Resurrection of some former Agfa products

[Daniel_OB]

As Kodak is out of the game (or shakes its legs), hope there are spece for all ilford, Fuji, and Adox Fotoimpex on the market, and that ilford will stay nearly unaffected. Good luck to all.

www.Leica-R.com

[braxus]

I assume the above comment is in regards to Kodak's B&W papers, but they still are making the films for as long as I can see for now.

[sienarot]

We have to see how high postage costs will be (varies from country to country) but it may well be that our advertisement budget has room for some more stamps. So feel free to continue to add to the list.

Thanks for the update, Mirko! If need be, I have no problems paying for postage.

[Andrew O'Neill]

I sent an email, too!

[rusty71]

Well. I sure hope AGFA MCC and even the resin coated stuff will make a comeback. Since the recent demise of Forte, we need a good warmtone fiber paper. Now the film I'm not so sure about. If we could get Agfapan 100 and 25 back it would be worth it. But just another 100 speed or even 400 speed emulsion would only fragment the market even more. Ilford, Efke, Foma and even Kodak are still big players in the B&W film market. Each has their niche....Kodak for Tri-X, TMAX and its wide distribution network. Ilford for their versatile and complete line of film. FOMA because it's cheap. Efke because they have some truly unique emulsions.That's about all we need for now, unless something really unique and useful comes along.

[leicam5]

When I 'worked' in a darkroom for the first time, I was then 16 years old (1974), it was to develop a AGFA-GEVAERT Agfapan 400 film in Rodinal.
I continued doing so, without mentioning the side steps and its incidental disillusionments, till the demise of AGFAPHOTO. Then I turned towards ILFORD (not bad at all!), but I still do hanker for the Agfa products. This is not out of conservatism, but Agfa (-Gevaert) got into my fingers after all these years...
Needless to tell you how happy I am to hear that Agfa is resurrecting!
So please do count me in for a sample (and as a client in the future)...

Good luck,
Philippe

[Fotohuis]

The problem with all those new attempts to reach the old material qualifications is that it's impossible to reproduce the same photo paper and film on another coating line.
So a lot of product specific parameters are going to be lost.

Further the economic profitability for each square meter photo paper is at least 5 times less effective than the same amount of film production.
One of the reasons putting a new paper on the market is not without any risk.

Just a matter of time what is going to happen in the future but all is depending on a more or less stable (niche) market.

[ijsbeer]

e-mail sent.

THanx Adox

[Harrigan]

What we like about Agfa MCC 111:

-- The slightly warm emulsion tones in the midrange.

-- The inky blacks.

-- The range and smooth tone transitions in highlights and lighter midtones -- perfect for printing facial skintones in portraiture.

--The reliable consistency and quality of the emulsion.

-- It dries flat. (A HUGE plus for the paper.)

-- The color of the paper base. It would be okay if it were a bit whiter, but not so white as to verge on blue.

What we don't like:

-- The finish could be a little less glossy.

[Sorry, it's a short list of dislikes. :-) ]

No one has mentioned Agfa MCC 118. I LOVED this paper's color and emulsion, but never used it for one big reason: I hated the pebbly texture. If you could find a way to resurrect MCC 118 with a typical dull/gloss finish, I would buy thousands of sheets of the stuff.

Sanders McNew

I would add the MC III is very versatile paper easily and readily exploiting the different properties of the many paper developer and toner combinations. I can easily get anything from warm to cold and inbetween by varying the paper developer toner combo.

Also it was the most consistent emulsion I have ever used. Variance from box to box was nill. I've had ilford wt vary by as much as 2 full steps in contrast box to box while the agfa III was right on the money.

I prefer the good gloss for landscapes.

I also love the inky blacks being black and not brown black like most wt papers.

[ADOX Fotoimpex]

The problem with all those new attempts to reach the old material qualifications is that it's impossible to reproduce the same photo paper and film on another coating line.
So a lot of product specific parameters are going to be lost.

As far as MCC is concerned using a different coating line really isn´t the problem. If at all the problem lies in the precipitation and the raw ingredients but we solved most of that and the rest is beeing solved these days.
This is why it is so important that we are using the exact same precipitation vessels, controling software and run protocols.
Agfa itself has used several different coating lines for making MCC in the past years before shutdown but they alwas made the emulsions in Leverkusen and shipped them to the respective coating destination (just like we are doing now).

The problems in coating do exist, I don´t want to put them asside, but they are solvable. It is a matter of adjusting the emulsions to the parameters of the coating line and every skilled emulsionist or coating engineer will confirm that it is a question of a few more or less runs in order to get the process adapted (e.g. adjusting the viscosity of the emulsions to the speed of the line and the temperature of the stiffing section and to choose the right parameters on the controler of the drying section).

We are doing exactly this at the moment on the test coating line. If we hit it right on the spot in the first run the samples will be ready by the end of next week. If not we need to make a few more runs until the process is properly bedded in.

If anyone out there should really be in doubt about the comparability or the quality of the paper he or she is welcome to participate in the testing together with the others.
After all this is why we do all this. To show what can be done in a micro factory and to get feedback.
Except for "half-scientific" tests (e.g. if the paper harmonizes with a certain lith developer or developer and toner combination etc.) we are 100% on Agfa´s old specs acording to all of Agfa´s old standard protocols.

News:

The width of the small coater is 24 cm including coating edge. We decided to cut the samples INCLUDING the coating edge to 24x25,4 cm (X by 10 Inch) in order to make the sample confectioning easier.
The usable size will be just above 8x10 Inch because towards the edge the quality will fall off and eventually there will be just a track of white paper base left and right.

Have fun with the samples- everyone who applied sofar is counted in.

Best regards,

Mirko