AGFA APX 25.
Gary on Instagram recently acquired a brick of this film and kindly sent me a couple of 120 rolls to try out. It expired in 2003 and I have never shot this film before so I thought I would share my DSLR scanned results with you all.
My first shoot I tried out indoors on a few subjects. I was not sure how to expose for the film so I metered my scene and added 1 stop extra exposure just as a rule of thumb for the age and step on the side of precaution!
For these images I used the Mamiya RZ67 and one simple LED panel for my light source allowing the light to wrap around the subject.
I could not find any information on the MDC for developing this film so I went with my gut and developed in Rodinal 1 part to 25 for 8 mins with 10s inversions every minute.
I was really impressed with the tonal range of this film.
I guess you are wondering why there is a seascape on this roll! Well, that was my initial intention but it was bitterly cold and windy at the beach with sand blowing all over me that I could not stay there. I took this one shot and headed home for the Garlic!
After a few days I took the second roll out to photograph a Pier 20 mins from where I live. I decided to shoot the film at it’s rated speed this time as I felt it could handle it and that the age had no effect. Again, with the Mamiya RZ.
This time I chose the same development except I knocked a minute off the time and developed it for 7 mins.
This shoot was early in the morning and another bitterly cold day! My hands were so cold and to make things worse my tripod head lost tension due to a corroded nut and so I had to keep my hands on the tripod at all times which was colder than my hands. This proved to be very tricky as every time I touched the camera I could not feel the buttons as my hands were so numb. I few times I accidentally pressed the shutter button!
Again, this film did not disappoint at all.
I would love to shoot this film again in more comfortable situations but it’s pretty hard to come by online without paying through the nose for it. I believe Gary had a result. But if you ever come across it it’s worth giving it a shoot.
