Film news at Photokina

The German Photokina camera exhibition is in full swing, and there's a couple of interesting film developments:

• Epson has finally released the successors to their V700 film scanners, creatively named the V800. They promise better optics, 6400dpi resolution(1), LED back-light and better film holders. The changes are welcome, and while it's certainly not worth replacing my V700, I'm very happy there's a successor waiting for me if it would break.
  
  
• Some three years after Leica said they'd not release any new film cameras, they've ...released a new film camera: Leica M-A 
  
  The M-A is the brutally minimalist version of their MP film camera. With no electronics of any kind, there's not even a battery holder. You'll need an external light meter or rely on Sunny-16 for this one. Intriguing idea, and probably a lot of fun to use, though if I could afford a new film Leica I'd likely pick the M7 or MP instead.

#1 Note that the current V700 promises 4800 dpi but doesn't achieve more than about 2200-2400dpi in practice. We'll see if this is a real improvement or just a marketing figure.