can grab and keep forever — regardless of the fate of this blog, the web, or your future membership status.

Is Film Ferrania back yet?

Earlier this month, I received an email from Film Ferrania promising continued progress on restoring film production.

As you may or may not know, the company has been out of public view for several years now due to internal business struggles and has recently been acquired by the German film manufacturer InvisCoat (better known outside of Germany as ORWO).

As one of the founding backers back in 2014 — way before this blog was even imagined — I’m happy to see the factory continue on its path.

From what I gather, the company is not yet out of the woods, and it will be months, maybe years, before they can start releasing their film again. None of their email addresses work, and the outgoing message did not share any timelines. But I will update you if anything changes.

Lucky C200.

I got my hands on a new colour-negative film from China: Lucky C200. Promised to be the cheapest of its kind, it differs from offerings by Kodak, Harman/Ilford, ORWO, and others.

In another member special, I compare the film directly against Kodak Gold, a staple affordable colour-negative film praised by many for its colours, relatively fine grain, and availability in 135 and 120 formats. Whereas both films have their strengths, Lucky C200 is a departure from Kodak’s colour formulas that’s worth considering.

Read: “Lucky C200 (乐凯) vs. Kodak Gold.”

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