A new report from Fortune highlights a genuinely remarkable reversal in consumer technology trends: Gen Z’s growing obsession with analog photography is reviving a film camera market that digital technology had seemingly rendered permanently obsolete decades ago. What was once considered a dying format, abandoned by mainstream manufacturers and consumers alike, now finds itself buoyed by a generation that never experienced film the first time around.

The irony here is substantial. Digital photography’s arrival in the late 1990s and early 2000s triggered a near-total collapse of the traditional film camera industry, with iconic manufacturers either pivoting entirely to digital technology or disappearing from the market altogether as consumers rapidly embraced the convenience, cost savings, and instant gratification that digital cameras and, eventually, smartphones offered. Film seemed destined to become a purely niche, specialist medium kept alive only by a small community of dedicated professional and hobbyist holdouts.

Yet according to Fortune’s reporting, exactly the generation furthest removed from film’s original heyday is now driving renewed commercial demand for vintage and reissued film cameras, along with the film stock required to use them. This resurgence appears driven by several overlapping motivations: a desire for more intentional, deliberate photography in contrast to the endless, disposable nature of digital images; genuine appreciation for film’s distinctive visual aesthetic, with its grain, color rendering, and imperfections that digital filters still struggle to replicate convincingly; and a broader cultural fascination with analog technology and tangible, physical media more generally.

This trend fits within a much larger pattern of younger consumers rediscovering physical, analog formats across multiple media categories simultaneously, from vinyl records to printed books to, now, film photography. In each case, a format that digital technology seemingly rendered obsolete has found renewed commercial life specifically among a generation raised entirely within a digital-first media environment, suggesting a genuine hunger for tactile, deliberate alternatives to the frictionless, infinite nature of digital content consumption.

The practical effects of this demand surge have been significant and measurable, with vintage film camera prices climbing on resale markets, remaining film stock manufacturers reporting increased sales, and even some camera companies exploring reintroducing film-based products after years of assuming the format held no remaining commercial viability. This represents a genuinely unusual reversal within consumer technology, where obsolescence is rarely permanent reversed by market demand once a format has been broadly abandoned by both manufacturers and mainstream consumers.

For collectors and enthusiasts who maintained their commitment to film photography throughout its least fashionable period, this resurgence carries a certain vindication, even as it introduces new challenges around increased competition for limited vintage camera stock and rising prices for film and processing services that had settled into a smaller, more predictable niche market for years. Full details on the trend are available via Fortune.