Pentax 17 film camera, first in 2 decades, taps into ‘nostalgic’ photo social media trend
- The Pentax 17 has seen ‘huge’ success in Japan, the US and Europe as interest in taking photographs the ‘original’ way grows among the young
Keita Suzuki leads a group of young analogue photography fans around Kamakura, a coastal city near Tokyo, stopping to snap pastel-coloured hydrangeas with bulky vintage film cameras.
The participants later share their retro-looking photos online, in a trend a top Japanese camera brand is tapping into with its first new film model in more than two decades.
Instead of pressing a smartphone button, more young people “want to experience the original act of taking a photograph: winding the film up, looking through the viewfinder and releasing the shutter”, Suzuki says.
One of the beautiful aspects of film photography is that, with limited physical film, one must think carefully about which memories to “lock in” to each photograph, he adds.
Suzuki, who advertises his tours on social media, has seen growing interest from teens and people in their twenties eager to load 35mm film into a camera and take it to be developed for the first time.
Yuriko Yamada was one of around 20 participants on a recent photography tour.
