🆕 Widelux, Fake CineStill, a Fix, & Colour Film ‘25

I hope your summer is going well and you’re enjoying your film and cameras! It’s been a busy one at the Analog.Cafe HQ:

I tried to replicate CineStill 800T at home, found a relatively easy way to fix Polaroid SX-70’s failing film ejection, and compared the only two colour-negative films that aren’t Kodak.

I’ve also attended the only North American talk by Charys Schuler about the upcoming NEW Widelux cameras, made in collaboration with Jeff Bridges. I’ll break down everything I heard there for the GOLD members. 🤫

In this newsletter: Free film. Replicating CineStill 800T at home. Comparing all the colour-negative films made today that aren’t Kodak. Fixing Polaroid SX-70’s failing film ejection at home. Widelux 2025: price, design, materials, parts. What’s next on Analog.Cafe? Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!

Free film.

Reminder: I’m giving away three rolls of Cinema Shorts (Kodak Vision 3) film every month to a lucky GOLD member! Details.

Replicating CineStill 800T at home.

In case you’ve missed it, I, along with Daren, Yvonne, and Shawna, tried replicating the CineStill 800T film at home by doing exactly what the internet says we should: washing Kodak Vision 3 500T and re-spooling it.

It took all four of us and multiple tries to accomplish what we all thought were surprising results and a learning moment. If you’ve ever shot CineStill films and wondered what it takes to make one, you should definitely read “How to Fake CineStill 800T.”

Comparing all the colour-negative films made today that aren’t Kodak.

Kodak makes a lot of film, particularly colour-negative film. It’s the medium of choice for some Oscar-winning productions, millions of still cameras, and it’s sold under dozens of brands as modified (i.e., CineStill 800T) or simply respooled film.

No one is even close to Kodak when it comes to the quality and volume of colour-negative film made today. Fujifilm has stopped selling all but (presumably) rebranded Kodak film, whereas making something new takes immense effort and investment.

Starting from scratch in 2025 isn’t even possible — but we’re getting close. Three film factories (that aren’t Kodak) are starting to make colour-negative film that’s approaching the quality of Kodak’s lower-end offerings, such as Kodak Gold.

Lucky is working on colour-negative film, based on Kodak formulas in China — but that’s not yet available outside a limited domestic release.

InovisCoat GmbH (better-known as ORWO) has been making colour film based on old Agfa IP using vintage (?) machines for years. This year, they finally offered something that’s reasonably fine-grained and colour-accurate with a respectable dynamic range in ISO 200. Sold as KONO Color 200, OptiColour 200, and soon ORWO NC200; I found this film surprisingly good, a massive upgrade over the earlier ISO-400 releases.

Last but not least is Harman Phoenix, from the UK factory that makes Ilford film. Harman/Ilford has practically zero experience making colour-negative film, despite selling black-and-white emulsions for over 140 years. Phoenix II is their second major release, a follow-up to the Phoenix 200 surprise splash last year as the first colour film to come from the brand since the 1960s.

As we await the Lucky colour film, Harman Phoenix and ORWO NC200 are the only two real non-Kodak options available today. So how do they compare?

Read “Comparing Two Newest Colour Films: Phoenix vs. NC200: The Only Non-Kodak Colour-Negative Films Made Today” to find out!

☝️ The article illustrates the differences with replicable precision using an open negative inversion methodology, normalized greyscale, reference charts, and brilliant modelling by Lily Li Hua.

Fixing Polaroid SX-70’s failing film ejection at home.

I bought my SX-70 at a thrift shop for less than twenty bucks six years ago. It’s the Model 1 with real leather.

I shot hundreds of frames through it, and it only failed me twice, when it stopped ejecting film for two separate reasons.

The common advice online is to send it out for repair, but that could easily cost several hundred dollars, take months, and still have limited guarantees (as botched repairs by professional shops are not at all uncommon). I ignored that advice, opting to scour the web for solutions. Luckily, fixing the film ejection mechanism on an SX-70 isn’t complicated and takes minimal tools, provided the culprit is either a lack of lubrication in a specific spot or a degraded plastic component (which appear to be common).

If not for the fixes, I’m eager to share the marcos, shot with my gifted Micro-Nikkor 200mm 1:4 AI-S:

“How to Fix Film Ejection Mechanism in Polaroid SX-70.”

Widelux 2025: price, design, materials, parts.

Charys Schuler is a co-owner at SILVERBRIDGES, a company formed between her and Marwan El Mozayen of Silvergrain Classics, actor Jeff Bridges, and photographer Susan Geston Bridges.

Silvergrain Classics is one of the best-known regular print magazines on film photography, currently circulating 10,000 copies per issue (read my review of issue #2). It just so happens that they:

A) Were approached by Jeff Bridges to revive the Widelux camera production — here he is briefly talking about the project on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert — and —

B) Will have a prototype ready this year.

Charys chose Vancouver as her only stop on the continent to talk about the revival of a true panoramic film camera, Widelux.

The new Widelux will be manufactured in Germany using metal and glass components in carbon-neutral or low-carbon facilities. It will use modern materials built to virtually identical specifications as the original Japan-made Widelux cameras.

Charys noted that the original Widelux assembly didn’t use precise drawings. Instead, the team that manufactured those cameras often used photocopies of parts as blueprints. As a result, the components are not always interchangeable between two Widelux bodies, which means that they would have to be filed and bent to fit during repairs.

Alas, there is a relatively small number of those cameras available, and they all sell for more than $1500.

The trouble with making more is that there is no information of any kind left from the original Widelux maker, Panon Camera Shoko factory, which had burned down along with all the “blueprints” in 2005.