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Interesting box. The Leica Monopan 50 comes in four vintage-inspired designs which is a nice touch instead of simply slapping a red dot onto some random emulsion and calling it heritage. Even the canister is dressed like a tiny Leica salesman in black and red.
The film itself is contrasty with very little grain, if any. Clean, sharp, clinical almost. It was genuinely fun trying something new but at ISO 50? I was basically roleplaying as a WWII combat photographer indoors, shooting between f/2 to f/2.8 and occasionally hanging onto dear life at 1/20th of a second. Apparently Leica intended this to be paired with a Summilux f/1.4 shot wide open most of the time. I guess my Summicron should go into the bin.
CHARACTERISTICS
High contrast
Little to no grain
Very slow
RELATED ENTRIES
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Happy 100th birthday Leica but a 50 ISO film stock that likes a stop of overexposure is not exactly what most people would call versatile. Still, rather than complain, it is hard not to appreciate that this even exists. The world is objectively more interesting with weird niche film stocks floating around.
Allegedly, the Monopan has higher resolving power than Kodak Tri-X 400 alongside panchromatic sensitivity beyond the visible spectrum. I have absolutely no idea what that means. What I do know is the Monopan delivers deep, rich blacks with bright highlights that clip faster than expected, so metering matters.
Leica is not a 35mm film manufacturer so people are quick to point out that this emulsion is Adox HR-50 but my guess is the Leica Monopan 50 is its own thing. They look similar but the Leica is slightly more tonal and produces cleaner whites. An alternative nonetheless, though it does feel like a different formulation rather than the same film wearing a toupe.
Shot on Leica M6 TTL paired to a Leica 35mm Summicron f/2 ASPH
