Kendall Jenner Credited for Spike in Film Camera Sales

Kendall Jenner is being credited for a surge of sales in film cameras after she beamed about her Contax T2 during a TV chat show appearance.

I think it’s fair to say Jenner is one of few famous faces trying their hand at photography who actually possess a degree of skill. She’s at a great advantage, of course, but of the images we’ve seen from her so far, many are highly commendable and hold their own against the work of creatives twice her age. At this point, she’s shot many editorial spreads for leading magazines, so it’s perhaps not surprising that she’s now discovered the wonderful world of film photography.

Last year, she appeared on “The Tonight Show,” taking with her a newly-purchased Contax T2 film camera — a camera that originally released in 1990, before Jenner was even born. She took a portrait with host Jimmy Fallon, promising to send it over once developed. “Yeah, let me know, because we can’t Instagram that. We have to develop it first,” Fallon joked at the time.

Bellamy Hunt, a camera dealer who also goes by the name of the Japan Camera Hunter, raises the point that for Jenner, whose every move is splashed across the media, film photography may be something that feels like hers: “[Her film photos] are not going to be hacked, no one’s going to get a hold of them. She doesn’t have to post them online. It’s something that cannot be taken from her.”

Jenner shares the same sentiment, remarking that film feels more authentic. And now, there’s been a huge spike in the Contax T-Series point and shoot film cameras with prices allegedly tripling, or even quadrupling. Hunt says the compacts he used to sell for $200 can now reach anywhere between $1,000-1,500. “I started getting hundreds of emails asking for them […] There aren’t that many left.”

[via The Lily]