Chinese lens maker Light Lens Lab – which earlier this year unveiled it was developing its own range of films – is also working on a screw-mount Barnack-style film camera based on an early Leica.
The first pictures of the camera appeared back in 2022 and was reported by the website PhotoRumors.com at the time, but was not officially announced by the company.
Light Lens Lab has released a number of well-received Leica M-mount lenses over the past few years, but has also released lenses in Leica screw mount: in 2022, they announced a 35mm f/2 collapsible wide-angle lens in January 2022.
Pictures of the camera, which is said to be modelled on the Leica III but looks more like a Leica Ic with an accessory viewfinder, appeared on PhotoRumors.com again last week (3 October) in the wake of news about another camera in development, a Leica-style rangefinder made by Suzuki Handmade Camera Factory.
The camera appears to be a Barnack-style design which features a removable baseplate for film loading, which continued through to cameras such as the Leica M6 and beyond.
The Chinese company has, three years on from the first images, still not officially revealed the camera. It has, instead, been regularly publishing blog posts on its ongoing film project, which is expected to start with a black-and-white emulsion but also has intentions to also make colour film and peel-apart instant film.
PhotoRumors.com has allowed us to republish some of the images with permission, which are below:
Kosmo Foto has contacted Light Lens Lab for the latest news on the Barnack-camera project.
Light Lens Lab’s rangefinder project is one of the most ambitious of several new film camera projects over the past few years.
They included Ricoh’s production of the Pentax 17 half-frame camera, the first film Pentax to be released in 20 years.
Hong Kong’s MiNT Camera, meanwhile, unveiled the Rollei 35AF compact camera last year – an autofocus cameras based on the iconic Rollei 35.
And earlier this year, Analogue Amsterdam revealed the aF-1, an autofocus compact camera with an f/2.8 lens and Lidar-based autofocus. The camera is expected to be released at the beginning of 2026, with Analogue Amsterdam opening pre-orders for the camera in late September.
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
