- Leica has announced a new 35 mm movie
- Monopan 50 is a fine grain monochromatic film
- With a price of £ 10 (around US $ 13 / au $ 20) for 36 exhibitions
Leica decided to celebrate his centenary with a surprise. To honor 100 years since the first Leica production camera, the brand with the red point is dropping its first 35 mm film. A fine grain monochrome roll with 36 exhibitions, is a niche product that will be launched in 2025. But the largest pump is the price: the monopan 50 costs only £ 10 (around US $ 13 / au $ 20).
Leica is not a brand often associated with affordability. Your camera team is known for quality craft that has a price to match. When I tried Leica Q3 43 last year, I was impressed by construction quality and terrified me to damage it. Because it costs $ 6,295 / £ 5,900 / au $ 11,890. Leica is and has always been a brand without premium apologies.
For most people, the perspective of buying or shooting with anything Leica is somewhere between the desire list and the territory of the lottery. Until now, the most affordable way to shoot Leica has been the D-Lux 8, a premium compact with a micro Four Thirds sensor, which can buy today for $ 1,595 / £ 1,450 / AU $ 2,790. Or cross all the fingers of the feet and fingers of the feet in the hope of finding a second -hand analog leica.
The monopan 50 changes that. Okay, it is a 35 mm movie, not a camera. But it also feels like Leica’s first product that is accessible enough for image fixing photographers to use them daily.
Leica for everyone
The monopan 50 lands 100 years after Leica I, the camera that effectively invented the photograph of 35 mm as we know it. Unlike most Leica’s releases, the new film feels like something to be used, not collected.
That does not mean that it is not special. The Monopan 50 is a fine grain monochromatic film made for black and white enthusiasts. With a resolution of up to 280 pairs per millimeter, promises details of gallery degree. His ISO qualification of only 50 makes it a low sensitivity film, inspired by the original roll when he launched. In that sense, it is as Leica as it is put. But crucially, it is not scandalously expensive. In fact, quite the opposite.
Even for someone like me who does not filmed regularly, that is a convincing proposal. It is even more attractive to those who do, of which they are there increasingly.
Film photography not only returns: it is booming in silence. Ancient cameras prices have increased and new analog versions are reaching greater numbers. It is rumored that Fujifilm resurrects color stocks, Kodak is updating its factories to meet demand and Pentax dropped its new mid -painting movie camera last year. All of which speaks of a new rediscovered generation film.
It is in this analog revival that Steps Leica. The company still produces three totally mechanical film cameras of 35 mm, the MP, the MP and the relaunched M6. Equipped with high quality optics and designed for a deliberate approach, the three are expensive models that serve the purists.
In that sense, Monopan 50 is a natural partner. Feeding those cameras with a fine -grained black and white movie will generate beautiful results, while leaning in the slowest and most meditative experience of firing with a 35 mm telemeter camera.
But the broader attraction of the movie Monopan 50 will be in the fact that it is democratic. With the prices of the roll for standard emulsions that crawl beyond £ 10 per pop, a ten for 36 Premium monochromatic film exhibitions feel like a robbery. That comes from Leica only sweetens the treatment.
Together with the metal body cameras that were made, there is something refreshingly humble about the most attainable leic product in recent memory that is a roll of acetate covered with plastic. But it also makes sense. As the film becomes more conventional again, brands are waking up to the fact that the audience has changed.
They are no longer only enthusiasts who develop Ilford rolls in a dark room at home. They are the photographers of the Z generation that seek slower and more touch to create forms. And if they are going to spend their cash on the cinema, why not give them a reason to spend it in Leica?
Yes, the real cost of shooting the body and glass of Leica is thousands. But monopan 50 at least open the door. More than a wink to Leica’s past, it could be a sign of a different future for the brand, where more people can handle and shoot something with the name of Leica.
Obviously, Leica would love to match Monopan 50 with an MA or a MP. Maybe a vintage m6. But even with a Nikon F, or one of the best second -hand movies cameras, its detail potential and tone is exciting.
Anyway, I am intrigued. The low ISO film is not always easy to shoot, especially in the United Kingdom, where cloudy conditions are the default value. But Monopan 50 feels like a movie worth trying. Not only for what you can do, but for what it represents: Leica, lying towards the environment that helped define a century ago, in an unexpectedly accessible way.
So I didn’t expect to buy Leica shares this year. But now I am planning to do it.
