Film is back BUT cameras are dying

[Boris Kalaidjiev]

It feels a bit controversial how more and more people are shooting film again, while some of the latest film cameras are already 20+ years old. Many film cameras are well past their intended lifespan with components failing left, right, center and servicing them is becoming extremely difficult due to the scarcity of spare parts.

I’m not sure what this means for film in the near future.

Do you reckon anyone will eventually start producing new 16mm or 35mm film cameras? This came out a bit more dramatic then I intended 😄

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Simply get yourself a Magellan: https://logmar.dk/

Too large? Then try a Kodak S8: https://www.kodak.com/en/motion/product/super-8/super-8-camera/

Or wait for any of those 3D printed cameras: https://petapixel.com/2022/12/12/college-student-makes-3d-printed-movie-camera-that-takes-35mm-film/

[Aapo Lettinen]

reproducing some critical parts may be necessary if wanting to continue shooting with Arri SR or Aaton XTR style cameras.

For MOS there is so much more cameras available which can be scavenged for parts that they should not run out anytime soon. I think the issue is with high end sync sound capable cameras, especially S16 ones and especially Arri because they are common cameras but spare parts were always too expensive to stock in large amount so there was never enough parts to begin with. 

The future may be hybrid cameras where some part of the old camera system is taken and the other half is newly built out of scratch. Like taking the movement parts out of Bolex and making everything else new. This kind of "scavenge-half-invent-rest" type of projects may be what people are mainly shooting with 10 years from now. 

Making completely new cameras entirely out of scratch is too expensive. Most people can never afford them. The people who can afford completely new 40k+ cameras can perfectly fine afford to get some precision engineer to reproduce Arri or Aaton spare parts in close-enough-to-original quality.

Again it is mainly 16mm because 35mm is such a niche market new-camera-wise and dominated by rental business that I think Panavision can perfectly fine build new 35mm rental cameras and some new players might try too if there is enough demand for them

[Simon Wyss]

Cameras are actually not dying, those that quit functioning are in most cases maltreated. If we discern sharply between professional and amateur gear, the first ones hold out very long, the latter weren’t made for intense use. Period

A new camera for 16-mm. film is announced for this year. https://www.yolk.org/camera/y16

[Robin Phillips]

I've definitely seen abused professional gear a few times that required installing parts of which the supply was somewhere between 1 and 5 remaining available. were just not in a place where anyone is making spare parts in a way that doesnt eliminate the concern about supply and keeping them going. 

the date on the Yolk 16 has continued to shift, and if David can ultimately bring it to market it will probably be in very small quantities (outside of a buyer ordering like 50). And while the 200ft capacity is cool, that will require respooling negative, which is more labor vs a 400ft quick change mag camera. So is not going to be in the same production friendly class as an SR3, 416, or XTR Prod in terms of use on set. Regardless, if I can I want to buy one when it becomes available because it may be an a-minima alternative. though respooling kodak negative to those 200ft rolls will be a pain.

[Aapo Lettinen]

I think the professional users and higher-end amateur/hobby/indie users really need an attitude change on spare parts and accessories if wanting to keep having some kind of supply in the future. 

The normal way to this point has been "I hope the gear stays in usable condition. Thoughts and prayers. Fix it with superglue and tape. If something breaks so badly that it cannot be repaired anymore, AT THAT POINT will I start to look for if someone can make a new part for it". 

Making new spare parts is definitely possible but the only way to make them is to collect preorders and make a batch of parts. Then if further orders can be collected it might be possible to make another batch. After second batch you are pretty much done and it is not possible to collect enough orders to make third batch. 

Waiting for something to break and only after that starting to look for replacement parts makes it impossible to finance newly made spare parts batches. Cameras break one by one and there is never enough them at single given time to allow collecting the minimum amount of orders to make a parts batch possible. This causes unusable broken cameras piling up and people losing interest and financing for repairing them because it took years to look for replacement parts and they moved on to something else. 

