Film and kids

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Rikkitic

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#323729 8-Jan-2026 11:13

I saw something somewhere about young people taking a renewed interest in film cameras. Then the kid who mows my lawn mentioned that he had made a box camera and he showed me some of his pictures. Neat but it leaves me wondering where this fad has come from. Why the sudden interest amongst the young in old tech? I am all for it, just curious where it is coming from.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

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#3450725 8-Jan-2026 11:33

Funnily enough, I was talking to a friend yesterday and he was telling me that his 9-year-old was into something from the 80s. I suspect part of the appeal of older technology is that you can get a feeling for how it works, unlike the modern stuff which is typically just black-box CPUs and other chips.

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#3450726 8-Jan-2026 11:47

Out of interest I just watched a video on this. The young presenter made a pinhole camera then used a light meter app on her phone to plan her shot. 🤔 😀

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#3450728 8-Jan-2026 11:56

Film has had a bit of a resurgence in the last decade. At least among adults it's been a wide range of reasons, the desire for that historic (80's90's National Geographic etc) look, a different way of thinking about images, a less clincal image style, the fact you only get a small number of shots per film so have to think more about it, and also something physical.

For the younger generation could be a combination of that and the whole fad for retro stuff (certainly lots of adults into classic cars, computers, consoles etc).

xpd

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#3450730 8-Jan-2026 11:59

Not film, but my youngest has decided she wants a budget video camera - I told her that her phone will do a massively better job, but apparently its the thing now to record as if you're in the 80/90's....

XPD / Gavin

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#3450732 8-Jan-2026 12:09

The renewed popularity of music on vinyl astonishes me. The records I remember from my youth were invariably scratched. The range of colours available is very cool though.

“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

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#3450733 8-Jan-2026 12:10

xpd:

Not film, but my youngest has decided she wants a budget video camera - I told her that her phone will do a massively better job, but apparently its the thing now to record as if you're in the 80/90's....

I think there's a filter for that. 😂

“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

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#3450734 8-Jan-2026 12:17

Dynamic:

The range of colours available is very cool though.

Back in the 50s, RCA was using different colours to represent different genres. They seemed to fall out of favour and everything became black, but colour's had a resurgence.

Gordy7

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#3450735 8-Jan-2026 12:33

You can't beat basic tech. I remember as a kid lying in bed and seeing a fantastic image of the sunny day outside on the wall of my bed room - projected through a tiny hole in my curtain - a basic pin hole camera.

Gordy

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#3450736 8-Jan-2026 12:47

When I was a kid in the 1950-60’s I had my grandfather’s old Kodak Box Brownie from around the 1930’s. Used it for years and still have some photos taken with it. It looked pretty much like this.

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Rikkitic

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#3450737 8-Jan-2026 12:49

Gordy7:

You can't beat basic tech. I remember as a kid lying in bed and seeing a fantastic image of the sunny day outside on the wall of my bed room - projected through a tiny hole in my curtain - a basic pin hole camera.

Camera obscura!

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#3450745 8-Jan-2026 13:44

I have an old (basic) Canon IXUS Point n Shoot in the cupboard that is now apparently going for $200 on trademe. Its now "cool".

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#3450751 8-Jan-2026 14:10

Nate001:

I have an old (basic) Canon IXUS Point n Shoot in the cupboard that is now apparently going for $200 on trademe. Its now "cool".

Yip its a thing, and people are climbing on , whereas 5 years ago you'd have to seek out a specialist photo store to develop film,

but big boxes like Harvey Norman have expanded their existing digital print services to now also do regular C41 film...

https://www.harveynormanphotos.co.nz/pages/film-developing

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#3450760 8-Jan-2026 14:55

^ Wow.

elpenguino

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#3450772 8-Jan-2026 16:04

Rikkitic:

I saw something somewhere about young people taking a renewed interest in film cameras. Then the kid who mows my lawn mentioned that he had made a box camera and he showed me some of his pictures. Neat but it leaves me wondering where this fad has come from. Why the sudden interest amongst the young in old tech? I am all for it, just curious where it is coming from.

Weird eh? My son has been using my old SLR for the last couple of years despite also having access to a DSLR that won't cost $1.50 everytime he presses the button.

He's also using the last cassette player in the house because his muso pal gave him a cassette of original music.

What next ? Will he come home with a horse?

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

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#3450774 8-Jan-2026 16:11

Is the typewriters fad still around? I remember it was a thing for 'hipsters' not too long ago.

And, a tangent slightly, but also recently read about young people wanting to get non-smartphones.

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