alt Hacker NewsIt reminds me of people buying vinyl... signaling...
It's absolutely partly this.
But, for me today, as a sometimes hobbyist, it's also about the process...
Digital is too good. The cameras are too good. The results are too good. There's no anticipation.
The analog experience is, to be trite, so much more analog. A good vintage film camera (and probably new Leica too) feels so good in the hand. Like a nice watch, it's a piece of mechanical art. It takes time to focus and set exposure. Sometimes is goes horribly wrong, but sometimes whatever went wrong produces an unexpectedly delightful result. There's also something to be said about receiving the negatives and scans weeks or months after shooting the film - the delayed gratification is something that's lacking in today's instant-everything world. Plus, the cost of film and processing makes me slow down a beat and think about what I'm doing - no spray and pray when a roll of Portra 400 + processing is $25 or more.
It's this, and also simple nostalgia. Getting out my vinyl records reminds me of my teenage and early adult years. Responsibilites were few, life was pretty simple, I could spend hours with them and the only consequence was delayed homework. I was into film photography during that same time, and the occasional urges to take it up again are filled with memories of those days. The reality of what film photography costs now kills that pretty quickly.