The bottom line
Film photography is growing, not shrinking. Kodak expanded production. ILFORD is at capacity. Used film cameras are selling for five times what they cost five years ago. And the buyers are not predominantly nostalgic — they're 22-year-olds who grew up with smartphones and are deliberately choosing something slower. The reason: film's constraints force a different relationship with attention, memory, and the act of seeing. That's not a deficiency to work around. It's the whole point.
In 2007, when the iPhone launched, it was widely assumed that film photography was over. Why would anyone use a medium with 36 frames, a week's wait for results, and no way to delete, when you could have unlimited instant photographs in your pocket forever?
That was a reasonable assumption. It was wrong.
Film photography has been growing continuously since roughly 2012, with the growth accelerating in the 2020s. The people driving it are overwhelmingly under 35. They did not grow up with film. They chose it.
The Numbers Are Real
Kodak Alaris reported revenue growth every year from 2015 through 2024. Fujifilm's film division — which was restructuring for eventual shutdown in 2010 — reversed course and expanded production twice in the last five years. ILFORD, the British black-and-white film manufacturer, is selling as much film as it can make. Used film cameras have appreciated dramatically: a Canon AE-1 that sold for $20 at a garage sale in 2015 now sells for $150 on eBay.
This is not a niche boutique trend. It's a measurable market revival in a medium that was supposed to be dead.
📊 The Research
According to industry reporting, Kodak's consumer film division has been growing at double-digit rates since 2019. ILFORD reported a 25% year-over-year production increase in 2022 to meet demand. The demographic driving purchases skews 18–35 — a generation that had no childhood exposure to film photography but is discovering it deliberately.
The camera that was supposed to be obsolete. The person holding it was born after the iPhone.
It's Not Nostalgia
The most interesting thing about the film revival is who is driving it. Not 50-year-olds reliving their youth. Twenty-two-year-olds who have never shot film, don't have childhood memories of darkrooms, and have grown up entirely with digital photography and smartphone cameras.
They're not choosing film because it reminds them of something. They're choosing it because it offers something their phones don't.
What that something is gets stated differently by different people: slowness, intentionality, the physicality of the medium, the community of people who develop and scan and share. But underneath all of it is a common theme: film forces a different relationship with attention.
"The generation that grew up with unlimited instant digital photography is the one choosing film. That's not nostalgia. That's a deliberate correction."
The Constraint Is the Point
Digital photography removed all the constraints that made photography a practice of deliberate attention:
No limit on frames → you don't decide; you capture everything and sort later.
Instant review → you evaluate immediately, which means you're never fully in the moment.
Delete anything → nothing is permanent, which means nothing feels important.
Perfect exposure auto-corrected → the photograph requires nothing from you technically.
Film restores all of those constraints. 24 or 36 frames — you decide. No review until development — you're in the moment, not evaluating it. Can't delete — every frame matters. Manual exposure on an SLR — you learn to see the light.
These constraints are not deficiencies to work around. They're the features that make shooting film a different kind of experience.
Kai, graphic arts student — Washington
"I shoot digital all week for school. On weekends I take my Minolta X-700 out. The difference in how I see things is dramatic. With the film camera I walk slower. I stop and actually look at what I'm going to shoot. With my phone I just spray frames everywhere and don't remember any of them."
The Value of Waiting
There's an interesting cognitive phenomenon that happens with film photography: you forget what you shot. Two weeks pass between loading a roll and getting the scans back. The memories fade. Then the photos arrive and they feel like time travel — a record of a moment you've half-forgotten, captured in a medium that has grain and color and character.
Digital photography systematically removes this experience. You review your photos immediately. You edit them the same day. By the time you post them, they're already slightly dated. The meaning of a photograph is partly in the time that elapses between capture and viewing — and digital has compressed that to zero.
A roll of film represents about $25 in value when you factor in film and development. That changes every frame.
The Feel of the Thing
There's something harder to articulate that matters: film cameras feel different to hold. The weight of metal and glass. The satisfying mechanical click of a well-maintained shutter. The resistance of a film-advance lever. The sound of a mirror returning after exposure.
Smartphone photography is frictionless. You raise the phone, tap the screen, done. The photograph is taken but the act of taking it barely registered physically. Film cameras demand physical participation. The shutter is your decision, your timing, your press.
This sounds aesthetic and it is. It also seems to matter for how people feel about the photographs they make. The physical engagement creates a sense of authorship that tap-and-done doesn't.
How to Start (Without Overthinking It)
The most common mistake: buying an expensive camera before knowing if the practice works for you.
Start with a disposable. Kodak FunSaver or Fujifilm QuickSnap, about $12. Shoot all 27 frames. Get it developed. See how you feel about the results and the experience. That's the entire test.
If you're converted: read our beginner film camera guide for the next step.
Kodak FunSaver Disposable Camera
The $12 entry point. 27 exposures, ISO 800, built-in flash. Shoot the whole roll. Get it developed. Then decide if you want to go further.
→ Shop on Amazon
Yuki, barista — Oregon
"I have 40,000 photos on my phone from the last four years. I can tell you maybe twenty of them. I've shot six rolls of film in the past year. I can tell you almost every single frame — where I was, what the light was, what I was trying to capture. The limitation makes it matter."
