The Alfie TYCH is a brand new 35mm half-frame camera designed by Dave Faulkner. It is the first new mid-range independent 35mm camera I am aware of in years. Not a recycled vintage design, not a plastic point-and-shoot, not a digital-with-film-cosmetics conversion. A genuinely new camera, designed from scratch, manufactured by a small UK team, in production and shipping.
I have been using mine for a couple of months, including a family holiday in Cornwall, and I am keeping it. This is not a thing I say often about half-frame cameras. The TYCH has earned its place.
I bumped into Dave at the Analogue Spotlight event in 2022 when the camera was still a prototype. He launched the Kickstarter in September 2022 and was funded inside three weeks. As of writing, around 130 cameras have been built and the second batch is in progress. The interview with Dave at the end of this article (drawn from a conversation we had recently) covers the production journey, future plans, and what is next for Alfie Cameras.
If you want to skip to the practical bit: the TYCH is a fun, well-designed camera with one genuinely interesting feature (the rotating lens turret with four options) and one quirky feature (the zone plate) that I am still figuring out. I would recommend it for anyone wanting a casual 35mm shooter that is more interesting than another plastic point-and-shoot.
What it is
A half-frame 35mm camera, meaning it takes standard 35mm film but exposes half the normal frame size. You get 48 frames from a 24-exposure roll and 72 frames from a 36-exposure roll. The negatives are correspondingly smaller (around 18x24mm instead of the standard 24x36mm).
About half-frame as a category, because not everyone is familiar with it: this is not a new concept. The Canon Demi, Olympus Pen EE, and almost every camera manufacturer made half-frame cameras at some point. Leica even made one (the Leica 72). The TYCH is half-frame in that tradition.
The trade-off with half-frame: same film, smaller frame. Kodak Gold is the same film whether it is half-frame, full-frame, or medium format. Ilford HP5 is the same film in 110, 35mm, 120, 4x5, or 8x10. Just cut to different sizes. Which means: grain is more noticeable, resolution is poorer, the smaller you go. Half-frame negatives will not produce the technical quality of medium format negatives. That is physics.
What you get in exchange is double the frames per roll, double the snaps per development cost, and a more relaxed shooting experience. It is two-for-one on pictures. For casual family-and-holiday work, this is a meaningful advantage.
The four lens turret
This is the TYCH’s most interesting feature. The front of the camera has a large rotating disc with four positions. Rotate the disc to choose which lens is active:
- Meniscus lens (single-element, the standard lens on the basic model)
- f/5.6 zone plate
- f/125 pinhole
- Empty position for the optional premium f/8 four-element rectilinear lens (extra cost)
I went for the basic version of the camera, which has three working lens positions (meniscus, zone plate, pinhole) and one empty slot where the premium lens would go. This is the cheaper option.
I do not shoot much 35mm and the premium lens is significantly more expensive (Dave told me prototype examples were over £400 each to make initially), so the basic version felt right for my use case. Worth knowing that I am probably the first basic-version review on YouTube: most reviewers go for the premium version, so detailed coverage of the cheaper option is rare.
Each lens position changes which automatic exposure mode the camera applies. The onboard computer has three automatic modes corresponding to f/8, f/5.6, and f/125, plus a manual mode. Switching lenses automatically prompts the right exposure mode.
![PLACEHOLDER: the Alfie TYCH from the front, showing the rotating lens disc with the four positions visible]
The electronics
The TYCH has an electronically controlled shutter and a small onboard computer. Specs:
- Shutter range: 30 second exposures (in bulb mode) down to 1/500th
- Battery: internal, charges via USB-C
- Battery life: lasts forever in my experience
- Menu options: ISO, shutter counter (manual up/down adjustment), exposure delay (self-timer), flash/remote mode
The computer is accessed through a small screen and a single red shutter button. Hold the button to enter the menu, short-press to fire. Simple, intuitive once you have learned it.
