The cameras being made now, and the market that shrank around them.
05Section
The Pentax 17, Kodak's Rochester line, Ilford, Harman Phoenix, home developing, and what the scanner market looks like now.
Pieces 06Code 05Set in Spline Sans Mono
05.1 · Lead piece
Ricoh released a mass-market film camera in 2024. Its most consequential specification is the one it subtracts.
A coating operation declared dead more than a decade ago is still running, still shipping, and still formulating emulsions in the city that invented mass-market photography.
The first new colour film from a UK manufacturer in decades arrived in 2023 — and the engineering behind it explains why it took so long.
The coating line in Mobberley kept running. The volume going through it is higher now than it was ten years ago.
Home film developing has gone from specialist pursuit to documented consumer trend — the chemistry suppliers and equipment makers are the evidence.
