With Buying a Leica M-A, I have disappeared down a film rabbit hole that for me had disappeared in 2003/4 when I got my Nikon D70. The first Digital camera I used, meant that I no longer used film in my photographic practice. I used to makes images on film then scan them on an Imacon scanner, that I would rent by the hour and save the files to a CD/DVD, then take them home and retouch them on my computer with a much earlier version of Photoshop. This was when I was a Fashion photographer. I no longer make fashion images, so I no longer need that workflow, except that I might, as I will want to share my analogue images digitally on social media so I still need to find a film scanning process and the film scanner that I would love to have is no longer made. What to do? I don’t know for now.

I do know that I will be having to work out what film to use. Fortunately I only want to use Black and White film. However the film I had wanted to use is Kodak Tri-X, I am not sure now, if I want to as the film has got excessively expensive and I think I will look for an alternative. So the search begins, right now I have an old roll of Rollei 400S in my camera, I will have to buy some new film to make a proper judgement on it. Then I will look at Ilford Delta 400, I am going to spent some time looking at 400 ISO film first as this is the most versatile ISO for the kind of work I want to make with film.

Rollei Retro 400S film

I read somewhere that the Rollei Retro 400S film is actually made by Agfa so I will see if it feels like the old Agfa APX 400 that I used to like that film and used to alternate between that and Tri-X, and I can buy it for £120-00 for 20 rolls at Imaging Warehouse, there is an also a cost incentive for this, as it would then only cost me £6-00 per roll of film vs the £14-00 that is the current Kodak Tri-X price.

I have found I can buy ten rolls of Ilford Delta 100 and 400 for £79.00 at Mr Cad

UpDate. Rollei Retro 400S is actually a film designed to be used for aero surveillance and has extended red sensitivity so if you use it with a red filter it can look more like an infra Red film.

Here is the link to Rollei Retro 400S on the Rollei website

Alex Luyckx has a good set of film and developer reviews on his website, you might want to check out. This is his review for the Rollei Retro 400S.

I have decided that the first rolls of film were not a good indication of what the film could do as I was using film stock that was 14 years out of date and had been badly stored. I have now used more new in date film stock and the film is very high in contrast and is a good film but not for the kind of work that I want to make with my Leica MA camera.