Tag: #believeinfilm

September 2026 Links

The 1-Inch Sensor Is Not One Inch, and the Name Is a 70-Year-Old Fossil ­— what size actually is a 1-inch sensor?

What is ISO invariance, and should I care? — Should you?`

Woodland Photography for Beginners: The Basics That Really Matter When You’re Just Starting Out — Getting started with woodland photography.

Thanks to Nikon, Canon’s Closed RF Mount Could Be Forced Open — An explanation of why Viltrox doesn’t produce Nikon Z or Canon RF lenses: these companies are trolling with patent. Nikon’s got invalidated in China though. When you can’t compete, you just bully.

Full Frame Is 24x36mm Because a Leitz Engineer Doubled a Movie Frame in 1913 — It always boil down to a decision taken a long time ago.

The ColorChecker, a Photographer’s Best and Most Colorful Friend, Turns 50 Years Old — It didn’t realise this was so old.

Sask. company uses new technology to preserve memories caught on film — (From March 2024) Restoring / digitising film is important. So Film Rescue International developed a new device to digitise film, including old film that was left unprocessed.

Exhibits

‘Lunch Atop a Skyscraper’: Unraveling Photography’s Most Famous Mystery — An historical review the image. It’s a workplace safety violation, for sure.

Inside Lenne Chai’s Nostalgic Vision of a Queer Singapore

Nicolas Rachline’s Haunting Photos Capture the Solitude and Beauty of Modern Life — A new book.

The Winners of the 2026 Pure Street Photography Awards Invoke Happenstance and Commotion — Some very nice photography.

Film

Seems like Petapixel has been posting a lot about film lately.

We Are Living in a Panoramic Film Renaissance — New panoramic film cameras that are not the WideluxX.

The Excellent Kodak Ultramax 400 Is an Unfortunate Victim of Bad Branding — Spoiler: it is just Gold in 400.

Kodak Gold is Somehow Both Very Popular and Underappreciated — I have shot the old Gold from the 90s. I have a box of Gold in 120 to try out.

Kodak Ektar 100 Brings Fine Grain and Vivid Color Saturation — A fine film. Shot many times mostly in 120. And on the olden days it was a high sensitivity film.

GoPro

Following RIP GoPro:

Markiplier Says He Is ‘Genuinely Sad’ About GoPro’s Merger — Markiplier just happened to have become the single biggest shareholder of GoPro days before the anoouncement. One notable quote:

“If [GoPro] stops making cameras or starts making Flock-based cameras, I am out 100%,” Fischbach says.

GoPro’s Founder Promises It Isn’t Done Making Consumer Cameras — Just words.

DIY

This New Open-Source Camera Has Swappable Sensors and Lens Mounts — This project is not DIY as it comes from a company named Circuit Valley but it sure feels like it could be and encourages it with its open-source nature. Interesting concept. Digital Camera World also talks about it: In a world-first, this open system is a camera tinkerer’s dream with swappable sensors, global shutter options, programmable software, AND multiple lens mounts.

Harman Phoenix is back

Harman Phoenix is back as an 125 ISO film. Currently only in 35mm, it is just the original Harman Phoenix (not Phoenix II) in a new packaging, DX coded to 125 ISO. The new ISO is based on feedback from photographer that it looked better exposed +2/3 stop. Will also be available in 120.

Another change is that officially it can be processed in E-6 or ECN-2.

I have just gotten my only exposed roll of Phoenix back from the lab. More later.

July 2026 Links

Did you know that every Pixii camera can record B&W DNG files? (the story of how an engineering tool accidentally became Pixii’s most-loved feature) — The Pixii is an interesting camera on many aspects with some design choices I consider terrible (this is not one of them). I’d love to get my hands on one.

What Is the Difference Between F-Stops and T-Stops? — A clear explanation of T-stop vs f-stop.

The Best Tripod for Woodland Photography (Tested in Wind & Rain) — Some comparison of tripods for nature photography in the woodlands. Some applies to other uses.

The Insane Story of Nikon’s Cancelled DL Compact Cameras and Why it Deserves Another Chapter — The compact camera market got killed by the smartphones. And today smartphone image quality is junk on overall: priced to the bottom with computational-goo to fill the gaps while trying to number brag.

Film

Nikon F6: and so it goes — About the Nikon F6.

Running on Film with the Hasselblad XPan — Editorial shoot on X-Pan.

Nikon F3 – Camera Review — A 2016 review of the Nikon F3.

I Shot a Rare Film Emulsion That Sold for $5,000 — Beyond the totally clickbait headline, this is about shooting the discontinued Fujifilm FP100c peel apart on a Polaroid 180, and using the negatives.

Asahi Optical Historical Club: A brief history of the Asahi Optical Corporation — Presented without comments. A reprint of a 2002 article.

Repairs

Sigma 45mm f/2.8 Lens Repair & Analysis — Repairing a Sigma 45mm f/2.8 lens.

DIY

reFrame camera — an experimental camera with a color ePaper display. You can build one yourself.

Nikon F3

For a while I have been looking at which Nikon manual focus camera I should get, as I don’t own any Nikon. Turns out most filmfluencers that have one, have a Nikon F3. Here we go, I just got a Nikon F3. It feels like I got it for a good price, for what was one of the top Nikon 35mm SLR when it was released on 1979. It came with the period incorrect 2002 Nikkor AF 50mm 1.8 D which works fine with this camera. My specific camera was built in 1981.

