On the shooting side, things have been fun though. Just one click, wondering how the photo will turn out, forced to put more thought into composition and exposure, and no worries about batteries, chargers, memory cards or a dusty sensor (of course, other worries about 'enough film, where to have the rolls developed, where to buy more').
So far it seems film is rather forgiving when it comes to the right exposure, although I do seem to underexpose quite often. The M-A doesn't have a light meter, so I'm metering with a Voightlander light meter on top of the camera, and I have a handhold around.
The first two rolls of Kodak Tri-X 400 I had not only developed but also printed. I considered them test rolls, so nothing much spectacular on them, but it did give an impression of what I was doing right and wrong. Also more of an indication - seeing the character of Tri-X - when to use it and when not to use it... it's quite a learning curve.
Otherwise judging exposure with just the negatives (two rolls of Fuji Superia 200 so far) is not easy, since I don't have a baseline. I don't have a negative scanner yet. I wanted to experiment first with my Canon 5D-II and 100mm macro lens, to see if I could get acceptable results shooting the negatives and then processing them in Photoshop and then over to Lightroom. But it's a tedious way of processing. To get the whole negative properly focused isn't easy. Then the flash behind it needs to be evenly distributed. Then questions about color balance, how much flash, how to process exactly and how to handle the negatives without damaging them. It simply takes too much time per negative. And since I can't compare yet with a negative scanner, I don't know if I'm getting the best out of the negatives this way.
Anyway, here's one of my first color results done this way. I do plan on buying a scanner, so you might see this photo again in future. It will be a nice comparison as to which method gives the better results.
Strawberry farm in the mountains...Leica M-A with Leica Macro Elmar 90mm f/4.0 on Fujicolor Superia 200
Malaysia, Cameron Highlands, 6 August 2015
Click on the photo for the bigger version.
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