First test of Agfa Portrait XPS 160 (expired in 2005)

volver · Nov 17, 2015

I've recently bought 100ft can of Agfa Portrait XPS 160 (expired in 2005). As it was told by seller, film was frozen since purchase.
Made some family test shots today and developed in Fuji C-41 chemistry at home (NQ1RS C-41 developer, but bleach and fix from Rollei / Macodirect).

Shots made @80 ISO on Nikon 35ti P&S camera. It could be easily 100 ISO, but weather was heavy overcast.

No color correction, only framing.

pentaxuser · Nov 17, 2015

It looks as if it was a good purchase. I thought that Agfa had a very pleasing colour signature. I hope you like its look

pentaxuser

volver · Nov 18, 2015

Thanks, pentaxuser

EdSawyer · Nov 18, 2015

Looks good! Agfa portrait always had nice skin tones and quite sharp generally. Not sure if it's the scan but these look about 5-10cc too magenta for me, but that's a minor quibble. ;-)

pentaxuser · Nov 18, 2015

I thought that there was just a shade too much magenta also - maybe not even 5cc but when I let the picture sink to the bottom of my screen by scrolling, the slight magenta tinge in the snow in the first pic seems to disappear or almost. The second pic seems free of any excess magenta.

Is that what you see Ed?

pentaxuser

Patrick Robert James · Nov 18, 2015

I still have a hundred or so rolls of Optima 100-3 that expired around 2006 and it has the magenta cast that your film has, but it is easy to fix in the 'puter. Still great film though. I always loved the colors of Agfa over the others. It still makes me sad to think they disappeared.

AgX · Nov 18, 2015

Yielding "natural colours" was a major advertizing statement by Agfa for decades.

"Agfa tones.
You first notice the flesh tones: Agfa tones. Pure, honest people color.
Agfa - People Color"

Roger Cole · Nov 18, 2015

I'd love to find some that had been frozen. I liked Agfa too and in particular their three saturation levels that allowed choices we don't have today. Ektar is vivid and saturated but not like Ultima 50 was - it was sort of a negative Velvia, maybe even more saturated. When colors needed to pop, it would pop them. Portrait 160 had those green Caucasian flesh tones and muted almost pastel rendering that is great for portraiture and also for giving some scenes a dreamy quality, and Optima 100 was just a really good overall film. I do still have some frozen Optima 100 4x5 (not sure how much I have left) and a few rolls of 220 (!) that I got in a bulk purchase, in my freezer.

First test of Agfa Portrait XPS 160 (expired in 2005)

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