Yashica, the iconic brand purchased by Hong Kong-based MF Jebsen Group in 2008, is preparing to launch its own 35mm film product. The company began dropping teasers related to the product late last month, including an image with broken English shared on Facebook and a trio of dark Instagram images that left followers confused.
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A post shared by YASHICA (@yashica.official) on Apr 3, 2019 at 6:38pm PDT
Yashica first teased the product on April 1 with an image of a film negative featuring `NEGATIVE C-41,` `24,` and `COLOUR ISO400.` The image also featured the confusing, grammatically incorrect statement, `We will have many Negative`s News start from Today.`
Some followers suspected the image was an April Fools` prank, but the company followed it up with an image featuring Yashica film rolls on April 4. As noted in the comments on the post, the image appears to be a render based on the obvious gap located at the top of the exposed film strip.
Note the visible gap between the film strip and the 35mm canister.
On April 5, Yashica shared a gallery of photos taken by Kerry Jeffrey using the new Yashica 400 Negative film. The company also shared a statement from Jeffrey, who said, `It`s a fun film to use. Not too grainy. There were small small color shifts in strong light, but I like it overall.`
Many photographers have responded to Yashica`s announcement with a lack of enthusiasm or outright criticism, with some of them pointing toward the company`s lackluster Y35 camera it launched after raising more than $1m on Kickstarter. It remains unclear when Yashica plans to release its film, but all signs point toward photographers being generally uninterested.
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