How the compact film camera returned from the dead

By Stephen Dowling

A decade ago, few would have placed a bet on a raft of new premium compact film cameras appearing in the 2020s. But a handful of companies around the world believed it was time for a revival.

In September 2017, Japan Camera Hunter‘s Bellamy Hunt was taking part at an analogue photography event in Tampere, Finland.

Set up by the Finnish camera retailers Camera Rescue, the event was called Save Analog Cameras, beamed around the world via the internet.

Hunt, who sources cameras from Japan to customers around the world, wasn’t there to talk about the cameras from the past, however. He had another idea: a completely new 35mm compact camera.

Hunt is originally from the UK, and had moved to Japan in the 2000s. Film cameras, rapidly redundant as digital photography improved at breakneck pace, still had a loyal following there – and Japan had a thriving community of camera collectors, shelves piled high with pristine examples.

Hunt saw which models were sitting on the shelves and which were starting to pique the interest of photographers too young to have shot film before the days of digital.

He had started work on the concept of a new film camera as far back in 2015, encouraged by the rising price and cachet of cameras like the Contax T2 and T3, pricey pocket cameras starting to become hugely popular on social media platforms like Instagram. These film cameras were a finite resource; no-one had made cameras like them for more than a decade, and the prices were creeping ever upward.

“I could see already that the prices were becoming really high and people were unable to get in on the action,” he says. “I wanted to make a compact camera with similar specifications, a really good lens and ease of use. The T2 and T3 were definitely a major influence on our ideas. 

“It was around that time JCH was really going off and I was travelling a lot so I had plenty of time to think about things. Plus I was younger and more foolhardy. I met a guy who was really into the idea of making a camera and we started bouncing ideas around and it went from there. 

“The guys there [Camera Rescue] gassed me up and convinced me to announce it there,” hunt tells Kosmo Foto. “So I just kind of went with it and everything kind of snowballed after that.

Hunt duly announced his hypothetical camera, an autofocus compact that would be inspired by the premium models of the 1990s. “We are going to start running out of compact cameras in about five or 10 years’ time… we’re going to be without a camera that’s easy to use,” he said at the time.

“I had not really planned on announcing it at the time as I felt like we were pretty far from being ready, we had some concepts and a couple of lens designs, but that was about it. I hadn’t even met up with manufacturers at that point, so I was pretty unfamiliar with quite how much work was involved. 

“Online the reception was incredible,” Hunt adds. “I had so many talented and skillful people reach out to be involved. There were lenses designers, industrial designers and more who wanted to be a part of it. There was even a group of guys from MIT who offered their expertise.

“It was really heartening to see so many people who wanted to have something like this happen. I ended up going to meet with specialised manufacturers in Europe and the USA off the back of the announcement.”

It did not take long for reality to catch up with the enthusiasm, however. Actually bringing a camera like this into the world would need a major manufacturer, Hunt realised, with the deep knowledge needed to turn technical drawings into a living, breathing camera.

None of them would take the bait, however. “Back then Kyocera, Ricoh, Canon, Nikon and Fujifilm were still repairing some of their film cameras, but otherwise they were silent,” he says. “They didn’t even tell people when they ceased servicing cameras. Also, back then they didn’t really have that much of an idea of the importance of social media, so getting anything from them was like blood from a stone.”

A dream begins?

The camera Hunt announced on that September evening in 2017 never saw the light of day, something the Tokyo-based Briton still regrets to this day. But the idea of a new premium compact camera – one whose parts weren’t half worn out from years of use – didn’t die with it.

Leica and Lomography – two camera makers at opposites of the price scale – had continued to make films cameras during film’s long decline, the former for those who wanted a deliberate tool and had the deep pockets to fund it, and the latter offering lo-fi models taking the toy camera aesthetic into the 21^st Century.

A few years after Hunt’s call for a new camera, the world found itself in the middle of the Covid pandemic. Confined to their houses, box sets thoroughly binged, people turned to hobbies that had been ignored amid busy working lives. Film photography’s cohort was suddenly swelled by people who had put film aside for years, or hadn’t yet tried it.

The supply of working film cameras did not suddenly dry up overnight, but the prices of those Instagram-famous premium models only had one place to go: up. The idea of a new camera costing several hundred dollars now didn’t look so outlandish, given that some of the originals were now selling for more than twice that.

