There’s a charm that’s lasted with analog photography that’s outgrown trendy and matured beyond retro appeal. What’s there is lasting and real. Film won’t ever become the dominant form of photography again, but I think you and I will be able to walk into a specialty camera shop and leave with a roll of 35mm.

Here are the film cameras that’ve excited me the most this year.

the analog experience

Pentax chose to make the Pentax 17 a half-frame camera, meaning that it takes two 17mm x 24mm pictures within a single 35mm (36mm x 24mm) frame. You use normal 35mm film rolls in the Pentax, which divides each 35mm shot vertically so that you get two shots per 35mm frame.

Take the number of shots on a roll of 35mm film and double it to determine how many pictures you’ll get out of it on the Pentax 17. What’s strange unique is that they’re vertical shots. Launched mid-last year, it was the first new 35mm film camera to hit the American market in years.

The Lomography Lomomatic 110 is perhaps the most charming camera I’ve laid my hands on all year. Never heard of 110 film? It was devised as a film specifically for ultra-portable cameras, and it was somewhat common back in the day for small travel cameras like the Lomomatic 110.

Nowadays, only Lomography sells it here. Made mostly of metal in the Bellagio Edition pictured above, you yank it shut for storage to cover the lens with a shutter that protects it during travel. It uses a battery for the built-in flash, but it’s oh-so satisfying to use and click those buttons.

The Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo is a unique beast. It melds the digital and analog sides of photography into something that looks like the lovechild of an old-fashioned Polaroid and a prop from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Take pictures, check them out on the screen all digital-camera-style, and then if you like it, you print it right then and there. It’s a fun camera to whip out at parties, pools, and backyard barbecues.