Film Never Die’s Nana camera had a caught the zeitgeist of new film cameras in 2023. The company is a small Australian based film & camera supplier’s latest camera pre-launched quiet in late 2023 but when a follow up Kickstarter ran earlier this year, it came in for some grief on social media before anyone outside the company had held one. And then there’s the question of the dubious funding of that Kickstarter. So what’s the story Morning Glory.

I must be clear for conflict of interest sake, I backed this in 2023 in the pre-order phase. Take that into account although I’m trying to balanced here.

But even easy-going me is some what conflicted about this. Especially thanks to Film Never Die’s (we’ll use FND from now for brevity) recent social medial posts.

Film Never Die Never heard of them mate ?

And if you live in the northern hemisphere there’s a good chance you won’t have.. Think Melbourne’s Analogue Wonderland or Flic Film

According to FND’s about page, they began in 2011 when Gary Wong tried to buy a polaroid for his now wife. Seeing a gap in the market he ended up buying 60 packs of film from impossible and film never died started life as an eBay reseller.

However a bricks and mortar store would follow. The company also provide lab services, as well as selling film stuff in vending machines. They also are well known in Australia for their own brand film IRO 200. And in 2020 like many other boutique companies they launched the Niji camera

Then in 2023 they started trailing the Nana which offered motor drive, better lens and talked about a dual zone focus system (which hasn’t really transpired (more on that later)

That Niji Looks familiar ?

Yeah. It spec and looks mark it out as yet another Dubblefilm Show Clone. It joins illustrious film making company. Versions of that are sold by Kodak (M35/M38, Ultra F7), Ilford (Sprite), Escura (snaps and snaps half), agfaphoto (analogue & half) Harman (reloadable) to name but a few.

And here’s the thing very few companies have the resources to develop from scratch.

And this is where FND have come into grief with the Nana

So tell me about this Nana ?

The Nana turned up on FND’s site back in the last quarter of 2023. It was billed with term like ‘next gen’ and more irritatingly “Contax T2” styling. FFS !!! why do loads of companies go for or claim that look. The next gen was also a bit laughable as we already had more advanced compacts like the Lomography LC-A series and Pentax and Rollei/MiNT in development.

More reassuring they did something novel wrapping it up in a good looking metal body. It would have motor drive. And more importantly the optics would purportedly  have a massive upgrade although that ain’t worked out. It was sold for pre-order for ~$130USD/£110GBP with a big saving over the final RRP which keeps mushrooming currently listed as £182GBP (around AUD$360 or ~$250US). Those numbers matter as we’ll see

But I was intrigued metal bodied and 2 zone focus for £110. Sign me up

Sadly the focal zone stuff never materialised

So what happened to the optics ?

As this 2023 PetaPixel post indicates optics were intended to have 2 upgrades.

There is some good news. In July FND claimed the 31mm f/11 is an upgraded never seen before single element aspherical lens which purports to be a jump over cameras like the Niji. Their test shots on that post however aren’t that convincing of a huge difference.

More importantly was the planned adjustable focus. But read the next bit slowly. It would according to FND at interview achieve this by moving the film plane.

Yeah about that… The vast bulk of cameras where you can adjust focus do so by holding the film/sensor plane in one place and move the lens forward or back or add in an extra element. Way easier than moving the back of the camera.

But by the Kickstarter (KS) they couldn’t deliver so the camera will arrive fixed focus but with a 30mm filter thread and a screw in accessory close up lens

Okay shame about the focus but the Nana sounds a bit like a motorised Lomo Apparat. Why the fuss ?

Good comparison ! The discounted price wasn’t much more than the posher Lomo Apparat (£99GBP). We’ll come back to that later. But on paper didn’t sound such a bad deal.

The fuss didn’t happen straight away. The 2023 prelaunched passed smoothly enough with a few articles appearing in the likes of PetaPixel, Kosmo Foto. It didn’t grab attention as let be frank we were all buzzing about the return of Pentax and Rollei. I’d only become aware thank to Theo from Photo Thinking blog.