Resurging interest in film had prompted many companies to rebrand cheap, “reusable disposables”, very simple compact cameras with a single shutter speed and one or two apertures – you will have seen them rebadged as such cameras as the Dubblefilm SHOW, Long Weekend, Catch Camera, Kodak F9 and the Ilford Sprite. These cameras took pictures little more than a step above those taken on a disposable – but they showed that there was a market for new cameras outside of Leica’s expensive rangefinders and Lomography’s experimental offerings.

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And at least one of the historic “Big Five” Japanese camera companies was taking note. Ricoh Imaging had bought Pentax in 2011 and then brought out a range of DSLRs under the Pentax name. As most of the camera industry pivoted towards mirrorless models, Pentax remained a holdout, producing SLRs for those who still wanted to compose through an optical viewfinder.

In December 2022, Ricoh Imaging teased the possibility of a new film camera with the announcement of the Pentax Film Project. The project asked for feedback from those still shooting film as to what new models they would welcome, and some months later the first glimpses of what the project might deliver were made public.

“Last December we announced the launch of a film camera project. Of course, the project is still on track. It will see the light of day in spring 2024 with the arrival of two cameras,” Ricoh Imaging said in a press release at the time.”As far as the type of film camera that will be released next spring is concerned, it should, as a first draft, be two compact cameras, high-end in terms of technical specifications but not in terms of price. They will be relatively affordable.”

Central to the Pentax Film Project was Takeo Suzuki, also known by the nickname “TKO”, who led the design team. As details about the project began to take shape, TKO gradually became more of a presence – the public face of a 21^st Century camera company returning to its film-era heritage.

Half-frame heritage

“I wanted to create a camera especially for new and young users,” TKO tells Kosmo Foto via email. “When I heard about a young person who had saved up money to buy a used film camera – only to find it broken – I was moved to tears. My first idea was to create a camera they could use with peace of mind,” he says.

Unlike in most other countries, film had never entirely disappeared from the mainstream in Japan, TKO says. “It’s still common for young users to get together with friends and take photos for fun using disposable film cameras,” he says. “Some enjoy photo walks – visiting cafés with second-hand film cameras they’ve purchased.

“One interesting example is school trips in Japan. Teachers take students to historic places like Kyoto or Nara, where they can directly experience history. To avoid trouble, schools often prohibit students from carrying smartphones. Expensive cameras are also banned. So disposable film cameras are frequently used for taking photos,” he says.

The fact many Japanese youngsters had some experience with film photography spurred TKO to make a camera catering for this market. It was then he thought of the half-frame format, which Ricoh and many other camera makers had explored with compact cameras in the decades after World War II.

“We conducted a great deal of research and interviews to determine whether a half-frame format would offer real advantages in the current market,” he says about the decision to go with a half-frame design.

Quote: When I first presented the concept to the executive team, including the company’s top leaders, everyone froze – Takeo Suzuki

But there were bigger challenges to surmount, TKO says, than just deciding what format the new camera would use; they had to persuade management to make a film camera at all. “At the time, we didn’t even get as far as debating half-frame versus full-frame – what struck everyone was simply how unrealistic it seemed to build a film camera in the modern era. When I first presented the concept to the executive team, including the company’s top leaders, everyone froze.”

Eventually, Ricoh Imaging’s management decided to go with the idea. More and more details about the new camera were teased; in May 2023, we learned the new Pentax would have a manual film lever rather than a motorised advance system. Later that year, an interview with a Japanese photography magazine waxed lyrical about the design of one of Ricoh’s own designs from the past, the Ricoh Auto Half half-frame camera from the 1960s. Was the Pentax Film Project about to do something against the grain?

Half-frame had become a half-forgotten curio from film photography’s past until 2023, when the Hong Kong-based photographic brand Reto unveiled the Kodak-branded Ektar H35N, a simple camera with a glass lens and half-frame format. Reto said the Ektar H35N made sense in a post-Covid world where the price of photographic films had increased so much, squeezing twice as many frames out of a roll of film as other simple cameras.

Pentax however, had other reasoning besides the extra frames, however. When outlining the merits of it before the new Pentax’s release, TKO had talked about a vertical half-frame perfectly suiting the dimensions of a smartphone screen – which is how the design team obviously thought most of its potential customers would be viewing their photographs.

Pentax had last made a film camera nearly 20 years before, as the camera industry suddenly pivoted from film-shooting models to digital. Pentax (and Ricoh too) had had enormous success in the compact camera era with models of all shapes, sizes and prices. But that was when film cameras were a staple technology. Much had changed in the ensuing two decades.