If camera owners really want to get new spare parts made, they would need to order them BEFORE SOMETHING BREAKS. This is the stuff people hate because you need to buy expensive spare parts stuff without actually needing it yet and not knowing for sure when/if you even need it in near future. 

But it is the only way to get good quality spare parts made as new reproduction if all the original spare parts are long gone. 

Attitude change is the only way. People need to look up and start asking for spare parts which are not needed yet. Make a list what you need and gain enough interest and paid preorders so that someone can make them for you at good quality. 

[Brandon Paterno]

6 hours ago, Aapo Lettinen said:

 

The future may be hybrid cameras where some part of the old camera system is taken and the other half is newly built out of scratch. Like taking the movement parts out of Bolex and making everything else new. This kind of "scavenge-half-invent-rest" type of projects may be what people are mainly shooting with 10 years from now. 

Making completely new cameras entirely out of scratch is too expensive. Most people can never afford them. The people who can afford completely new 40k+ cameras can perfectly fine afford to get some precision engineer to reproduce Arri or Aaton spare parts in close-enough-to-original 

i’ve been working on this for a bit with a beaulieu i bought as spares. the circuit board and motor were burnt out, (and looking at the condition of traces and placement of certain components from the factory no duh!) a microcontroller and some more later and it runs beautifully. it draws 4-5w at speed. i was able to add on additional functionality too and have gotten speeds pretty solid/locked using just open source libraries.

the microcontroller route is pretty logical i think cause of how it reintegrates the existing hardware. plus these cameras are dirt cheap and really great. and small. just sort of loud. camera movements have been figured out it’s just kind of running them 

lots of good movements out there. fabrication is a whole thing though otherwise. i dunno what major institution would actually be interested in upkeeping anything but the high end cameras out there like you’ve said

[Aapo Lettinen]

25 minutes ago, Brandon Paterno said:

i’ve been working on this for a bit with a beaulieu i bought as spares. the circuit board and motor were burnt out, (and looking at the condition of traces and placement of certain components from the factory no duh!) a microcontroller and some more later and it runs beautifully. it draws 4-5w at speed. i was able to add on additional functionality too and have gotten speeds pretty solid/locked using just open source libraries.

the microcontroller route is pretty logical i think cause of how it reintegrates the existing hardware. plus these cameras are dirt cheap and really great. and small. just sort of loud. camera movements have been figured out it’s just kind of running them 

lots of good movements out there. fabrication is a whole thing though otherwise. i dunno what major institution would actually be interested in upkeeping anything but the high end cameras out there like you’ve said

Yes electronics take tons of work but they are often not that expensive to make if not taking into account the months of work needed designing and testing them. For a professional camera and professional use it can take from 1 to 2 years so the time costs.

This thread was mainly about costs of custom made precision mechanical parts which need to be close to original Arri quality in precision and finishing. That kind of stuff IS very expensive to make right and new technology does not really help much with costs because the level of quality is so high that super skills and hand finishing is needed. Making a camera which cost 50k todays money in the 80's would still cost about 50k today with modern technology if same finishing quality is needed. The only way to cheap on costs is to lower the quality which would ruin the idea of making original-replacing spare parts in the first place.

Modern cnc and 3d printing makes replacing casings and lids and such cheaper. No casting needed, a camera door can be milled or 3d printed. But it does not work with mirrors or movement parts, they still need to be traditionally made and hand finished to get enough precision to work correctly.

Even basic non-precision metal parts cost a lot. For example on my 4speed npr motor the aluminium body costs about 250usd when all the electronic parts cost maybe 70 bucks. Making a metal sr magazine door by cnc machining costs  hundreds even in China in lowest quality. The cheapest circuit board able to control a camera can be made for like 20 bucks if large enough batch.

A single precision part made as reproduction for Arri would cost hundreds or even thousands depending on what it is. These add up quickly. One could spend two years making SR running good enough on Arduino for peanuts but if it needs newly made movement it can quickly go closer to 10k to make 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

If anyone wants to get nuts and make a film camera which takes a totally brand new film format, you are welcome to take my idea of 46mm film. Good luck!

