There was a period, roughly between 2008 and 2015, when the film aisle in a camera shop was a depressing place. Emulsions were quietly disappearing one by one — Kodachrome gone in 2010, Fuji Pro 400H in 2021, Neopan 400 long discontinued — and the question people were actually asking was not which film to use but whether film had a future at all. It did, as it turned out. What the market looks like now is nothing like those years, and the range of emulsions available to a photographer loading up an R6.2 today is genuinely broader and more interesting than what was available a decade ago.
The landscape divides roughly into three tiers: the established professional stocks that have been around long enough to have a real following among serious photographers; the classic consumer stocks that punch above their price point; and a newer wave of boutique emulsions from producers like Harman, ORWO, and CineStill that have found their way into the hands of photographers who like to experiment. What follows is not an exhaustive list — that would fill a book — but a practical guide to what's worth trying, with real input from people who shoot Leica R cameras specifically.
Colour Negative Film
Colour negative is where most R-mount film photographers spend most of their time. It's forgiving — you can be a stop or two off on exposure and recover it at the printing or scanning stage — and the best stocks have a warmth and gradation that feels particularly well matched to the kind of optical character that Leica glass produces.
Kodak Portra 400
Colour negative · ISO 400 · KodakPortra 400 is the reference point. It's what professional portrait and documentary photographers reach for when nothing else is acceptable, and the reason is consistent: it handles skin tones with an accuracy and a gentleness that no other film consistently matches. The grain is fine for an ISO 400 emulsion, the latitude is wide, and it pushes reasonably well to ISO 800 or 1600 if the situation demands it. Shot through a Summicron-R 50mm in available light, the combination has a quality that is difficult to describe technically but immediately recognisable in the results — a luminous, slightly warm rendering that genuinely suits the lens's own character. It is not cheap. But most people who try it find the cost hard to argue with.
Kodak Ultramax 400
Colour negative · ISO 400 · KodakUltramax is a consumer stock, and the photography world occasionally condescends to it for that reason. In practice it's an excellent film — warmer in tone than Portra, with slightly more visible grain and a punchier colour palette that works particularly well for street and travel photography where Portra's subtlety can feel understated. It costs roughly half as much as Portra per roll, which makes it the sensible choice for the high-volume shooting where you want to work through rolls quickly rather than agonising over every frame. Several R-mount photographers who shoot primarily for themselves rather than clients have switched to Ultramax as their day-to-day stock, keeping Portra for occasions that justify the cost.
Kodak Ektar 100
Colour negative · ISO 100 · KodakEktar 100 has the finest grain of any colour negative film currently available. Its saturation is notably higher than Portra — it was designed for landscape, nature, and commercial photography where vivid colour rendition matters — and the sharpness in good light through a quality lens is striking. Through an APO-Macro-Elmarit-R or a Summicron-R, Ektar at f/5.6 in daylight produces results that can look astonishingly close to medium format in the right conditions. The trade-off is that it's slow, which means it needs good light, and its high saturation can make skin tones look slightly ruddy if you're not careful. Best suited to landscape, architecture, and detail work rather than portraiture in mixed lighting.
Harman Phoenix 200 (Version II)
Colour negative · ISO 200 · Harman PhotoPhoenix 200 Version II, released in July 2025, is the most interesting new colour negative film of recent years. Harman — the UK company best known as Ilford's parent — developed Phoenix as a colour emulsion with deliberately distinct character: it has a warm, slightly faded quality with notable grain that emphasises texture in a way that Kodak's films do not. Version II addressed the halation and highlight issues that some photographers found problematic in the original. It's not a film for when you want predictable, accurate results. It's a film for when you want a specific look that modern digital post-processing cannot easily replicate. On an R-mount camera, paired with one of the warmer-rendering Leica primes, the results have a quality that looks genuinely different from anything else available right now.
Black and White
Black and white is where Leica R cameras have always felt most natural. There's something about shooting on a manual-advance, match-needle metered body that invites the kind of considered, deliberate approach that black and white rewards. The available emulsions are numerous, and the differences between them are real.
Ilford HP5 Plus 400
Black & white negative · ISO 400 · IlfordHP5 is what you load when you want a black and white film that works, consistently, in essentially any situation. It's been around since 1976 in various forms, which means photographers have had decades to understand exactly how it behaves. It pushes exceptionally well — to ISO 1600 without drama, to 3200 with some care — making it genuinely useful for available-light shooting in difficult conditions. The grain is medium-fine, the tonal range is wide, and the look it produces on an R6.2 with a Summicron-R is the kind of classic, documentary black and white that never goes out of fashion. If you've never shot black and white film before, HP5 is the place to start.