Worth knowing about bulb mode: the bulb setting is a toggle, not a hold. Press once to open the shutter, press again to close. This is different from most cameras (where bulb means “open while held”). The toggle approach means you can do long exposures without holding the camera, which is genuinely useful for the pinhole and zone plate work. I discovered this by accident during a wet pinhole test and was relieved. Worth flagging in case you also did not read the manual.
The body and mechanics
A few practical notes about handling:
Vertical orientation by default. The viewfinder is positioned for upright shooting, so the natural portrait-orientation hold gives you a vertical frame. For landscape, you turn the camera 90°. Mildly unusual but you get used to it.
Film loading: a knob to unscrew the back, opens like a clamshell. Standard 35mm loading.
Film winding is manual. No automatic wind-on. You wind via a knurled knob until the next white indicator appears in the small frame counter window. This is where my biggest user error happened: with 72 frames per roll, I lost track of whether I had wound on between shots. I developed a habit of shooting two frames every time I picked the camera up, just in case. This defeats the point of having 72 frames per roll, but I will get better with practice.
Rewind: separate knob, pull out to release before rewinding.
My holiday test
I took the TYCH to Cornwall for a family holiday as my primary camera. Standard family-snaps brief: kids on beaches, scenery, the usual.
It was brilliant for this. Specifically:
- The automation removes friction. No light meter readings, no shutter speed calculations. Point, frame, press
- The 72 frames per roll means you can snap freely. No agonising over whether each frame is worth using
- The size is genuinely pocketable. My wife did not even notice it in the car (which is normally a thing, see also: large format cameras in the boot)
- The results are good enough. Not medium format sharp, but properly fine for family memory work
The meniscus lens (single-element, basic model) produced perfectly acceptable family snaps. Sharpness in the centre is genuinely decent, with some softness and chromatic aberration toward the corners. For the use case, this is fine.
![PLACEHOLDER: a family snap from Cornwall on the meniscus lens, showing the kind of result the basic TYCH produces in everyday holiday conditions]
The pinhole test (mostly a rain disaster)
After the family snaps, I wanted to test the pinhole properly. Loaded Tri-X 400, headed out with the TYCH on a tripod.
It was raining. I had not thought about weather sealing.
The light meter was telling me 3 minutes for the first exposure. With the bulb toggle (which I had not yet realised was a toggle), I was initially worrying about how I would hold a button down for three minutes without shaking the camera. Once I discovered that press-once-opens, press-again-closes was the bulb behaviour, the camera became completely hands-off during the long exposure. Genuinely smart design from Dave.
The results were mostly blurry. Not motion blur. Diffraction-and-water blur, I suspect. The pinhole is 0.2mm in diameter, which gives the f/125 aperture at the 25mm focal length. At 0.2mm, it does not take much water on the front to partially block the hole and produce mushy, soft images.
Lesson learned: do not pinhole in the rain.
I came back to the same exercise on a clear day at St Harold’s church with a red filter to dramatise the sky. The pinhole results were dramatically better. Sharp at the resolution that 0.2mm at 25mm can deliver, well-exposed, properly dramatic clouds against darkened sky. The TYCH pinhole works, in the right conditions.
The zone plate, which I am still figuring out
I confess: I did not know what a zone plate was when I first picked up the TYCH. Worth explaining for anyone else in the same position.
A Fresnel zone plate (named for Augustin-Jean Fresnel, the undisputed king of concentric circles, also of Fresnel lens and Fresnel lighthouse fame) is an optical element consisting of a central clear hole surrounded by alternating opaque and transparent rings. Light passes through the clear bits and bends around the black bits, creating interference patterns that can be tuned to manipulate specific wavelengths.
The TYCH’s zone plate is 1mm across, with a 0.2mm central hole (same size as the pinhole) and 0.8mm of concentric rings on either side. The thickness and spacing of those rings determines what effects you get.
