I previously reviewed Astrum 100 which I really liked.  This time it was it slightly fasted brother.  I tested this in the absolutely worst way - new used camera, new film and guessed at development times.  There is a 5 fold chance of something going wrong when doing it this way……but everything worked out fine.  

This little beauty is the original Leica CL - not to be confused by the new digital Leica CL.  The original film version was a co-developed product with Minolta.  With the knowledge that Minolta gained, they put out their own body known as the Minolta CLE - a fine camera but if the electronics go you are in deep trouble.  The Leica CL was a very simple swing out/in light meter but if this goes you can get it repaired.  It also works without the light meter.  I needed a 2nd body that uses Leica M lenses.  My plan is to use the CL to shoot Rollei InfraRed film where the exposure is somewhat of guess work anyway.  This example was purchased from Tamarkin in Chicago.

Now onto the film - Astrum 200

Astrum 200 was a guess as to the development times in HC110B.  I saw one reference only to using 7 minutes.  I thought this was a little short so I used 8 minutes and I’m pretty happy with the results.  In the past shooting black dogs - I have two - was difficult.  It’s still not easy but this film gave me the detail in the fur that I frequently don’t get - the blocking of the black tones makes it impossible to see the detail.