2024 will always be the year I finally felt confident enough to try film beyond instant and disposable – and the rising trend for everything retro from film to vinyl suggests that I’m not alone. But, while 2024 brought some great news for film photographers from Pentax’s first new film camera in 20 years to a boom in film cameras for Leica, 2025 could be the year that proves whether or not film is just a fad – or will continue with a large following long term.
Film never fully fizzled out after the digital boom, with some dedicated artists continuing to use the traditional analog format for nostalgia, colors, or that real film grain. But the last few years have brought an uptick in film users that could be large enough to support new advancements in the genre.
Take the Pentax 17, for example. Pentax hadn’t launched a new film camera for 20 years before it launched the half-frame camera. The camera also hints at who is supporting the film boom. It lacks the full manual control that the most dedicated photographers were hoping for. But, the half-frame format offers an aspect ratio that seems destined for smartphone screens, while the controls allow a bit of flexibility while staying simple enough for someone who doesn’t fully understand film.
Meanwhile, Leica has seen a 900 percent jump in sales of its film cameras over the last eight years, and Lucky Film relaunched a black and white film stock.
Much of the research around the recent uptick in film sales suggests that it's the Millennials who saw the first digital cameras at a young age and the Gen Zers who were born after digital became the norm that are driving the film trend. While I’m sure that there are nostalgic Boomers among the film resurgence, several film camera stores have noticed that the younger generations tend to be coming into the stores more often.
Film has been trendy for awhile now, and I think the next few years could determine whether the resurgence is just a short-lived trend or something that has longterm legs. Now, I think artists should make art for arts sake, not just to follow trends. But, there’s no denying the effect that the trend has had on the market – if not enough people buy film to make its manufacture profitable, then we’ll start to lose even more film stocks. Of course, the opposite is also true in that if the trend exceeds supply, the cost of film will continue to go up.
I think the cost of film could be what dissuades new film photographers from continuing to use the medium in the long term. In the past few years we’ve seen Kodak raise prices while Fujifilm discontinued some film stocks. Kodak recently stopped selling its motion picture film outside of the film industry, ending the process of third-party stores buying the bulk film and re-rolling to sell at a lower cost. When I finally loaded a roll of film into the old SLR I picked up from a garage sale, I didn’t find the price of the Ilford black and white film I purchased too bad – but had a bit of sticker shock over the cost of developing that film.
My hope is that film gains a following large enough to support the industry (and even maybe bring some emulsions back into production) but small enough to keep demand from overpowering supply. With the number of new film cameras launched in 2024, I’m also hoping that we’ll see some new gear and ideally with more manual controls in 2025.
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