Film photography’s revival has been trending expensive for years, so a point-and-shoot that costs less than a nice dinner is a genuine surprise. The Kodak EC35, made by Reto Project under license from Kodak, landed on July 19, 2026 with a price of US$34.99 / £34.99 and one clear mission: make loading a roll of 35mm as painless as grabbing a disposable.
Reto has stripped this thing down to the essentials, and that’s the whole point. There’s no autofocus, no metering, no menus to fight with. You get a 25mm f/10 lens built from two elements of optical-grade acrylic, a fixed 1/100s shutter speed, and a built-in flash for when the light runs out. Winding and rewinding is manual, the way it used to be. That fixed aperture and shutter combo means the camera makes every exposure decision for you — you just point, slide, and press.
Speaking of sliding: the EC35 has a cover that protects the lens and doubles as a shutter lock. Close it and you can toss the camera into a bag or a jacket pocket without worrying about firing off a frame of your pocket lining. It weighs just 102g and measures 119 x 65 x 41.5mm, so it genuinely disappears once you’re out and about.
The one battery it needs — a single AA — powers only the flash. Everything else is mechanical, which is exactly why this camera can be so cheap and so hard to break.
It’s worth putting that price in context. Reto already sells the Kodak Snapic A1 at US$100 and released the EKTAR H35 half-frame camera at US$50 a few years back. The EC35 undercuts both, positioning itself as the true entry point for anyone curious about film but unwilling to gamble a hundred bucks on the hobby.
There are seven finishes to pick from, and they lean firmly into the pastel aesthetic that’s been all over social feeds lately:
- Midnight Black
- Vanilla White
- Butter Yellow
- Lavender
- Powder Blue
- Blush Pink
- Avocado
You can buy the body on its own, or spend US$10 more for a bundle that throws in a roll of Kodak Ultramax 400 to get you shooting straight out of the box. Orders are open now, including on Amazon in both the US and UK.
Is the EC35 going to satisfy a seasoned shooter? No — the fixed everything guarantees plenty of soft, grainy, unpredictable frames. But that unpredictability is precisely what draws people to plastic film cameras in the first place. For US$34.99, it’s a low-stakes ticket into analog photography, and a hard one to argue with.