 

 

[Doyle Smith]

On 1/22/2026 at 5:42 PM, Aapo Lettinen said:

I think the professional users and higher-end amateur/hobby/indie users really need an attitude change on spare parts and accessories if wanting to keep having some kind of supply in the future. 

The normal way to this point has been "I hope the gear stays in usable condition. Thoughts and prayers. Fix it with superglue and tape. If something breaks so badly that it cannot be repaired anymore, AT THAT POINT will I start to look for if someone can make a new part for it". 

Making new spare parts is definitely possible but the only way to make them is to collect preorders and make a batch of parts. Then if further orders can be collected it might be possible to make another batch. After second batch you are pretty much done and it is not possible to collect enough orders to make third batch. 

Waiting for something to break and only after that starting to look for replacement parts makes it impossible to finance newly made spare parts batches. Cameras break one by one and there is never enough them at single given time to allow collecting the minimum amount of orders to make a parts batch possible. This causes unusable broken cameras piling up and people losing interest and financing for repairing them because it took years to look for replacement parts and they moved on to something else. 

If camera owners really want to get new spare parts made, they would need to order them BEFORE SOMETHING BREAKS. This is the stuff people hate because you need to buy expensive spare parts stuff without actually needing it yet and not knowing for sure when/if you even need it in near future. 

But it is the only way to get good quality spare parts made as new reproduction if all the original spare parts are long gone. 

Attitude change is the only way. People need to look up and start asking for spare parts which are not needed yet. Make a list what you need and gain enough interest and paid preorders so that someone can make them for you at good quality. 

Aapo is entirely correct here. The concept of motion picture cameras outlining their lifespan is flawed.

Unlike the disposable consumer products and EOL OS's we are familiar with today, a mp camera is simply a machine existing of gears, cams, pulleys, belts and circuit boards. If you have the drawings, or the skill to micrometer or scan the components,  and the will and money a camera will exist until Armageddon.  

Cameras die from lack of maintenance and unavailability of spare parts. 

This applies primarily to professional production cameras. 

The greater concern for the art of film is the loss of filmstock and labs.

[Geffen Avraham]

I am working, very slowly but surely, on an open-source VistaVision camera. It's designed to be maintainable forever and manufacturable via Chinese machine shops like JLC.

I suspect by the time I have it working, the current VistaVision craze might have died out... But who knows... 70mm was dormant from 1996 until 2012, when PTA and Nolan revived it and it's still going strong.

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

2 hours ago, Geffen Avraham said:

I suspect by the time I have it working, the current VistaVision craze might have died out... But who knows... 70mm was dormant from 1996 until 2012, when PTA and Nolan revived it and it's still going strong.

Highly doubt it.

There's an increase in film usage in cinema productions - all you need to look at is at that increase in all the award nominated film this year (and the next for sure).

This will lead to a "halo" effect and cause more creatives to request, my take is that we're in for a good long-lasting upwards-curve ride .

4 hours ago, Doyle Smith said:

The greater concern for the art of film is the loss of filmstock and labs.

I agree 100% That's why I find it downright sad that we have only one factory in the world making it and not that many labs in Europe/Asia/US.

I hope that Kodak at least makes another factory in the UK and/or Germany

Edited January 30 by Aristeidis Tyropolis

[Giray Izcan]

6 hours ago, Aristeidis Tyropolis said:

Highly doubt it.

There's an increase in film usage in cinema productions - all you need to look at is at that increase in all the award nominated film this year (and the next for sure).

This will lead to a "halo" effect and cause more creatives to request, my take is that we're in for a good long-lasting upwards-curve ride .

I agree 100% That's why I find it downright sad that we have only one factory in the world making it and not that many labs in Europe/Asia/US.

I hope that Kodak at least makes another factory in the UK and/or Germany

There is an increase but it is still only a handful of productions shoot on film as opposed to thousands of other productions per day on digital... it is very much a niche product at this point unfortunately.. 

Edited January 30 by Giray Izcan

[Simon Wyss]

Received an H-16 Reflex made in 1959 yesterday. Client (European) says it slows down too much. I have just broken the 66+ years old mastic seal for the first time, the mechanism has never lived a service since then. The mainspring is in order. Cameras don’t die, they get killed.

