Best 35mm Film Cameras for Beginners

Dipping your toes in the film photography hobby tends to be intimidating. There is just more than meets the eye when it comes to shooting with film. It’s more deliberate and requires a bit more thought because every frame of film matters. However, that doesn’t mean you have to be an expert photographer to get into film photography.

Film photography is truly fascinating and extremely unique, and I want to share this to anyone who is interested. It gets tricky and daunting sometimes, but there are film cameras that can help your way around film photography.

🤔 What does a 35mm film camera mean?

If you’re a beginner reading this, you might have noticed that we have specified “35mm”. 35mm is one of the film formats in analog photography and the most common of them all. As you go about your film photography journey, you will come across terms like “medium format” or “120 film” – which is another film format that will not be tackled in this article.

Ilford Black and White Disposable Camera

Best for those who just ~want to try~

If you want to try film photography and still unsure of investing money into it, you could start off with a disposable camera.

Disposable film cameras are great for beginners because you wouldn’t need to think of which film to buy or how to load your camera with film. They are already preloaded with film (that can take 27-36 photos) so as soon as you get the camera, you can start taking photos. Once you’re done with it, all you need to do is to bring it to your nearest photo lab to have the films processed.

I personally don’t like disposable cameras because of the fact that they are only good for one use. Think of this as the plastic cutlery, a paper towel, or a cheap ballpoint pen – once you’ve used it, you can’t use it again. With disposables, take those 27 shots and you are done with this camera (you take the entire thing to the photo lab and they dismantle it and throw it away).

The Ilford B&W camera is one of our recommended disposable cameras because of the film that’s already loaded in it. We also believe that beginners might find the output of black and white films more refreshing as colored photos are very common.

Read: Camera Review: Ilford HP5 Plus Disposable Camera

Lomography Simple Use (Reloadable)

Best for those who just want to learn and try but want a more “sustainable” option

As I’ve mentioned, I dislike disposable cameras because of the waste. They’re good for those who have never tried film before but it is not good for the long term. Reloadable film cameras typically look like a disposable camera but can be used multiple times with different film types.

Lomography’s Simple Use camera actually looks like a disposable camera especially with its built and the paper wrapping around the camera. However, this might be one of the best cameras we would recommend because that paper wrapping also contains information on how to use a film camera.

Dubblefilm Show

Best reloadable camera

In late 2020, Dubblefilm entered the film camera market with their answer to the disposable camera problem.

It functions the same as Lomography’s single use but it look more like a vintage film camera and less disposable. They launched this film camera because they want to provide an alternative to those disposable cameras and also a cheaper option to 2nd hand film cameras.

Ilford Sprite II

Best reloadable camera with a vintage look

Ilford has their fair share of disposable cameras but they also have a reloadable camera that they just launched. We were fortunate enough to get our hands on one. This comes in 2 colors: the silver and the black (pictured). It’s similar to the Lomography and Dubblefilm cameras but this one has that vintage camera ~aesthetic~.

Fisheye One/Two (35mm)

Best quirky camera

So maybe you want a film camera that screams that you own a film camera and it’s different. We got you. There are a handful of cameras that might be right up your alley.

Lomography has a good selection of toy cameras with fun lenses but I decided to pick the Fisheye line of cameras. The Fisheye One and Fisheye No. 2 are film cameras with a built-in fisheye lens (170º perspective). So, it’s basically a cheap film version of a GoPro. The camera is easy to use (uses a standard 35mm film) and would definitely be fun for new film photographers.

Read: Fisheye No. 2 Review

These cameras work best for beginners because it allows them to experiment without having to spend too much for it. You don’t need an expensive SLR to take beautiful film photographs. With these cameras, you will be able to teach yourself how to do the basics such as loading the film and photo composition.