“Normally, in design work, the engineering and design teams communicate closely to maintain a balance between aesthetics and mechanics,” TKO says.

“However, with this camera, we had no idea whether the mechanisms could be realised at all. So, I asked the engineers to prioritise completing the mechanical design first. I promised them that no matter what shape it ended up taking, I would create a well-balanced, cool-looking camera.”

The resulting camera, the Pentax 17, did indeed look unlike anything either Ricoh or Pentax had ever released before – and was, indeed, a half-frame model. The camera’s viewfinder rose out of its retro-futurist body like a tiny hump. The 25mm lens (equivalent to a 35mm lens on a full-frame camera) was recessed into the body. The camera had an integral flash to the side, a nod to the classic 90s-era compacts that were proving so popular with those new to film. The lens had six different focus zones, its closest – little more than 50cms (1.6ft) was marked with a cartoon plate and cutlery – perfect for Instagram-friendly of a dinner close-up, with added analogue vibes…

“The internal mechanism we ended up with had a very unique shape one that was challenging as a design material,” TKO says. “The exterior design was heavily influenced by the internal structure. I believe that’s why the camera ended up looking both retro and modern at the same time. Again, balancing these elements was extremely difficult, but I truly enjoyed the design process.”

It needed to feel classic, yet unmistakably modern – and that’s what I aimed to express – Takeo Suzuki

TKO says he wanted the camera to have a “classic feel that many film-camera users desire, while also avoiding making a simple reissue model”. The Pentax 17 was certainly not just an updated version of something it might have released in the 1990s – Pentax had never released a half-frame camera before, and had barely any experience with zone-focus models either.

“It needed to feel classic, yet unmistakably modern – and that’s what I aimed to express,” TKO says.

Making a splash

The Pentax 17 was officially announced in June 204, some 18 months after Ricoh Imaging first raised the idea publicly. Its release made waves far outside the photographic press: there was coverage in Britain’s broadsheet newspaper The Guardian, The New York Times and TIME Magazine (who ended up calling it one of the inventions of 2025, oddly enough).

“I was both surprised and deeply moved,” TKO says. “The reaction and support made me realise, “We have friends all over the world!”—and I was sincerely grateful.

“I had assumed that longtime film-camera fans would strongly oppose the idea because it wasn’t an SLR and because it was half-frame. But once we explained the intention behind the project, many film photographers came to understand the necessity of this camera and supported it. I felt a gratitude and emotion beyond words.”

Did the Pentax 17 feel like a brave idea for a company like Ricoh Imaging? “I didn’t think of it as “brave” – because in the beginning, most of the feedback was opposition, so we were simply doing our utmost to push forward.”

The Pentax 17 is relatively large for a half-frame camera – certainly big enough to be able to turn it into a full-frame model. Ricoh Imaging had certainly not shied away from the idea of more cameras early on in the film project’s life. Was the intention to make a full-frame version?

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“I believed the first camera had to be the Pentax 17,” says TKO. “I thought it through so thoroughly it practically gave me a fever—so even if I could go back in time, I would make the same decision.

“As for switching to full-frame, I’ll leave that to everyone’s imagination.”

—

Ricoh Imaging’s new film camera had some echoes from past cameras. But in Hong Kong, MiNT Camera was planning something much more overt.

The company had become known for their instant film cameras based on retro designs like the twin-lens reflex and folding cameras, but so far had not dipped their toes into 35mm film cameras. Few expected them to.

Even as Ricoh Imaging was making the first quiet noises about their new Pentax Film Project in 2022, MiNT Camera was already years into the design work of their first compact film camera. But they didn’t start completely from scratch: instead, they turned to a classic design from decades before: the Rollei 35.

“MiNt has always been drawn to timeless designs,” MiNT’s founder Gary Ho tells Kosmo Foto. “We started with the Polaroid SX-70, my all-time favourite camera. Its design is so unique and brilliant. I personally love things that can stand the test of time.”

Quote: You have to get everything right. That’s the hardest part – Garo Ho, MiNT Camera

The Rollei 35, which was designed by the brilliant German camera designer Heinz Waaske, was a revelation when it appeared in 1966. It was the smallest full-frame 35mm camera yet devised, and spawned a whole family of cameras. Rollei 35s remained in production until the mid-1990s, and more than two million were made.