A black Nikon F3 camera, with its lens and a brown leather strap, on a terracotta tile.
A Nikon F3 with a AF 50mm f1.8 D

The Nikkor AF 50mm f1.8 D that came with it is an autofocus lens with aperture ring and released in 2002 is an inexpensive but among the sharpest lenses. The nifty-fifty.

Now I need to understand what the various Nikon F lenses are. At least with Canon it’s simple. FL -> FD -> FDn. The latter two are interchangeable and FL is compatible with FD cameras using stopped down metering only (as FL doesn’t have aperture indexing), but not the other way around. The complexity of the Nikon lenses designation is also why that 2002 autofocus lens works great with the 1979 manual focus camera. Unlike Canons where EF lenses never were compatible with FD bodies (not even physically mounting).

I will talk more about it later after I shoot a roll of Kodak BW400CN that I pulled out of my freezer (bought in 2011 for U$5.25, it expired 03/2013) as it still is black & white July.

Link: Making panoramic images

elengale wrote a long about their experience shooting panoramic: Wider horizons – making panoramic images

A great introduction to shooting panoramic on film. It’s not about stitching, it’s not about digital. It’s about 35mm film and various types of cameras. From the Fujifilm T-X1 / Hasselblad X-Pan, shooting natively 24x65mm, to the compact point and shoot Minolta P and Rioch R1, that crop inside a 24×36 frame, by way of the Horizon, Noblex and Widelux with their rotating lenses. What all these cameras have in common is that the image produced is panoramic, ie with an aspect ratio larger by 2:1, and that it is either covering the whole film, or masked ; you don’t crop in post processing.

The article goes on a complete comparison of field of view, aspect ratio, viewfinders, etc. This is all about what the writer has personally used, still favouring the Fujifilm.

June 2026 Links

Press Photographer Releases 30-Year Archive of Iconic Celebrity Images — a preview of The Big Shot: Photographs by Greg Brennan.

X-E5

Viltrox AF 75mm f1.8 EVO Review & Sample Photos — Reviewed on the Fujfilm X-E5.

Photographyblog has a triptich of reviews for the X-E5:

Fujifilm XF 23mm F2.8 R WR Review

Fujifilm X-E5 Review

Fujifilm X-E5 vs Fujifilm X-E4 – Which is Better?

Film

Film Friday: Kodak Portra 800 Is High-Speed, Color Perfection — One of the rare choices for ISO 800 film.

WideluxX pre-order

I mentioned the WideluxX a few times already. The WideluxX is a revival of the Widelux rotating lens panoramic camera, by SilverBridges, a venture between SilvergrainClassics and Jeff Bridges. Yes, that dude.

It is now available for pre-orders, and the price is CA$6020 (+ taxes) or €5200 (incl. VAT). At the time of this writing, there is only 60 left of the initial production run of 350.

For those who think it’s overpriced, I think I have to disagree. It is made in Germany. It is a complete redesign of the Japanese made Widelux with the aim of being of solid quality. A Leica M6 new cost more, without lens. It’s also a unique camera: while there were in the past a few different manufacturers of rotating lens panoramic cameras, but this is currently the only one making them.

The first digital camera

Back in December 2025, BBC featured A ‘toaster with a lens’: The story behind the first handheld digital camera:

In 1975, a young engineer in the company that made Kodak film took the first picture on a handheld digital camera. Photography would never be the same again.

In a short summary, the first digital camera was invented at Kodak by Steve Sasson. Not because Sasson was asked to do it, but because, as a new hire, his first assignment was to checkout these new CCD chips. The bulky black and white camera took 100×100 pixels picture stored onto a cassette tape, to view the tape was read back for the image to be displayed on a TV. And business people always so this as a shift in the business if it every took. But in 1975 this was definitely not ready for anything, It needed hundred times more pixel to match even Instamatic 110 — which was the smallest format, before Kodak Disc.

Kodak had the future in their hands, but didn’t know what to do. It’s not that they did nothing, but what advance they had, they lost it as the competition caught up. After producing the first DSLRs with Nikon and Canon, making a good number of point and shoot cameras, and creating with Olympus the Four-Third format, they lost to the market and filed for bankruptcy in 2012, at which point they sold of a lot of business divisions, including the sensors.

After having emerged from bankruptcy over a decade ago, Kodak remains one of the few film manufacturers left in the world, while a lot of Kodak branded products are just that: branded. Fortunately Kodak seems to want continuing making film in a market that has completely shrunk, and for which its main competitor, Fujifilm, mostly withdrew.

RIP Portra and T-Max

In the continuation of Eastman Kodak bringing back the films from Kodak Alaris into their own umbrella, the latest “victims” are Portra and T-Max. While the brand will not be continued, both line will be renamed.

Long live to Ektacolor Pro and Ektapan (via Petapixel, as I’m not on the Eastman Kodak mailing list).

Ektacolor Pro will be in 160, 400 and 800 ISO, much like Portra. The 800 ISO film will cost more. Ektapan will be in 100, 400 and 3200 ISO, like T-Max. Both will be available in 135 and 120. Not sure yet about sheet film.

Now the only thing that is missing is that 800 ISO colour film that is found in the disposable cameras.

Previously: Ektachrome, Ektar, Tri-X, Kodacolor, Gold 200 and Ultramax 400.