Re: [Rollei] Question on Agfa 25 B&W film

[bigler@ens2m.fr]

> A friend of mine who is a pro who switched to digital about a year
> and a half ago is offering me some Agfa B&W film he has in his
> freezer. (He's pretty much retired his Hassy gear entirely). I'm not
> familiar with this film, but he tells me it's absolutely great
> stuff. Anyone here have opinions? He isn't sure, but thinks he has
> something close to 100 rolls. G. King

If the film is Agfapan 25, I've been using it for 25 years as 120
rolls in my R-TLR T model together with agfapan 100 and other brands.
Strangely enough I've use APX25 much more than Ilforx Pan-F, one of
the last classical slow b&W film, together with Efke 25.

B&W Agfa film is easy to find in Europe and is favourably priced. I
bought some end of stock of APX25-120 when it was discontued and I'm
using it one roll at a time on great occasions, like a good vintage
;-);-) (let it come back to room temperature before serving, the same
ceremony ;-);-)

My understanding is that in terms of fine grain, say RMS granularity
or other scientific measurements, modern films like Ilford delta do
compete so efficiently that Agfa evnetually discontibued it. In other
words the old 25 ASA film wastes 75% of the photons W/respect to a
modern 100 ASA, which is a shame ;-);-) I have no idea about tonality,
this seems to me more a kind of personal preference of the experienced
B&W enthusiast than a quantitative notion.

I have developed APX25 in ID-11-D76 diluted, in Agfa rodinal 1+50 and
in Agfa Atomal. All those developers yield a different tonality. The
very fine grain makes Rodinal OK although the generated grain is less
fine than other brands.

In summary : you can go for it. Prepare some space in your
deep-freezer.

- -- 
Emmanuel BIGLER         
<bigler  

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