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

It is like that with lots of things. You have to buy used on eBay. Old things are extinct. And some of them are not that old either. I don't use film cameras any longer, but I use a lot of tools dealing with film in the archive. Everything is old and from eBay or a used dealer. 

My advice...

If you demand film cameras, have a stable of them when you can find good deals on eBay or about. 

You know the old saying, don't you? 'Two is one and one is none.'

Well, get three!

Edited January 30 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

[Brandon Paterno]

11 hours ago, Geffen Avraham said:

I am working, very slowly but surely, on an open-source VistaVision camera. It's designed to be maintainable forever and manufacturable via Chinese machine shops like JLC.

I suspect by the time I have it working, the current VistaVision craze might have died out... But who knows... 70mm was dormant from 1996 until 2012, when PTA and Nolan revived it and it's still going strong.

interesting, but careful mentioning open source around here, lol!

we do need more stuff like this happening though. it mega sucks that the latest new camera effort that is reproducible/manufacturable is the Kodak 8 camera, for a format that has an abundance of oddities and problems which the price tag fails to justify. and reproducible over manufacturable might be the ticket. I wonder how the tolerances are from the overseas one off manufacturers, is it enough to make a movement for something as violent as VV? quite the exciting task -- id assume you'd also want to be building a projector too? otherwise, why shoot it over 35 or 70 when it'll end up on the computer 

 

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

2 hours ago, Giray Izcan said:

There is an increase but it is still only a handful of productions shoot on film as opposed to thousands of other productions per day on digital... it is very much a niche product at this point unfortunately.. 

We mustn't really compare the daily torrent of millions of digitally acquired productions to film, what we should maybe do is compare it with the amount of noteworthy ones.

My take is that the format is clearly placed as a differentiating factor (it actually is) between productions that care about aesthetics vs more standard stuff, that's a bit of a generalization of course but I definitely see it that angle.

6 minutes ago, Brandon Paterno said:

id assume you'd also want to be building a projector too? otherwise, why shoot it over 35 or 70 when it'll end up on the computer 

I agree with the projector experience but where it ends up doesn't negate the shooting format necessarily.

[Giray Izcan]

2 hours ago, Aristeidis Tyropolis said:

We mustn't really compare the daily torrent of millions of digitally acquired productions to film, what we should maybe do is compare it with the amount of noteworthy ones.

My take is that the format is clearly placed as a differentiating factor (it actually is) between productions that care about aesthetics vs more standard stuff, that's a bit of a generalization of course but I definitely see it that angle.

I agree with the projector experience but where it ends up doesn't negate the shooting format necessarily.

There is some resurgence but considering, once upon a time, everything was shot on film - aside from a few outliers or super low budget films shot on video. In comparison to the time when film was the main stream and not just some artistic or vanity project medium , the amount of serious or indie films shooting on film these days is peanuts.. it didn't/ wasnt even need/worth mentioning "it was shot on film."

Edited January 30 by Giray Izcan

[Aapo Lettinen]

I am pretty sure that most of the future film productions will be black&white.  Just because the color film manufacturing and the developing chemicals manufacturing is such a single-plant Kodak monopoly that it quickly becomes prohibitively expensive to arrange alternatives if something happens with them.

OR. more likely.  Our funny little "Orange President" causes some financial stuff, trade war or something which leads to either Kodak going belly up or the exporting/importing of their film stock to other countries becomes way too difficult and expensive to continue it reasonably. We are really walking on thin ice here especially because of the US-centered manufacturing. It worked fine for decades but under this regime, I dunno. I personally have mostly switched to Foma and only shooting Kodak if needing some test material as reference on colour film

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

1 hour ago, Giray Izcan said:

There is some resurgence but considering, once upon a time, everything was shot on film - aside from a few outliers or super low budget films shot on video. In comparison to the time when film was the main stream and not just some artistic or vanity project medium , the amount of serious or indie films shooting on film these days is peanuts.. it didn't/ wasnt even need/worth mentioning "it was shot on film."

