Agfa insolvency - latest news

[Roman]

Just found these two German links on another forum:

http://www.gfw.de/newsticker/detail.html?id=15892

http://www.rp-online.de/public/article/nachrichten/wirtschaft/unternehmen/deutschland/108562

As many of you know, Agfa Photo has gone into insolvency a few months ago - now there are 2 different potential buyers for the company (Oct. 11th is the deadline for a decision about the future of Agfa Photo):

One is Agfa manager Jörg Hebenstreit (and a group of investors) who is mainly interested in the minilab part of the business.

The other is British company Photo-Me, who runs a chain of passport-picture automats, and is interested in the (color) paper and chemistry part of Agfa.

Both offers would mean a reduction of the workforce from 1800 to 4-500, and none would be really interested in B&W chemistry, paper and films - does not sound too good... 🙁

Roman

 

[Solinar]

....... I agree.

APX 100 has already been discontinued in 120. Oh well. So long to an old friend. Cross your fingers.

 

[TimF]

I was sad to see one of my faves, Scala, has been discontinued, apparently due to the cost of the chemistry needed for developing.

 

[eric]

....... I agree.

APX 100 has already been discontinued in 120. Oh well. So long to an old friend. Cross your fingers.

I've got about 20 more rolls of APX100 in 120. Dang that was good. 1:100 in Rodinol or the standard PMK.

Oh well, there's Efke 100, Delta 100, and some other stuff from JandC that I can try out.

 

[Roman]

For a film very similar-looking to APX100, try Fomapan 100 (available from JandC), which also works well in Rodinal (better stock up on that one, too...)

Roman

 

[eric]

For a film very similar-looking to APX100, try Fomapan 100 (available from JandC), which also works well in Rodinal (better stock up on that one, too...)

Roman

APX was so dang cheap though. I've been using JandC Pro 100 with PMK with very good results. However, I have older batches that seemed to have pinhole problems. After I use it all, I'll get more of it. It does curl a little bit but that's not so bad.

JandC Pro 100, PMK 1:2:100

 

[TPPhotog]

As it's been coming for a while I'm stocked up on Rodinal and there are plenty of recipes on the net for making your own Rodinal. There again I've been using ID-11 for the past few weeks for quite a lot of my work again.

 

[dcsang]

Sounds like I better make a run on APX100 (which became my fave 100 film with Rodinal).

Ya know.. part of me wants to rail against all things digital but then I think that most of the world is already there and not wanting to look back.. 🙁

Feeling nostalgic and blue,
Dave

 

[Toby]

Agfa was always the weakest buffalo in the herd...

 

[VinceC]

A shame.

I learned to soup film in the early 1980s using Afga 100 and 400 B&W film and Rodinol. I was never able to duplicate the results with Tri-X, HP5 or TMax. And in the late 1980s they made a really interesting black-and-white slide film with an ISO speed of 6 or 12. I used it to make archive copies of all my prints because I didn't want to be bothered with figuring out color-balance.

 

[Mark Wood]

Such sad news about Agfa, lets hope a recovery is viable (it's early days but hopefully Ilford's rescue will also be successful). I've got very fond memories of CT-18 slide film which was always more grainy than Kodachrome but had a lovely colour rendition, certainly for its day.
I assume the "interesting" B&W slide film VinceC mentioned is "Dia Direct," the predecessor of Scala. One mystery I've always wanted to solve was why Agfa dropped the speed of this film from ISO 32 to 12 in its later days? (Perhaps it was just getting slower in its old age...)

 

[jrong]

Really devastating news, Scala is one of my all-time favourite films...
whoever says the digital revolution is all about "extending choice" will get a kick in the rear from me. 🙁 No idea why Agfa are keeping their colour print films, they've never been able to compete with the likes of Fuji et al in that department.

Jin

 

[Toby]

Really devastating news, Scala is one of my all-time favourite films...
whoever says the digital revolution is all about "extending choice" will get a kick in the rear from me. 🙁 No idea why Agfa are keeping their colour print films, they've never been able to compete with the likes of Fuji et al in that department.

Jin

It may be they make other peoples own brand or "free" film so it's a bigger part of the business than you think

 

[Roman]

Also, I don't know about the UK, but in the consumer/non-pro market, as far as I can see from what's on display at stores, Agfa Vista seems to be at least as popular as Fuji Superia, and both are found more often than Kodak Farbwelt (don't know what the equivalent of that is in the English speaking world).
I have always liked Vista best when it came to an inexpensive film for holiday snaps (that's pretty much the only thing I used color for) - warmer more pleasing colors (esp. for skin-tones), less greenish tint than Superia, and not as cartoonish-garish as Kodak Farbwelt; but of course this also depends on the lab that does the printing...

Roman

 

[Mark Wood]

I was always of the opinion that a lot of the supermarket etc. branded films in the UK were made by Agfa. One distinguishing feature of Agfa films was (is?) the tough black plastic film tubs and many of these OEM films seem to have them. (Jessops for example.) Boots' own slide film also came back in Agfa CS mounts which strongly hinted at their origin. It was only recently that I found out that some of this re-badged film originates in Italy (3M/Ferrania?) so my original assumption may have been wrong. It would be interesting to know what share of this market Agfa actually have.
I've always (perhaps wrongly) kept away from Agfa colour print fims since their first disastrous attempt to produce a C41 compatible film in the early 1980s (Agfacolour 100 anyone?!?), always feeling that they were a generation in technology behind Fuji/Kodak. Their B&W and colour slide films were always a different story.

 

[mattg]

Any news on the B+W paper business? I love the Agfa multicontast papers.

 

[Kin Lau]

Sounds like I better make a run on APX100 (which became my fave 100 film with Rodinal).

Over the last month I bought 3 bulk rolls + 25 120 rolls of APX100. Good for a couple of years I guess.

 

[StuartR]

All of you Scala fans should try dr5 (www.dr5.com), they make reversals from almost any black and white film. And you can choose sepia tone or normal. The results are really awesome. It has been particularly good for me using Delta 100 shot at iso 80. Check out the website -- they have all sorts of samples.

 

[Scarpia]

I was always of the opinion that a lot of the supermarket etc. branded films in the UK were made by Agfa. One distinguishing feature of Agfa films was (is?) the tough black plastic film tubs and many of these OEM films seem to have them. (Jessops for example.) Boots' own slide film also came back in Agfa CS mounts which strongly hinted at their origin. It was only recently that I found out that some of this re-badged film originates in Italy (3M/Ferrania?) so my original assumption may have been wrong. It would be interesting to know what share of this market Agfa actually have.

Here in the States Wal-Mart's private brand film labeled "Polaroid" is made in Germany by Agfa. There seems to be less of it in the stores than last year and they are selling a 12 exposure roll for 77 cents. It is available in 200 and 400 ISO speeds. I regularly use the 200 with good results. A four-pack of 24 exposure rolls goes for $4.88 as of last week.
Kurt M.