While MiNT had a design they could already work with, their new camera would not just be a remake; it would have to include features that were impossible when the original camera was released in the 1960s. All of that would take an enormous amount of work.

“It took a long time,” says Ho. “Around five years in total. We started before Covid in 2019, and then Covid struck, which slowed everything down. To make matters worse, our longtime main supplier shut its operations during the Covid lockdown. We had to build another factory line from scratch. It was a huge headache, but by that point, we were already invested in the project and there was no turning back.”

The original Rollei 35 was a viewfinder camera with a collapsible lens, removable film back, CdS meter and a hot shoe that had to be mounted on the bottom of the camera because the top plate was already too crowded. Generations of compact cameras had introduced everything from autofocus to in-camera flashes in the decades inbetween, and most modern film photographers would expect a new camera to have similar.

What was the hardest thing to get right? “Everything. You have to get everything right. That’s the hardest part,” says Ho.

A ‘brutal’ redesign

The new Rollei-alike was a crash course in designing a 35mm film camera. “There are some things that are easier for instant cameras and some things that are not,” says Ho.

“For example, light metering is more straightforward for film cameras than for instant cameras. On the other hand, we were totally new to the film advance system in film cameras. Overall, a lot of knowledge was transferable, and we couldn’t have done this without our prior experience with instant cameras.”

The biggest constraint was the original camera’s tiny size. Until the Minox 35 series and the Minolta TC-1 of the 1990s, the Rollei 35 was the smallest 35mm camera on the block. “We had to fit in an extra flash, battery, a distance sensing module, and a motor for autofocus, into what was already a tight frame, all while keeping the housing reasonably tiny and preserving the overall form factor. It was brutal,” says Ho.

Quote: Technology has advanced a lot and there are ways to do things that were otherwise impossible before – Gary Ho

“One of the hardest things about the Rollei 35AF is the design constraints. You are limited by the camera’s look, its size, and how it functions.

“For example, if the film loading mechanism wasn’t a detachable backdoor design, it wouldn’t be very true to the original Rollei 35, would it? It would be so much easier (and a lot cheaper) if we simply made it bigger and thicker. But it wouldn’t be a ‘Rollei 35’ if it wasn’t pocketable, would it?”

The development of the Rollei 35AF illustrated one major issue that might have been holding back other potential designs in the last few years – parts. It has been two decades since film cameras were a mainstream consumer product. Many internal parts that a film camera requires – such as in the advance mechanism – aren’t needed in digital models. The engineers who do know how these mechanisms fit together have largely retired. Two decades is more than enough time for institutional knowledge and experience to fade. And if the parts aren’t needed, the companies that produce them are less likely to bother making them.

“Finding the right components is challenging. The supply chain for film cameras is long gone. But technology has advanced a lot and there are ways to do things that were otherwise impossible before,” Ho says.

“Basically, everything had to be custom-made because of the constraints we imposed to honour the original. I can’t think of another way we could have done it. And that’s what made this project extra challenging, but meaningful too,” he adds.

Released in September 2024, the Rollei 35AF arrived hot on the heels of the Pentax 17. The camera’s modern features – Lidar-based autofocus, flash, a modern display screen, helped make the camera much chunkier than the Rollei 35s of the past, though the design still closely resembled the famous German camera. The camera’s front panel is dominated, just like the original, by two giant dials. Like the original camera the one on the right is a film type reminder, while the one on the left replaces the ISO setting with a frame counter. Everything else is monitored through the modern panel on the camera’s top plate.

The Rollei 35AF emerged as a measurably more expensive camera than the Pentax 17, which was understandable given MiNT Camera’s modest size compared to Ricoh Imaging. In the UK, the cameras retailed for at least £650, around £150 higher than the Pentax. The high price surprised some. Others were impressed a company like MiNT Camera – without the decades of camera design experience behind the Pentax Film Project – had brought a compact film camera to the market on the first try.

Japan Camera Hunter’s Bellamy Hunt was privy to the camera’s early development.

“I was able to offer encouragement and advice from a user standpoint,” he tells Kosmo Foto. “What Gary and his team did was nothing short of amazing, considering they had never built a camera before. Gary was kind enough to gift me one of the first Rollei 35AF cameras to test and give him feedback. For that I am very grateful… I still have the camera and use it too.”

Quote: We are just getting started – Gary Ho

Ho says he was encouraged by the reception. “The response has been incredible. It took us a few months to fulfill the pre-orders due to the tidal wave of orders.

