The “Alfie TYCH” is a new 35mm half frame film camera being developed by UK start-up Alfie Cameras. Alfie Cameras will bring high-quality cameras to market that offer a fun and creative e1xperience for photographers. Launching in September on Kickstarter, Alfie Cameras need your help to test their first camera.
The new Alfie TYCH camera is half frame which means you get more than 72 images per roll of film. A selection of built-in lenses allow for endless creativitiy and you can even take things further by trying multiple exposures, diptychs and panoramas. Automatic exposure mode lets you just point and shoot with a manual mode that give full control no matter what film you choose. The battery is also USB rechargeable for convenience and a near silent shutter makes street photography a breeze.
Dave Faulkner, owner of Alfie Cameras says, “I’ve taken the things I wanted to see in a half frame camera and squeezed them in to a compact design. The Aflie TYCH combines the benefits of modern electronics with the beauty of analogue photography.”
Beta testers will be asked to provide feedback on the camera and help refine the product details ahead of the official launch. If you are interested in becoming a Beta tester you are requested to register your details on the Alfie Cameras website.
Alfie Cameras are reinventing film photography to help you to connect with the world and enjoy a different way of creating images. Our cameras will allow you to spend more time and care on creating photos and less time interacting with a screen. The Alfie TYCH will let you have fun connecting and the world around you.
Video review by Mike Padua of the Nikon F100 35mm Film SLR using JCH StreetPan 400 and Ilford HP5+, developed in Kodak HC-110 and Scanned with Plustek 7600i using SilverFast 8.8
Ihagee's Kickstarter campaign for an all-manual, mechanical 35mm SLR using Nikon's F-mount has gone live.
The camera is completely mechanical in function, has no light meter, and thus requires no battery, and will be manufactured in the Ukraine. Notably, it comes with a 2-year "guarantee", the details of which are unknown other than service will be done at a German-based repair center.
For the first 24 hours of the campaign, a $499 pledge will get you the camera, followed by a Super Early Bird pledge at $529, and the rewards climb from there. One reward option comes with a Trioplan 50, a lens from German manufacturer Meyer-Optik, at $1299.
After the campaign is over, the camera will be "made to order" with unspecified wait times and the retail price of the camera will be an estimated $1500. Looks like they're gunning for the "luxury" market with those kinds of dollars.
Two high end 35mm point and shoot film cameras go head to head in this video review! The rundown: The legendary and highly sought-after Yashica T4 Super, an all-plastic wonder with a razor sharp lens vs the less-popular but comparably-priced Rollei AFM35, an all-metal rebrand of the original Fujifilm Klasse. Which one do I choose to keep? Check out the video below.
The short story: high quality 35mm point and shoot camera with a sharp lens and Rollei's HFT lens coating.
The long story: A small point and shoot released in the 90s that, at the time, competed with the likes of the Contax T2. It weights about 9 ounces, it has a more curved grip than the Contax T2. This camera is actually designed by Fujifilm, and is absolutely structurally identical to the original Fujifilm Klasse (not the Klasse S or Klasse W). It is, in essence, a rebranded Fuji camera. The one difference: it uses Rollei's HFT coating on the lens, instead of Fujifilm's EBC coating. Rollei's HFT coating is said to be the same as Zeiss' highly regarded T* coating.
The lens is a 38mm focal length slightly wider than "normal," but not that wide. Max aperture is f/2.6, slightly faster than most of the fastest point and shoots with models like the Olympus MJU II/Stylus Epic and the Contax T2 being f/2.8. Minimum focus distance is 15.7 inches. Shooting modes are Program Auto (the camera chooses both the aperture and shutter values--full auto, basically) or Aperture Priority, where you choose the Aperture and the camera chooses the shutter speed. Reads DX code from 35mm film cassettes and sets ISO accordingly, from anywhere between ISO 50 and 3200.
There is no way to manually override the film speed like you can on the newer Klasse S and Klasse W, so if you want to do push/pull processing or want to shoot at lower-rated ISOs with your stock of expired film, you're out of luck. It has a built-in flash with a guide number of 11. Meter is very accurate, as are most point and shoots from the 90s. Flash has a red-eye reduction mode. Highest shutter speed is 1/1000th of a second. It DOES NOT have an exposure compensation function; instead, it has a +/- half-stop or full-stop bracketing feature, where the camera takes three pictures total: 1 picture at the proper exposure, one picture below, and one picture above.
I was originally put off by this because I like using exposure compensation. I realized with color negative, there is so much latitude that it doesn't matter much to me in practical use. I've never used (and probably never will use) the bracketing feature. It uses a CR2 battery. For my point and shoot of choice (for now at least), I chose this over a Contax T2. I owned both for several months, and I wanted to go with the highly loved and appreciated T2, especially because it has exposure compensation. I had a LOT of trouble focusing the T2. About 1 in 5 pictures were mis-focused or back-focused. I thought something was wrong with my camera so I bought another--same problem. I talked to a couple friends that had T2s and I asked them if they had issues--they both replied with a resounding "YES," that they had issues with a lot of pictures being out of focus, and they both independently remarked that they felt like maybe was something wrong with their cameras, or that maybe people just didn't want to talk trash about the T2 because it's such a well-loved camera.
Don't let this turn you off getting a Contax T2 if that's what you want--by all means, try one, because you might love it. Take everything I say with a grain of salt because sometimes I don't know what I'm doing (that was for you Contax lovers; I said it for you so you don't have to!). By the way, I really loved the T2. Very much. I just didn't like the out-of-focus pictures I sometimes got. But I digress. I ended up selling this Rollei in favor of the T2, and frustration with the T2 made me sell that camera and I ended up getting the Rollei again. I decided I could live without exposure compensation. My one nitpick outside of the lack of exposure compensation: the lens assembly moves into place and locks focus on the half-press after a split-second delay, as opposed to other point and shoots like the MJU II/Stylus Epic where the lens does its focus move after a full press (inevitably causing shutter lag). However, after locking focus on the half-press, there is absolutely NO delay from between when you do the full-press to when the shutter opens. You could call it a quirk or an advantage (or both), but after getting used to it, it is nice to be able to have essentially no shutter lag as long as your focus is already locked.
Overall and fun camera to use. It's very sturdy and definitely nice looking. The silver color might be too bright for some people, but you can get the original Fujifilm Klasse in silver OR black. This is not a camera you hear a whole lot about, but it fits right in there in the lexicon of high end film point and shoots. The newer Klasse models have more features and custom functions, but naturally command a much higher price. Thanks for reading! Please visit the shop to help support this site.
