I cannot say for sure who has produced film according to an Agfa license or specs, but Foma's F21 / Fomapan 100 looked very much like Agfa's Agfa Pan 100. Development times had been practically the same. Even if it is Foma's own invention, then it definitely has got the Agfa feeling, and imo it comes very close to the older Agfa Pan 100. Agfa APX 100 (and its brother APX 25) was something different. It had an improved acutance and midtones showed a somewhat better separation.
It had a dark green anti-halation backcoating which resulted in these improvements. According to Agfa's statements then, they also changed the spectral sensitivity, ie they lowered the sensitivity for blue hues.
Thus they spoke of a "built-in yellow filter". However, the good old No.8 would not retire from service, as APX films still rendered yellow to red hues too dark.
BTW, Agfa Pan 400 stayed the same for a very long time, even after renaming it to APX 400.
Agfa changed its formula in the very last stages of their history, around 2002. I don't know what they did to the film, but except from significantly longer souping times, especially with Rodinal, it just looked the same. So I suspect that Agfa changed the formula to enhance the shelf-life of the film, and not so much for an improvement of the image.
The latest version of Kodak's TMY has got a dark green backcoating now, and just like APX 25 and 100, it now shows much better acutance.
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> I hear some companies picking up on the old Agfa names, but which are actually related to the films?
As far as I know, there's only one company buying and using some trademarks of Agfa, and that is Foto-Impex in Berlin.
Actually, it's the shop where you bought your photolinen when you visited me in Berlin back in 1999. Foto-Impex is not only buying the trademarks, they also acquired the patents, formulae, machinery and manpower to put up a production line for Agfa's multicontrast papers MCC and MCP - very much to my great joy.
Emulsion wise the papers are said to be identical to the original Agfa papers, just the base is said to be a bit different. I think, I'll have a try with these new papers soon.
Foto-Impex also sells the old Agfa developers, which are produced by Calbe Fotochemie. They had been the chemistry branch of ORWO and survived the collapse of ORWO.
They used to and still produce developers like N113 (ie Neutol) or A49 (which is an Atomal derivate), which Foto-Impex now sells with their original Agfa denominations, but under the brand "Adox".
Really funny, because Agfa and Adox used to be fierce competitors in West Germany during the fifties and sixties. In those days Adox had the reputation to make the sharpest films with the finest grain possible. Having printed some historical Adox negatives myself I must admit that they were really good even compared to today's best b/w films of the same speed.
I forgot to tell you that Foto-Impex had bought the Adox label many years ago and were distributing film and chemistry under this label. Today, they're selling the revived Agfa materials under the Adox label, but with the appropriate Agfa product names, because the general label "Agfa" is still owned by Agfa-Gevaert.
How come? Yes, there still is an Agfa-Gevaert company. It is involved in making x-ray, cine and aerial film besides specialized plastic foils and other stuff. In 2004 Agfa-Gevaert sold its photographic branch as a management buy-out, but kept its traditional trademarks, like the Agfa rhombus and the tradename "Agfa".
The new company became "AgfaPhoto", but for some yet unknown reasons it went into receivership by the end of 2005. Rumor has it that some leading managers had no hope in the future of the company and thus stashing all the liquid money available into their pockets, or that Agfa-Gevaert was cashing in AgfaPhoto's debts too early, so it had no chance to reconfigure and adapt to the new situation.
It is often said that AgfaPhoto became a victim of digital photography, that they put out digital equipment too late etc. I don't think that's true, as I can remember that Agfa-Gevaert / AgfaPhoto had a lot of digital devices on offer quite early.
I saw Photoshop in action for the first time at the Agfa stand at the photokina in 1990! Agfa offered a range of scanners and digital cameras as early as 1992. (Okay, Canon was much earlier, when it marketed its first, then so-called "still-video" camera in 1986.) And the marketing department people of Agfa well knew, that traditional film was on the decline and had prepared for it. But sure enough, they didn't plan to abandon the sector.
Concerning the Agfa b/w films, I haven't heard anything about their redemption.
Here and there you can find some left over rolls, most of them expiring next year, so that's it.
Unlike Ilford (or Kodak) Agfa's b/w films never had as strong community of devoted fans, number wise. I guess Agfa was selling most of its b/w film to institutions of the government, eg museums, archives, archaeologists, schools and such. Most b/w photographers I know use(d) Kodak or Ilford. With paper it was different, as a lot of photographers and printers preferred Agfa paper.
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> How much did Foma take German Tech, am guessing the East Germans opened up everything they could in formulae-- I know the Czechs loved to appropriate German technology, what do you know about them? Efke? is the Orwo factory making anything now?
The core of original Agfa plant at Wolfen is now a museum and nothing is produced there since about 1995.
To all interested in the manufacture of photographic film and paper, the museum is worthwhile to visit. It's best to take a guided tour, so you can see all the old machinery and you'll get first hand information about it. They told us, that ORWO had some machinery from 1914 in use until the production ceased in 1994!
Efke is a Croatian company which uses Adox patents and machinery among others to make their films.
I doubt that they're reproducing the original Adox stuff today, as the speeds of their films are not identical to the original Adox films. I found Efke KB 50 and 100 quite pleasing, though the 50 is rather orthochromatic, whereas the 100 had a really high red sensitivity, so with this film you don't need a yellow filter. Efke KB 25 is almost orthochromatic, and for an ISO 25 film its grain is way too coarse. Haven't shot too much Efke, and that was long ago. So, Efke may have changed meanwhile.
After WWII German patents were released to the world as a part of the compensation for the damages Germany had inflicted on the world. Thus many photographic patents came into possession of other manufacturers, though an Ilford employee who had evaluated the quality of German photographic materials drew the conclusion that English and American films and chemistry had already surpassed German makes by the end of the war. Only Agfa papers were still at least on par.
I don't think that ORWO did open up their formulae voluntarily, it might have been dictated by the socialist party, and they had to share their knowledge.
Besides, Foma may have produced Agfa stuff during the war, as it was out of reach from Allied attacks and bomb raids. Many Czech factories had to produce German goods for that reason, and a lot of know-how was left there.
For instance, before becoming a socialist state, the Czech aviation industry built their variants of Me109 fighter planes for Czech Air Force and even exported a number to Israel in 1948 (who, ironically, fought with them against Egyptian Spitfires!).
