Ricoh has announced that a new film project with a potential release of several film cameras.

The announcement was made on 20th December right in time for Christmas.

Prior to announcement Pentax had a survey of 3000 camera users in Japan that shown that at least 20% of photographers still use film on a daily basis.

 The project consists of 2 parts:

1. Development of new film camera products
Ricoh Imaging/PENTAX will begin research into developing new PENTAX-brand film camera products. We will bring together both veteran and younger engineers to take advantage of the film camera expertise and technologies created and retained by Ricoh Imaging/PENTAX while also incorporating the latest technologies and concepts.

2. Working together with camera enthusiasts
With digital cameras now the mainstream of photography, it can be challenging to procure the parts needed for film cameras, so this project`s success will involve other manufacturers. More importantly, Ricoh Imaging/PENTAX is counting on the support of film camera aficionados, photographers, and creators, so we plan to promote the project through various online and offline events and social media while listening to comments and suggestions from film camera users about product development. We are also planning a way to communicate effectively about the project's development to users worldwide and to work closely with them.

However it doesn’t mean that Pentax will release a new film camera in the future as they are not sure how many challenges they will face in development and restarting of production of film cameras.

Noboru Akahane the President and CEO of RICOH IMAGING said the following:
“One of the new challenges we have taken on is the development of PENTAX-brand film cameras. We feel this will provide camera fans with a joy of photography totally different from what they experience in the digital format. I want to stress that this announcement does not mean we will release new film cameras. Instead, it's an ongoing project based on the assumption that, as long as photographers remain obsessed with the ambiance of light and environment, there will also be some who will want to use film cameras as their tool of choice in capturing unique images. But we also know how difficult it will be to restart the production of film cameras long after production was terminated. In fact, we're only at the starting line right now.”

While digital photography still stays the main choice of photographers, Film photography had a bit of resurgence in the recent years. We will follow the development of a Pentax film camera thoroughly and will give you the updates as soon as we have them. Stay tuned.

Source: Ricoh Pentax