“I believe our real users are most satisfied with the photos results, the lens is a killer feature. I am aware of haters, but I think it’s something we all have to face in the social media era.”

MiNT Camera has also tweaked issues between production batches based on customer feedback. The original camera’s lack of filters, for instance, has been rectified by the launch of a filter kit, with several filters that can be attached to the lens via a magnetic adapter.

“The original Rollei 35 was perfected over time, evolving through a celebrated series of models from the 35T to the 35S. That spirit of continuous refinement is in our DNA,” MiNT said at the time.

Ho says the filter kit “sold better than I anticipated. Which points to the fact that people who bought the camera are actually using the camera! There are a ton of happy users and their actions speak louder than words. This is what makes me most happy.

“We are just getting started.”

Since the Pentax Film Project got going in 2022, no other major camera manufacturer has announced a similar campaign, leaving the field to much smaller operations like MiNT Camera and Lomography. Ho thinks the market is still too small to tempt them.

“My feeling is that the bigger camera companies did the math and realised there’s nothing to gain financially in this market. It exists out of pure passion.

I was aware of this from day one when I started the project. I wasn’t in it for the money. I just thought the project was cool. Bigger companies don’t think this way. They have investors to report to.”

—

A heritage Japanese camera maker is one thing. An upstart Hong Kong one is another. But in late 2024a much more unlikely player entered the field.

Analogue are based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. They run a small group of film labs and camera shops, and a design agency on the side. They have, in the nicest possible way, exactly zero experience making film cameras. But that didn’t stop them announcing their own design – the Analogue aF-1.

The af-1 was unveiled, via hints and rumours, early in 2025. At its announcement, the camera didn’t physically exist yet; its slick website was full of computer-generated renders of what it was intended to look like. The camera, with its sliding front cover, echoed popular compact models like the much-loved Olympus Mju-II. Some viewers weren’t convinced, and were quick to denounce it as vapourware, especially as it took a while for the project to follow up the initial launch with updates.

In April last year, Kosmo Foto had a long video chat with Analogue’s founder Ralph Tilon. The conversation dispelled any initial doubts that Analogue had bitten off more than they could chew. While Tilon hadn’t built a camera before, he had had more than a decade project managing in the fashion and textile industry, and that had meant lots of experience dealing with Chinese suppliers. And, like much of what else that makes our 21^st Century world tick, the Analogue aF-1’s various parts would need to be made in China.

Tilon’s experience selling film compact cameras in recent years had been the spur to create the aF-1, he tells Kosmo Foto. “While there are still some compact cameras with relatively fast, large aperture lenses available at a reasonable price, the category as a whole is in decline.

“Most of these models were obviously produced in the 1980s and 1990s, which means availability is decreasing and prices are rising. Beyond price and scarcity, repairability is a reason. Many repair technicians no longer service these cameras due to the lack of spare parts and time. Only a handful of very high-end models, such as the Contax T2 or T3, are still repairable to some extent, which further limits long-term usability across the category,” he says.

Referencing the classics

Before going to the drawing board, Tilon says the Analogue team looked at some of the enduring compact camera designs and why people were still drawn to using them. “Some influenced us through their lens specifications, others through material choices and industrial design, and others through their functionality and user experience. Key references included the Contax T-series for optical performance and build quality, the Olympus MJU-series for simplicity and reliability, as well as the Minolta Riva-series and Pentax Espio-series for their balance of accessibility, features, and design,” he says.

Quote: So far, the most challenging aspects has been lens manufacturing and in particular, the shutter mechanism – Ralp Tilon, Analogue

“Rather than copying a single model, we combined insights from across these cameras to create something contemporary, functional, and built to last.”

The aF-1 was intended to be released in 2025; the launch talked of finished cameras being sent out at the end of the northern hemisphere summer. That turned out to be overly ambitious; as of March 2026, the camera is able to be pre-ordered but has still not gone into production. (More on that later.)

“So far, the most challenging aspects has been lens manufacturing and in particular, the shutter mechanism. Both require extreme precision, and we were determined not to compromise on quality,” Tilon tells Kosmo Foto.

“Achieving consistent optical performance while developing a reliable, durable shutter has been one of the most complex parts of the journey, but it’s also where the product’s character and longevity are defined. The lens is without a doubt the most complex and important part of the camera,” he says.

