Consider this: In June 2024, Ricoh announced the Pentax 17. Nostalgia works in strange ways. Actually, no one knows what it is or how it works. This was the first new film camera from a major manufacturer in nearly two decades. The Japanese launch was planned for late that month. Within two days, pre-orders exceeded the company’s expectations such that it suspended new orders entirely.
Because it was the only option, when asked about this resurgence, Mumbai-based photo-journalist Vikas Khot recalls shooting on film. But with the kind of cameras and technology now available, he makes the case that whatever people love about analogue images can be reproduced digitally at a fraction of the cost. What explains the queue for the Pentax then? A small band of enthusiasts who simply priced out everyone else. Such people exist in all niches he claims. Audiophiles whom he caters to, want vinyl back as an object. The analogue artefact arrives at the end of a digital process. Denim worked this out for itself years ago, more plainly than photography or music ever has. Levi’s runs a research lab in California called Eureka, where a laser machine does something almost absurdly simple: it photographs a genuinely worn, faded pair of jeans and burns that exact pattern onto a brand-new pair in about ninety seconds. Once upon a time, it used to take a factory worker roughly half an hour per pair. Levi’s now leans on this same laser technology to justify its claim of cutting freshwater use across its supply chain.
He says the demand for analogue is real, and it comes from the “Instagram-driven” Gen Z. “Is the record now technically digital or analogue?” he asks. But few ask whether the chain producing that object still resembles the one that it used to be: most music today is mastered digitally, then stamped onto vinyl afterward.