Kodak Tri-X 400
Black & white negative · ISO 400 · KodakTri-X is a film with a character so well-established it has become a reference point in itself. Henri Cartier-Bresson shot it. Sebastião Salgado used it. It has a grain structure that is more pronounced than HP5 and a contrast rendition that can feel almost confrontational in strong light — which is precisely what many photographers love about it for street and documentary work. Shot at box speed through a Leica R lens, Tri-X produces negatives with a punchy, high-contrast quality that scans and prints beautifully. Compared to HP5, it's slightly less forgiving in exposure, and its grain, while distinctive, may not suit every subject. For street photography and portraits where you want the film's character to contribute to the image, it's hard to beat.
Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100 II
Black & white negative · ISO 100 · FujifilmFujifilm discontinued the original Neopan Acros in 2018 and brought it back as Acros 100 II in 2019, and photographers who loved the original were largely relieved by what returned. Acros II has the finest grain of any black and white film currently in production, combined with a unique reciprocity failure characteristic that allows very long exposures without the exposure correction that other films need. Through a high-quality R-mount lens in good daylight, the detail resolution is extraordinary — it reveals exactly what the lens is capable of in a way that faster, grainier films do not. It's also, to borrow PetaPixel's assessment, pushable to ISO 800 without unacceptable results, which extends its usefulness beyond sunny-day shooting.
Ilford Delta 3200
Black & white negative · ISO 3200 · IlfordDelta 3200 occupies a specific niche: when the light is genuinely low and you still want to shoot, this is what you load. PetaPixel's assessment — that it's the best film still available with a nominal sensitivity above ISO 800 — reflects a long-held consensus. The grain at box speed is prominent and distinctive, with a structure that many photographers find aesthetically pleasing rather than a defect. Shot through the Summilux-R 80mm at f/1.4 in available light, the combination has a particular look: extreme subject-background separation, visible grain in the shadows, and a tonal compression in highlights that gives indoor and low-light images a mood that faster colour film cannot replicate.
Slide Film
Slide film — reversal or transparency film — is the demanding choice. It has essentially no exposure latitude, which means correct exposure is not optional but required. In return, what you get is a positive image of extraordinary richness and detail, with a colour saturation and a depth that negative film simply cannot produce. Viewed on a lightbox or projected, a well-exposed slide from a quality Leica R lens is one of the most beautiful things the medium produces.
Kodak Ektachrome E100
Colour reversal · ISO 100 · KodakEktachrome was discontinued and revived in 2017, and the revival has been sustained enough that photographers now treat it as a permanent part of the landscape. It produces natural but richly saturated colours with smooth tonal transitions and excellent detail — the assessment of Digital Camera World is accurate. Through a Summicron-R or Elmarit-R lens in daylight, E100 is among the most beautiful film stocks currently available, with a colour palette that differs from Velvia's more aggressive saturation in ways that make it better suited to people and architecture. The requirement for precise exposure is real: meter carefully, use the R6.2's excellent meter with full confidence, and bracket if in doubt.
Fujifilm Velvia 50
Colour reversal · ISO 50 · FujifilmVelvia 50 is extreme — extreme saturation, extreme sharpness, and extremely unforgiving of exposure errors. In the right conditions — landscapes in strong directional light, architecture with vivid colours, botanical and nature photography — it produces images with a colour intensity that has never been replicated by any digital emulation, however good the processing software has become. It is slow, which means a tripod and good light are effectively required. It is unforgiving, which means the metering needs to be accurate. And it produces saturated greens that can look almost artificial in processed versions but look entirely convincing viewed as a transparency. Several R-mount photographers who do landscape and nature work regard it as essentially irreplaceable.
A Note on New Emulsions
The film market in 2026 is not just holding steady — it's genuinely innovating. ORWO, the East German film manufacturer that never quite disappeared after reunification, launched the NC500 and NC400 colour films that have found an enthusiastic audience among photographers looking for a European alternative to Kodak's American palette. CineStill's 400D, derived from Kodak cinema stock, produces a distinctive look with halation effects around light sources that many photographers have come to love. Harman's Phoenix 200 Version II is mentioned above.
None of these is a direct substitute for the established stocks. But they extend the range of looks available to a photographer who is interested in the medium as a creative tool rather than simply a means to an end. The R-mount camera, with its deliberately unhurried approach to making an image, suits this kind of thoughtful experimentation well. Load something new, shoot it deliberately, and see what it does.