I asked Dave about the zone plate in our interview. His explanation: the effect is most visible on colour film with specular highlights, the kind of high-contrast images with pinpoint bright spots, like evening scenes with lights, neon signs, or car headlights. The zone plate produces a halation-like glow around these highlights, somewhat similar to the effect you get from cine films like Cinestill 800T (which has had its anti-halation layer removed).
Dave has theoretically tuned the zone plate to bias toward green wavelengths, which means white lights tend to turn slightly yellow in the resulting halation, and yellow lights turn slightly green. Strange and interesting.
I have not yet had a proper opportunity to test this. The TYCH zone plate is on my list for a dedicated evening city shoot with colour film. I will write up the results when I have them.
![PLACEHOLDER: a zone plate test frame showing the kind of effect the TYCH zone plate produces on a high-contrast scene]
The interview with Dave
I spoke with Dave Faulkner recently about the journey from prototype to production. A few highlights worth pulling out:
The Kickstarter: launched 17 September 2022 (Dave’s birthday) at the National Photography Show. Funded inside two and a half weeks. Faster than Dave expected.
The shutter crisis: Dave’s original shutter design went obsolete days after Kickstarter funding completed. Two months sourcing a new shutter, then another month and a half redesigning the internals to accommodate it. The kind of supplier-chain problem that can kill small hardware projects.
The personalisation feature: Kickstarter backers could request a personalised message on the camera’s startup screen. Dave offered this for free as a thank-you for delivery delays. He has since had time to reflect on whether this was wise. My backer message says “have fun” and my backer number is 17. Camera number 17. Special.
Dave’s background: trained in industrial design, specialised in medical device and design engineering of small intricate injection-moulded components. The right skills for executing a project like the TYCH.
Future plans: a proper lens is the next development, with some options under consideration. One of those options is a lens needed for a more sophisticated camera that Dave originally designed before the TYCH. He shifted to the TYCH because it was a faster route to market and would build the reputation needed for a more complex camera to succeed.
On price: the TYCH price point sits between cheap plastic point-and-shoots and modern high-tech digital. Dave defends this as necessary for economic viability of a small UK manufacturer building at low volumes. Without volumes in the tens of thousands, semi-automated assembly is not viable, which means hand-building, which means the price reflects the labour. Fair enough. Also: the profit from the TYCH funds R&D for the next camera.
On the meniscus lens (basic model): Dave’s view is that the meniscus is genuinely fun and creative, with sharp centre and characterful corner aberration that suits portraits. The premium lens is sharper corner-to-corner with better contrast and is what Dave himself uses most often on his own TYCH. So if budget allows, the premium version is the better choice.
The next batch: 200 cameras, with training of additional builders for future batches. As batch sizes grow, per-camera costs come down.
Should you buy one
Yes, if any of the following apply:
- You want a casual 35mm shooter for family snaps, holidays, day trips
- You enjoy lo-fi camera character (pinhole, zone plate, single-element meniscus)
- You want to support a small UK independent camera maker doing actually new work
- You are interested in half-frame photography specifically
- You shoot medium or large format primarily and want a small everyday-carry alternative
No, if any of the following:
- You want clean, high-resolution 35mm work (get a Leica, a Nikon FM3a, a Pentax MX)
- You hate electronic shutters in cameras and prefer fully mechanical
- You want a camera that does not require manual film winding
- You are price-sensitive and would rather have a £30 second-hand Olympus Pen EE
For me, the verdict is unequivocal: the TYCH stays in the bag. It is the camera I take when I want to shoot film without committing to a serious shoot. It produces results that are characterful rather than technically perfect. It is fun. It is supporting someone doing interesting work.
That is enough.
Links
- Alfie Cameras website for the TYCH and current pricing
- Alfie Cameras on Instagram for updates on new developments
- Alfie Cameras on YouTube for Dave’s own content
Big thanks to Dave for the camera, the conversation, and for doing the harder thing of designing a new camera from scratch rather than the easier thing of repackaging old ones.