Agreed, but this is kind of my point...I don't think it's even remotely possible (or needed) to have film as a mainstream option.

Let's see where all this leads.

Want to test NC500 for myself...

[Jon O'Brien]

50 minutes ago, Aristeidis Tyropolis said:

Let's see where all this leads.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is all heading in a good direction. It's not just a flash in the pan of nostalgia and what they used to call hipsterism. This is a serious, growing movement in film industries worldwide.

But ..... things will never go back to the way they were. And who wants them to? No point pining for something that can't be. Digital for the great bulk of motion capture has won long ago. But that doesn't matter. Digital is great for "the great bulk" of all that is shot. Most of that is lightweight muck.

As I observe things it's clear that, of the best productions in theatre release movies lately, that something like nearly half are shot on film. I don't sit down and count the numbers but a lot of the best films now are shot on film.

[Geffen Avraham]

Doesn't Kodak have new coating factories in China now?

As for why Vista, because regular 35mm cameras are already abundant (I got my Konvas for $350), while 65mm is hard to process, only Fotokem does it in the US.

For 35mm there are a dozen different houses across America and more worldwide. So Vista makes sense for a new LF film camera.

Geoff Williamson's high-speed VistaVision can have its precise movement stroke and depth adjusted by changing the relative angles of the eccentrics. In his version they were linked by a drive pulley, in mine they will be separate digitally linked servos.

The camera will be able to dynamically balance and optimize the movement in real time with multiple degrees of freedom. Manufacturing tolerances can to some extent be compensated for in this way.

Edited January 31 by Geffen Avraham

[Tyler Purcell]

1 hour ago, Geffen Avraham said:

Doesn't Kodak have new coating factories in China now?

No, they sold them and I believe Fuji is using the line. 

1 hour ago, Geffen Avraham said:

As for why Vista, because regular 35mm cameras are already abundant (I got my Konvas for $350), while 65mm is hard to process, only Fotokem does it in the US.

There are around 20 VistaVision cameras in the United States. Many are in private hands, but a few rental houses have them as well. The need for a quiet VistaVision camera is out there, if ya can build that, there is 100% a market. However with that said, the amount of trust you need to have for people to rent it, is insane. That's the problem so many camera guys have faced and why you don't see "other" cameras on the market. 

[Tyler Purcell]

I will chime in on the thread as fixing motion picture cameras has kinda become my living for the last 4 years. 

What I see is a complicated issue, with multiple moving pieces from cameras, to film stock price increases/AHU problems, to internal Kodak financial issues, to better emulation and record-out's, to clients getting scared about film costs again and geopolitical issues which are inflating everything. 

When it comes to cameras, I'm not horribly concerned. There are two types of cameras really; those for novices and those for professionals. Where they do MIX a lot these days, they never were supposed to. The novice cameras are in no danger there are thousands of them sitting peoples collections collecting dust. When those people need money, they will be resold and enter the market. I predict we will also see a flood of commercial cameras due to people needing the cash more than the camera they aren't using, which will drive prices down. So there will be MORE than enough cameras to go around which means a lot more parts eventually as well. Where this may only suffice for 10 - 20 years, I think the market will collapse in that time anyway. 

I would put cameras preventing people from shooting film at by far the lowest percentage of problems. To me, the biggest problems are more related to the cost, consistency and geopolitics. 

The cost to manufacture new film stock and make it consistent as Kodak, would be 10x greater than a new camera. So if Kodak dies and isn't bought out by someone who knows what they're doing, in my opinion that would actually be the end of motion picture film. Illford can coat black and white and Wittner can coat black and white AND color, neither one can actually make enough to support the motion picture industry. Obviously "consumer" film shooting would be not affected because both could step up to the plate and make dual perf black & white AND color stocks for antique cameras, if there was demand. It would just be expensive and again, not in the quantities necessary for actual production. 