Give the film world’s focus on the Pentax and Rollei as well as the fading buzz from the Kodak H35N, it perhaps struggled to get the level of backing that FND wanted. So they launched a KS in May

And that’s when things went skew whiff from a PR perspective.

Damned on social ?

Unlike the positive press vibes first time round, it’s fair to say the KS has been a bit of PR social media disaster.

The camera started to geta lot of flack on social sites that it didn’t back in 2023. The highest profile concerns were raised by Bellamy Hunt of Japan Camera Hunter (JCH) fame. But he wasn’t alone. Here’s Bellamy’s stream on the 24th of May. It’s pretty clear that the Nana is “tea needs to be spilled” at the start but he really lets rip at 10:50 minute mark.

It’s clear he’s not impressed and accuses it of being a reskinned camera that you can buy on Alibaba for $30 a piece in bulk. He also accuse the company of blocking criticism. There clearly is some grief between him and FND as he goes on. And whilst I can’t safely comment on all the prior chat, there is a $30 camera on alibaba that does indeed as we’ll see have some bearing – the m-CAM MF301

And the specs line up pretty well and what FND finally said about this does mean that part or the core of the MF301 have been used in the Nana (but we need to get there).

And it wasn’t helped as Gary said during the KS that the camera was designed from scratch. Which it isn’t

Bellamy wasn’t alone in his vocal criticism, and during the KS you started to see lots of negative comments about. Bellamy and others would also pick up the curious financial issues but we’re getting ahead of ourselves

Because if you think you’ve seen this camera somewhere before you’d be right.

I’ve even reviewed it 3 years ago under better known British name ….

The Harman link

Turns out the Harman EZ35 is both a look and spec match for the MF301. That’s a camera I reviewed back in 2021

And I’m pretty sure the Kodak S-88 launched by Sino-Promise is just a reskinned version or if not very similar and likely sharing components

In fairness, no one bar folk who sell it have ever reviewed but whilst the front fascia is a bit different the spec is the same.

But no one gave Harman a hard time ?

Let’s be honest EZ35 IMHO wasn’t that memorable nor discussed a lot. DCW did actually quite like like it giving it a 4* review. I felt decidedly near three star. It’s an alright lo-fi camera but there were better optically cheaper lo-fi cameras.

Granted no one really realised the MF301 link but in my defence..

“My gut feeling is this is an off the shelf design but I haven’t found the OEM yet.“

Austerityphoto Harman EZ35 review May 2021

Well I have now !

Now using a cloned camera is pretty common place as I’ve illustrated with the Dubblefilm clones. But one thing is stricking between the the EZ35 and the Nana

Cost.

The EZ35 was launched just under £50 with a roll of Ilford HP5+ chucked in. Now if Ilford were buying for around £30, by the time you add the cost of the roll of film, advertising and other overheads and costs the mark up would be pretty small.

But the Nana is going to cost almost 4 times as much ?

Yup. And you can now get a EZ35 for under £30….

What about the Funding issue.

Oh here’s where things get murky…

The campaign stalled midway through according to data on Backerkit. The campaign ran for just 10 days but by the start of 26^th (day 9) it was sitting at AUD $32,057 almost $18,000 short of the $50K target. But by close of the campaign on the 27^th it had hit $53, 852 almost 4 thousand over target.

And the figures don’t add up.

We can’t see exactly what individuals pledged as you can top up your item pledge on KS with a donation. But we do know what backers selected

• 125 backer backed the first adopter tier for camera at AUD $225
• 5 backed the standard KS tier for camera at $275
  (you might think this odd as there still first adopter rewards left but it often happens)
• 1 went for the $50 T-Shirt
• 1 gave the $10 support pledge

Add that up and you get a grand total of $29,560.

