You won’t be able to load a $20 roll of Leica film in a digital camera, but if you have a classic camera, you’ll be able to capture images with something decidedly more retro.
A digital-focused publication (like this website) typically covers technology, gadgets with electricity and electronics and circuit boards and software and such. Which makes this story a little weird, but still interesting for folks who like the whole retro vibe.
One of the first camera makers has launched something virtually no camera maker is doing today: film.
It comes on the one-hundredth anniversary of the Leica I, a camera that first debuted in 1925 and helped established the 35mm format we still refer to today. Even if we’ve moved away from film in cameras, most cameras work from a 35mm logic, with digital SLR and mirrorless cameras with a full-frame sensor typically applying the 35mm size as that full frame.
Bigger formats exist in medium- and large-format cameras, but 35mm-based cameras are what most of the digital camera is based on, and often the way focal lengths are thought about on lenses.
You won’t really find new 35mm film cameras — they have largely disappeared — but plenty of older and retro cameras can be found, and they’re clearly what Leica’s latest edition is for.
Some 100 years after its 35mm camera arrived, the Leica Monopan 50 is something the company says is the first “true Leica 35mm film”.
Monopan 50 is an ISO 50 film made for monochromatic images, offering ultra-fine grain and a super sensitive spectrum for light and colour, at least for black and white. It’s a little like Leica’s monochrome digital cameras, only with film, allowing you to bring a little black and white to another camera as film becomes even more difficult to find.
Like other black and white films, this is one you’ll likely need to develop yourself with chemicals or take to a specialised lab, and possibly jump into a darkroom to get photos out on paper.
However, because it exposes to film, you can also take the digital approach and scan the images in if you so choose, as distinct from capturing analogue-style photos with digital gear.
As we noted before, it’s a little different from the typical tech fare we cover here, but if you’re still interested, a roll of Leica Monopan 50 will be available in Australia for $19.95 from August 22, offering 36 exposures.