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One of the draws of the premium compacts the aF-1 has been in the image of is the lens extending to f/2.8 – which is great for shooting in more challenging light, but also means the lens gets more complicated and more expensive. “We chose a Double Gauss construction with six elements in four groups, due to our ambition to achieve a true f/2.8 aperture,” Tilon says.  ‘Our belief was that a high quality yet affordable camera should be equipped with the most versatile lens possible, one that draws in light easily and performs reliably across a wide range of shooting conditions and use cases, from low light to everyday photography. At the same time, affordability was a key constraint.

“Using aspherical glass would have made achieving f/2.8 easier even with a Tessar construction lens, but it would have significantly increased the price. Balancing optical quality, manufacturing feasibility, and cost is what made this part of the project very interesting.”

Late last year, Analogue released more pictures taken on the camera’s lens which showed that the lens and shutter were making progress, and followed it up with an update that said that the main sticking point was ensuring the longevity and reliability of the design. It added another in mid March in which it said the delays would mean the camera would now not be released until Q3 2026.

Analogue might be one of the latest companies to announce a new film model, but it is still a trickle rather than a flood. Finding people with the knowhow to make cameras like this isn’t always easy, Tilon says.

“It’s very challenging. Most manufacturers stopped producing analogue cameras decades ago, which means much of the know-how has disappeared or shifted to digital. Finding a manufacturing partner that had produced millions of film cameras in the 1980s and 1990s was one of the most important steps in our journey. Even though they no longer focus on analogue production today, that historical expertise combined with an understanding of mechanical precision, proved invaluable in bringing a film camera to life,” he says.

And despite the recent activity – in particular the camera that Lomography announced suddenly late last year – Tilon believes the camera will fill a gap when it is finally released later this year. “It is currently the only new compact film camera to feature a Double Gauss lens construction, which allows for higher optical resolution and more consistent image quality compared to simpler lens designs.

Quote: After years of shifting from cameras to smartphones, we’re now seeing a gradual return, especially among younger audiences, towards using cameras again – Ralph Tilon

“At the same time, the aF-1 sits at a crossroads between accessibility and depth. It is designed to be extremely easy to use for beginners out of the box, while also offering a Pro mode. By using the integrated Type-C port at the bottom of the aF-1, users can add the optional Pro firmware mode, with that the camera can be unlocked into a fully manual tool (aperture, shutter speed, double exposure mode, etc), making it equally relevant for intermediate and advanced photographers,” he adds.

The increasing competition from other rival designs makes Tilon optimistic – and sure that launching the aF-1 was a good idea, despite the setbacks which have delayed its launch.

“After years of shifting from cameras to smartphones, we’re now seeing a gradual return, especially among younger audiences, towards using cameras again. Film, in particular, offers a more deliberate way of creating images, which clearly resonates with this generation. In the end you’re not going to randomly shoot a bunch of photos if you just have 36 frames, you really start to life in the now and try to create something special with every shot.’

—

In October 2025, Kosmo Foto received an email from Lomography, the Austrian photography brand that turned experimental photography into a bona fide cultural movement in the 1990s.

Lomography embraced expired film, cross processing, double exposures and coloured flashes. It encouraged taking photos on strange and toylike cameras. It resurrected both a curious Soviet-era compact camera and a 1960s Hong Kong camera with a dramatically dreamy plastic lens. But few of its cameras, it would be fair to say, were built with the “premium” ethos in mind.

The email unveiled something different – perhaps the most ambitious camera the company had ever planned.

Called the LOMO MC-A, the new Lomography compact camera had decidedly high-end look – almost like a luxury-level Contax, albeit one with the distance settings from the LOMO LC-A grafted on to its front.

Lomography had indeed been working on a camera of a much higher spec than its usual offerings. In an age of leaks and teases it was something of a minor miracle that the camera had got this close to release without anyone being the wiser. Within a few weeks of the press release arriving, the LOMO MC-A was officially announced, and review cameras were soon being sent to testers.

(Lomography rarely do interviews with the press, but did agree to answering some questions for this piece. Rather than attributing them to one particular person, they asked for them to be attributed to Lomography itself.)

Lomography says the LOMO MC-A had “been in development for several years” and was informed by the knowledge built up from 30 years of camera projects.

Quote: We put all our experience of 30 years of product development into the Lomo MC-A – Lomography

“We started from a checklist of non-negotiables: glass lens, compact size, metal housing, built-in flash, full-frame 35mm, our Lomography signature features. It is always a long journey of researching, calculating, testing, designing, getting feedback and starting over again – there are many setbacks when developing a camera, limitations of technical features but also impossibilities like in most creative projects. You start with many big ideas and you have to fight to realise them.