That’s over AUD $20K short of the $50K target let alone the final $53,852 pledged.

So where did the extra $24+K come from ?

On KS backers have the option to be philanthropic and donate more. It’s not common but you will find folk often round up or use the support pledeg to add more (common in art project KS funding) . And as KS has a tight system this is the only way the extra $24K gets in the pot. We can’t see individual pledges for obvious reasons but these numbers got tongues wagging

But we can break down payments by day and per backer. Just 2 new backers joined on the last day according to Backerkit. They added $505 between them. That’s around the price of 2 cameras with alittle donation. And that sort of funding happened on every other day

Except the 26th

On that day 15 new backers added $22,266. In context that added about the same amount as the first 2 days combined. That’s when you expect to see a lot of backing, but on those first 2 days the funding was coming from 76 backers.

Here it was just 15 for an average of $1,418.40 each

And what we now know is that FND are themselves some of the backers.

I’ll let that sink in. But let’s hear from FND.

So What have Film Never dies been saying about this ?

In their blog post on the 4th of June a few days after the KS ended the FND blog confirmed much of what we’ve discussed

So starting with the camera

FND do confirm the camera gubbins are not new . They were keen to point out the work they did on the outer shell. But as to the gubbins.

“We did leverage existing parts and manufacturing capabilities for most components, as mentioned in our story and main campaign, hence there may be some similarities with the M301 camera“

Film Never Dies Blog 4^th June 2024

Okay so that’s vaguely clear.

And the Nana KS Funding issue ?

The June Blog post ‘fesses that up too.

“However we would like to acknowledge that some of us, as individual team members did contribute to this. We are in communication with Kickstarter to see if anything needs to be rectified, please see below a note from Gary.”

FND blog 4th June 2024

And Gary’s note is pretty much a direct apology from himself re the same. At least FND did offer refunds to anyone who wanted to pull out.

But lets be frank this is well shady stuff as we look like it’s not just the odd camera. Some one or people have tipped in over $24,000.

But is the Nana camera worth it ?

I’m going to say depends….

We still have some unknowns. The lens is apparently upgraded and is as yet untested (and FND’s sample shots really didn’t show it off that well)

But we basically have a Harman EZ30 with a filter ring and a metal body otherwise.

But it depends on price

So at £110 ?

For a small run indie metal bodied camera, the pre-launch and early bird KS cost of around £110 of his majesty’s pound doesn’t sound awful. It near the price of the LomoApparat as mentioned (£99 for the fancy ones) and has similar core features. And I think image wise it would come close to that. But there are better cheaper options.

But it’s a niche camera unless the new lens ups things the much cheaper Kodak M35 will take better images And that’s a camera I could walk into Argos and buy for £25 and much less online. Plus all its Dubblefilm clones siblings with better styling. And you’ve got Reto UWS for not much more.

And then of course Reto’s other legends the Kodak Ektar H35N and the older H35 which you can get for bit more than the M35. Which really shows dhow you make a camera from scratch abut pinching parts with it’s enhanced hybrid VUWS lens which frankly is the best camera for under a hundred quid by some margins despite being half frame.

And then of course the fact this likely the same as the EZ35 a camera you can get for less than £30 leaving you plenty of money to buy a 30mm step up ring and some blu-tac (other adhesive putties are available). now there is the argument you’re paying for the body and you are buying from a lot smaller outfit

So maybe especially if the lens is better and you like Lo-fi shooters. And the styling looks good. But you may feel you have a nicer looking but slightly expensive EZ35 if that lens isn’t better.

At full Price (~£180) ?

The Nana at Full price will cost about $50-60USD less than a lomography LC-A+. That comes with a multi element glass lens, auto exposure, 4 zone focus and a heritage.

and frankly that’s all you need to know over the pros and cons of the £110 price

So it’s a no at that price
At full price, it will be grossly over priced. Especially as you can pick up the EZ35 for a 6th of the price.