It’s easy to get stuck using the same old tried and true favourites, so every now and then I like to try out a new film. A couple months back I grabbed a roll of Rollei Retro 400S on a whim and it’s been sitting in my fridge ever since. Yesterday on another whim I decided to take it out and load it into a camera. I had a new lens I wanted to play with and I thought why not play with a new film too.

I have to say I am pleasantly surprised by it. The first thing I noticed was the very thin base of the film when I loaded the camera which for me didn’t bode well. I was expecting a grainy boring film with a really curly base that would be a mare to load in the scanner. I was wrong, yes it does have a fairly chunky grain but it’s nice and smooth which I think just gives the film a nice retro character. The base is thin and it does curl but not so much that it’s hard to load, unlike Fomapan another cheap grainy film which I will never use again simply because it’s so horrible to load in a scanner.

I love the contrast of the film, I think it overall has a really nice as it implies retro feel. Not retro in the way that retro has come to mean full of imperfections but in the true sense of the word. The film has an older style film look about it and it’s one that I like. While I don’t see it becoming a staple film for me I do see it creeping into my fridge for occasional use. I’m quite taken with it.