“This is difficult, involves a lot of emotions from everyone involved in the process of making it. We are all proud of what we achieved and the biggest reward is the feedback from the community, which is really touching. We received so many very emotional comments, showing how much people value this product and know about the complexity of this project.”

At £450, the LOMO MC-A is Lomography’s priciest camera to date. The camera’s body is mostly metal, with a manual wind-on to advance the film and a metal rewind handle on the camera’s bottom plate. The camera has an integral flash with various modes. It promised to be light years away from the fun but frill-less plastic cameras Lomography has made a regular habit of releasing.

It is the first Lomography 35mm camera to feature autofocus, though the camera can also be used in a zone focus mode a la the original LC-A compact. The camera’s shutter dial has a full range of manual speeds from 1/500 down to 20 seconds, plus an automatic mode. This means the camera can either be shot in fully manual or aperture-priority mode – or fully automatic if you move the aperture to the “P” setting, like you might find on a Minox 35 camera.

The zone focusing is a nod to the Cold War-era LOMO LC-A, allowing the photographer to shoot from the hip and not worry about the autofocus latching on to something behind the subject. Helpfully, the chosen focus zone is displayed on the camera’s large, bright control panel on the top of the camera, along with the shutter speed.

The cues from the LC-A aren’t accidental. “We always loved the LC-A compact camera, the catalyst for our enthusiasm for celebrating analogue photography,” Lomography says, “but we knew stocks will be gone at some point, so we always planned to work on a new development for this camera and the idea was to develop a premium product for any kind of user. We put all our experience of 30 years of product development into the Lomo MC-A, we wanted to show a strong sign of life for analogue photography.”

Quote: There was a lot of testing, trial and errors to find the correct combination of everything – Lomography

The jump from plastic fixed-focus cameras to premium compacts was a hefty one, Lomography admits. “It was extremely challenging. We were fighting for every millimetre on this camera, between the design requirement of being very compact and pocketable, and the engineering requirements that come with designing a functioning film camera.

“There was a lot of testing, trial and errors to find the correct combination of everything. Throughout the process we wanted to keep the analogue feel, the tactility, the emotions, but also designing the new film camera made for the 21st Century.”

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Lomography keeps its projects under wraps until it’s pretty much ready to release them, but it did tease this when talking about the new camera: “The Lomo MC-A is a new step in our product development endeavours, and we are currently working on many more.”

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There has been one major obstacle getting in the way of a new compact camera revival – the enormous amount of secondhand cameras at much lower prices.

It is now several decades since the height of the film camera market, but many tens of millions of cameras are still in working condition, and they usually sell for much less than a new model with similar features.

Film photographers spoiled with years of buying unwanted cameras for next to nothing. But as film photography has found a new audience, prices for many talked-about models have risen. It’s not just the bubble around influencer-hyped premium models like the Contax T2 and the Yashica T4.

Lomography says that while there has “always been an interest in second-hand cameras” it can be “quite daunting for beginners to buy second-hand cameras without a guarantee that the camera is functional

“We think it’s crucial to provide enough new camera options for younger consumers and beginners. Prices of second-hand cameras went up to a level which excludes many consumers, so it made sense to launch such a project.”

This new burst of 35mm camera-making activity doesn’t include some of the biggest names still producing cameras – like Canon, Fujifilm and Nikon. Film’s rebounding fortunes may still pale in comparison to the market for digital cameras, and is still a tiny fraction of that of smartphones. The bigger the camera maker, the more certain they will have to be that a healthy market exists for a new film model.

The setting up of the Pentax Film Project, however, shows that some of the bigger camera companies can be persuaded to throw their hat in the ring. And perhaps just in time. As MiNT Camera’s Gary Ho intimated, just a couple of decades is enough for commonplace engineering know how to fade.

“That showed that a major manufacturer with a long and storied history was prepared to get involved,” says Japan Camera Hunter’s Bellamy Hunt. “It was a validation for all the hard work many of us had put into showing people that film isn’t dead. I don’t think many people understand quite how close things came to it being curtains for film at the time. 

• Many thanks to Bellamy Hunt, Takeo Suzuki, MiNT Camera’s Gary Ho, Analogue’s Ralph Tilon, Lomography Vienna and Lomography UK’s Hannah Brown for help making this article possible.