An excellent and rare lens, notably better than the 100/2.8 and 135/3.5, and probably the best price I've ever seen. I'd jump on it if I didn't already have one.

If you want to look for further examples of animal abuse leading to human illness then look no further than mad cow disease (CJD in humans), which was caused by unscrupulous farmers feeding the animals the ground-up remains of their kin. That was right at home in the UK.

For something that hasn't hit hard yet but will be a much greater problem, look at the routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock, which is well on the way to rendering all antibiotics useless. That will result in millions of deaths from what we currently consider very minor infections. This practice happens across the western world and is probably the biggest threat to human health in the world: far, far greater than COVID-19, Ebola, HIV and even cancer.

The world is full of people willing to use any means to make their products cheaper and thereby secure a larger market share and more income. It's also full of people who don't observe basic hygiene practices regarding livestock. They're the product of an overly economically-focused view on food production, where making or saving money is the most important item on the agenda and risks to human health are very much secondary.

Superia 100 has been out of production for some years. I assume what you've bought is what's referred to as "industrial" 100, which comes in a white box with green writing. I have some myself but haven't used much of it yet and haven't scanned any at all. The price has gone up a lot in the last year or so but if you want ISO 100 colour film then the choices are few (but more than they were a couple of years ago).

In colour film there isn't much left on the market that will give you poor results if used properly, so it just depends on how much you want to spend and what level of lighting you'll be shooting in.

For general use outdoors you'd probably want an ISO 200 or 400 film, that means Kodak Gold 200 or Ultramax (400) or Fuji C200, Superia 200 or Superia 400. As a general rule Kodak gives a warmer colour cast and Fuji a cooler one.

Amazon is often not the best place to go for film these days as their prices seem quite high and they tend to sell in packs of five or more. Analogue Wonderland have a good selection and are enthusiastic about film, I think it's good to support companies like that. I believe they have a code to get free delivery on your first order, have a look on their website. Some smaller online retailers of photographic gear also sell film though at the moment they may not be trading.

https://analoguewonderland.co.uk/

At the end of last week I finally received an old lens I'd ordered almost three weeks earlier, at the start of the lockdown here - an Auto Chinon Multi-Coated 55mm f/1.7 in M42 mount.

Here she is with a test shot wide open to check performance.



Auto Chinon 55mm f/1.7 by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr



Wide open test III by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr

I live in Spain so used an online supplier called R3. I think they deliver internationally but that's probably not your best option for either speed or price. I know that Analogue Wonderland are still sending film out. Amazon UK have film but, like Amazon Spain, are generally quite expensive.

As quarantine forces most of us to restrict where we can do and to spend the majority of our time in our own homes, I thought it would be good to share ideas for photography projects that we can still do under these restrictions.

Limitation is the mother of creativity, they say, so what can we come up with?

So far, photography of my sixteen-month-old daughter continues much as before. The biggest difference is that I mostly use a 35mm lens instead of 23mm because we're at my parents-in-laws' place and they have more space than we have in our own flat.

Other than that, yesterday I broke out one of my two Yashica Mat 124Gs and took some photos, mostly of the outside world, through the viewfinder using the K-3 and DA 35mm Limited. I've always liked through-the-viewfinder photos and I suspect I might get quite a lot of fun out of it.



Viewfinder I by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr



Viewfinder IV by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr



Viewfinder V by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr

I just received a small film order to keep my cameras fed over the quarantine and beyond.

The Kodak 3200 will go into my K2DMD or (more likely) Z1 for indoor photos over the quarantine period. It's from the very conservatively dated early batch of when production resumed and expired in January.

The RPX 400 is for my Yashica Mat 124G and will need to be pushed to at least 1600 for indoor use as above. Hopefully the camera will work properly as it gave me problems the last time I used it, but that was outdoors in the snow so hardly ideal circumstances for it.

The RPX 25 will be for outdoor use (obviously) in the summer (hopefully). I ordered in-date but got a call that they'd sold out and to ask if I would accept double the quantity of out-of-date stock, which I accepted. It's about 18 months expired.



Quarantine supplies by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr

The others here seem to have answered your questions so I don't have much more to contribute other than to reiterate that the SFXn is a very good camera - well built and high-spec. It's motors are noisy but that's not a big problem.

The only thing you haven't asked about is what will be done with your film after development. You have two options here - traditional prints ordered with the development or have the negatives scanned to digital files. Most places that develop films will offer both services but they increase the cost a lot. If you decide to scan yourself then you're getting into a complicated and expensive situation in which you have three options:

1. A flatbed scanner like the Epson 550.

2. A dedicated film scanner.

3. Scanning using a digital scanner.

Of the three, option #1 will be easiest but produce lowest quality results, both in terms of resolution and colour. Option #2 will produce better results but will be more work and there aren't many models being made, so you might have to buy used in which case you'll have problems with software compatibility as old scanners are often not directly compatible with Windows 10. Option #3 will produce the best results if done properly but has a very steep learning curve and you may want expensive software to ease the process.

It's a rabbit hole really, but you can learn as you go along. Step one is to get some film and shoot it to see how you like it and what results you can get. The most important thing is to enjoy it.

The design philosophies are very different. The Limiteds are well built, compact and quite fast while the new DFA*s are massive, heavy and incredibly expensive, with all aspects other than performance taking a back seat. Personally, I prefer the philosophy of the Limiteds, it's a far better balance of all aspects of lens design.