Choice of film

The Leica M-A comes without a light meter so you either have to use an off camera light meter or a Leica meter that fits on the camera and is coupled to the shutter speed dial. Or just go without a meter. This is usually how I work with a meter less camera. Choosing my shutter speed based on the Sunny 16 rule of thumb.

This is why the choice of film is important. You want to use a film type that has a wide exposure latitude. Meaning it does not really matter if you are a stop over- or underexposing. For black and white photography Kodak Tri-x is the way to go, you can easily use it at ISO 100-800 on one roll and just develop it as ISO 400 and still get great results. Leica seems to think so as well and this is probably why they ship one roll of Tri-x with the camera.

I really like Tri-x and what you can do with it, but I use Kodak Portra 160 and Portra 400 most. I overexpose both films one stop and then develop at the box indicated ISO speeds. This gives less grain and nicer colours. Portra is a nice film for the M-A because it has a wide exposure latitude, it does not really matter if you get the exposure spot on. But it is better to over expose than to underexpose. So if you already start with Portra 160 rated as ISO 80-100 and Portra 400 rated as ISO 200 you are probably not underexposing and getting consistently good results. If you are coming from a digital camera this might feel strange because digitally it is better to underexpose than overexpose.

Some people like using different films a lot to try out the different film type characters and up and downsides. I think you can not really base your results on this type of trying and experimenting. You’ll only know the film and what you can do with it after using it for a prolonged amount of time. The film is less important than the developing. You can adjust the way the image looks more by developing differently than choosing another film of the same ‘type’ in my opinion. So I always advice to choose as little types of film as possible. For me the films I use most are AGFA Vista 200, because it is cheap. Kodak Tri-x 400 as my only black and white film. Kodak Portra 160, 400 and 800 for most serious work. And I used to shoot Kodak GOLD 200 a lot but I use the AGFA Vista 200 instead these days.