With emulation getting better and better, with the cost of film increasing, with the geopolitics altering the value of currency making everything more expensive, we are witnessing a potential extinction event. The AHU stock issues, which are plaguing everyone right now, are indirectly causing clients to walk way from film and cinematographers wondering why their packages aren't being rented anymore. The bigger productions who are renting cameras, they can afford digital cleanup to remove scratches but negative insurance prices are increasing. It's the owner/operators who will suffer the most and will get out before their cameras values take a plunge because they need the money. Even after all of that, my business friends are saying that Kodak may be in trouble due to a substantial amount of debt maturing this year. I have been talking to them for a while and it's appearing more and more like when that debt matures, they may have to restructure again. This will absolutely scare people and the hope is they do it without bankruptcy filing, but we'll see. I just can't imagine them filing for bankruptcy and going through all of that again, it would bottom out the camera market and everyone would be in complete freakout mode like 2011. 

I'm seeing a lot of camera tests and personal projects, but no bigger paid projects. The few guys that have been my mainstay of scanning for the last few years, they are all dead quiet with no film shoots at all. The commercial guys who I was constantly working for, they're either out of business or aren't even willing to discuss film. So personally, I'm seeing a decline locally. Talking to friends around the country, I feel some places are hopping like New York, but a lot of that was production already green-lit in 2025. I'm concerned about the green lights in 2026, I'm concerned about NEW production starting up and shooting on film this year. We had a tremendously good year of studio films shot and released on motion picture film in 2025 and 2026 looks like there will be 5 film releases, which isn't too bad honestly. I'm just focused on stuff being shot this year and how things will look for the future. Hopefully we will get more chatter this year about upcoming films shot on motion picture film, maybe even pulling a PTA with VistaVision, that would be sick. 

So yea, cameras... eh, not the biggest problem. Everything else? Scary times. 

Edited January 31 by Tyler Purcell

[Aapo Lettinen]

I think there is more like 4 main types of cameras in addition to research/high speed stuff: 

1. Amateur/beginner cameras which were never meant for true professional use. Krasnogorsk, Bolex, everything made for 8mm, most non-rx stuff.

2. Durable MOS cameras made for picking silent footage in challenging conditions. Often simple and easy to repair, may still be professional quality. Often have roots as newsreel and battle cameras. Arri2, Konvas, Cameflex, etc

3. Professional documentary/newsreel/tv production cameras. Stuff like most Mitchells, the more advanced Auricons, Arri ST, Eclair NPR and ACL, Arri BL and Sr1/Sr2, the 35BL1, cp16r, Aaton LTR and XTR, etc. Made to shoot enormous amount of film through but not the abdolutely most complex cameras to repair or make spare parts for. Because of the TV usage origins, needed to be fast to repair affordably with minimum down time and costs.

4. True cinema-mostly cameras. All Moviecams, all Arris from BL3 and SR3 upwards, most Panavision cameras ever made, all Arricams, all 35mm Aatons.  More complex and difficult to repair design choices, limited spare parts, difficult to remake anything. Stuff which was meant to basically live in the repair shop on all the downtime it was not on gigs. This stuff dies fastest because it was meant to be constantly overhauled and the whole parts supply chain has vanished and no one affording remaking them. 

Most simpler cameras need consumables like belts and bearings. Often they have one standard belt or one standard and one special belt. Most other stuff is either not unique or does not break/need to be replaced regularly.

The complex camera is full of special stuff which can brake and is non-standard. Like the 35BL belts I hear horror stories about. 

I think the complex cameras will extinct in the next decade unless they are re-engineered partially to use more common parts on critical areas. 

The future is for simpler cameras, hands down. And for cheaper cameras because they can always find the right project by going smaller. And can switch to b/w if needed to continue longer. 

The future of film may be b/w and full of experimental and art films. Making the dull Hollywood-ripoff indie stuff will die out in the next 10 years I think. It is both the difficulty to get good colour film cheaply and the style of those films needing flawless image quality. 

The future will absolutely support experimental arts stuff in b/w. One can make the stock in garage if Foma goes bankrupt and it can be developed with home made developers in freaking literal toilet seat if one has to. If the factory making buckets burns down. 🤣