Film Photography News — March 2025 Summary

      ☞ This is the 72nd monthly Analog.Cafe Newsletter, featuring the latest updates in film photography. Sign up to receive it via email on the last Tuesday of each month (it's free). What’s new? Lomography has introduced new DigitaLIZA rigs that simplify the film scanning process 🤝 film Q is a new film inversion application from Analog.Cafe. Cameradactyl has created an innovative “film” format, and ORWO has teased a new ISO 200 color film (which we already have visuals of!) 💛 GOLD members can access the new film negative inversion app, film Q, and view the initial test frames from the ongoing “Greenscaling Aerochrome” experiment. 🎁 Enjoy 14 days of free access to GOLD! In this newsletter: What’s new? film Q — a fresh film inversion tool from Analog.Cafe! Lomography’s latest DigitaLIZA scanning rigs. New ISO 200 color-negative film from ORWO. Cameradactyl's new “film” format. The latest from Analog.Cafe. Support this blog and get premium features with GOLD memberships! film Q allows for the inversion of batches of CineStill 800T scans (EI 3200). film Q — a new film inversion tool from Analog.Cafe! film Q is a web application that inverts film scans (TIFFs, JPEGs, camera RAW files, and more) quickly in batches, compatible with internet-connected devices, and it doesn’t use system resources to process large images. The core technology behind film Q is histogram stretching, a straightforward, tried-and-true method for inverting film negatives. Histogram stretching maintains the original color balance and saturation; it eliminates the orange mask and base fog by stretching the image data to the available color space. Since film Q operates on Analog.Cafe servers (located in Toronto, Canada), you can control it from any device with a web browser, such as a Mac, an Android phone, an iPad, or even a vintage Windows 95 computer. film Q is designed for batch processing. As the name suggests, you can queue up dozens or even hundreds of film scans and let the app handle the work. Finally, film Q can serve as a plug-in solution for your secure film negative archive. Learn more about this app or try it now (FREE). Please be aware that film Q is currently in Beta. I would love to hear your experiences and feature requests to help improve this app! Image provided by Lomography USA. Lomography’s new DigitaLIZA scanning rigs. Talking about scans, the new DigitaLIZA+ and DigitaLIZA Max modular scanning rigs utilize digital cameras and phones as scanners, feature a CRI 97 light source, and accept 35mm, 120, 110, and 127 formats. The Max comes with a phone stand ($100), while both the Max and DigitaLIZA+ ($80) include a light source, a film holder, and various masks. The medium format holder has the widest gate of 6x7. My favorite aspects of this product are the magnetic film holders and the CRI 97 light source, which is sure to produce more accurate and vibrant colors than previous models. Caption machine-translated from German: “Test photo with the new Wolfen NC200; the material may soon be available as an 8mm film…” Source: Filmvorführer.de. New ISO 200 color-negative film from ORWO. Last week, Kosmo Foto reminded us about ORWO’s upcoming color film. In his post, Stephen recalled last year’s mention of a secretive project in a video by Nico’s Photography Show. Nico promised to share his results soon, but unfortunately, he did not. In fact, no mentions of this film on English-speaking blogs have included samples — only speculation about its potential appearance. Some suggest it may not yield colors any more vibrant than the NC 500 series, while Nico claimed it would. It appears that a few individuals already have test rolls and have shared their findings on obscure forum threads. My favorite sample was shared by Jürgen Lossau on Filmvorführer.de. The film seems to exhibit natural-looking colors with better tonal variations in foliage — a notable advancement over the NC 500 (which rendered greens in a single hue). User @stereograph uploaded high-resolution scans of the new ORWO NC 200 film (shot in 120) on Lomography’s Lomo Home website. The uploads by @stereograph showcase significant grain, comparable to that of NC 500. His images also indicate the film’s limited dynamic range, yet they appear to confirm the greatly improved color palette of this new emulsion. Note the vivid blue sky in the first image; achieving this look would have required significantly increased saturation in post-processing with ORWO's earlier stocks. Cameradactyl creates a new “film” format. Earlier this month, Ethan Moses

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