I don't know where you got this bit of ill-informed information, but I have used Agfa sheet film in 4x5 and 8x10 for years, and stiil have some. Not only APX-100, but also 8x10 color transparency. I believe APX-400 was also available in sheet film. By proper exposure and development you can get top-notch results from the now discontinued Agfa APX-100 in sheet film sizes. At one time Agfa also made some other "specialty" sheet films.
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I don't know where you got this bit of ill-informed information, but I have used Agfa sheet film in 4x5 and 8x10 for years, and stiil have some. Not only APX-100, but also 8x10 color transparency. I believe APX-400 was also available in sheet film. By proper exposure and development you can get top-notch results from the now discontinued Agfa APX-100 in sheet film sizes. At one time Agfa also made some other "specialty" sheet films.
Ay you beat me with two times. I have yet to set my foot in a "Community darkroom" for the first time. The Photoclub I used to frequent didn't have a darkroom, The cource I attended did but I avoided it like the plaque back then. I'm about to set up my "second" darkroom in a hopefully not to far future (planing it now) and I'd like it to be a permanent one.
Cheers
Søren
I built my own darkroom from scratch by reading Kodak pamphlets at the age of about 12 or so. Except for military darkrooms or the Kodak Camera Club darkroom where I taught, I never had to use a community darkroom.
I have loads of 4x5 Agfa transparencies here. Yep, they made sheet film. Sure did, for years.
PE
I have loads of 4x5 Agfa transparencies here. Yep, they made sheet film. Sure did, for years.
PE
Ole
Moderator
I'm still using Agfa sheet film - a freezer-full of APX100 in 6.5x9cm, 9x12cm, 4x5" and 13x18cm.
If it wasn't bad management, then why are their plants being demolished? You could write a book about all that happened at Agfa, but you can point your finger at bad management during every stage of the process. Of course it is easier to see what went wrong, now that it's all over...
"At one time", "were", etc.
I never stated that Agfa did not manufacture sheet film. But they have not been involved in its manufacture in any way that would affect Forte for some time.
Agfa hasn't manufactured 8x10 film for the APX line since the summer of 2000 and have not manufactured 4x5 film for the same since the end of 2002 or early 2003. I don't think any retailer has had Agfa sheet film since early 2004.
So Agfa is not a present-day competitor for Forte where sheet films are concerned.
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How exactly would German labor laws have entitled them to dowsnize their labor force without large costs as their core market declined? Bad management doesn't enter into that equation...and management can't change that. Goldman Sachs was enlisted to find a buyer for Agfa film operations before AgfaPhoto was launched (and Agfa MUST have been serious about this, btw, because using Goldman Sachs in a consultation capacity is pricey) and these laws stymied them.
Maybe it was bad management, but I have yet to see any concrete evidence of that.
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I think we can consider you the exception rather than the rule
I still maintain my view that most people doing analog B&W have their first darkroom experiences in these places. And that the disappearance of such facilities bodes poorly.
I never stated that Agfa did not manufacture sheet films, merely that they have not done so for a time and have not been a direct competitor of Forte in this market for a couple years.
I spent about 25 hours in a college darkroom(a 10 week evening course x 2.5hrs per week) before building mine but decided to do so after about the first 2hours.
The issue is less about the time needed to turn the prospective hobbyist on and more about being able to find the space to build the darkroom courtesy of understanding parents, partners, housemates etc.
My course started with 20 students and ended with 20 students. Dropout rate was zero. There aren't many evening courses with that kind of a dropout rate!
The key is colleges and camera clubs maintaining their facilities. A digression I know from the main thread but being in a darkroom is powerful magic.
pentaxuser
The issue is less about the time needed to turn the prospective hobbyist on and more about being able to find the space to build the darkroom courtesy of understanding parents, partners, housemates etc.
My course started with 20 students and ended with 20 students. Dropout rate was zero. There aren't many evening courses with that kind of a dropout rate!
The key is colleges and camera clubs maintaining their facilities. A digression I know from the main thread but being in a darkroom is powerful magic.
pentaxuser
I think we can consider you the exception rather than the rule
I still maintain my view that most people doing analog B&W have their first darkroom experiences in these places. And that the disappearance of such facilities bodes poorly.
I never stated that Agfa did not manufacture sheet films, merely that they have not done so for a time and have not been a direct competitor of Forte in this market for a couple years.
First off, in the strictest sense, Agfa has not been a competitor to anyone for about 3 years or so. So the phrasing is rather moot. They did manufacture sheet films until near the end, when the market dictated that they exit that area. That was a good move by (poor?) management.
As to my being the exception. Well, at 12, I was hardly an exceptional person and if I could do it from scratch then, anyone could. I was totally all thumbs, and broke a hammer, in fact I broke several. I split a screwdriver handle using it as a chisel. I could go on, but the point is that anyone, with a little reading can design a darkroom from scratch.
BTW, I first did processing kneeling on the floor in the kitchen with 3 soup bowls for chemicals and I did the film by the old hand dunking method using clips at each end of a roll.
Back then, they didn't have plastic trays, and SS trays were out of sight for price. I bought aluminum, and the fixer and developer ate through my first set of trays and left a mess on the kitchen floor. This was after I had enough money to buy trays and graduated from soup bowls to 'real' trays. How I lamented the loss of the trays and how I learned not to use aluminum for photography. One of my uncles took pity on me and finally bought me a photo kit.
Oh, I could write a book.
But then I might.
PE
German labor law is often cited as a major problem for employers, but I don't agree with that perception. You can downsize a company if you do it properly. You may have to talk to the Federal Employment Office, and you will have to talk to the staff association about the details, but in the end they have to accept the facts about your shrinking business and the need to reduce the work force, in order to save the company.
In fact, all changes to labor laws during the last 20 years have been employer-friendly, at the employers request (employers always seem to be whining about labor laws), but the changes didn't have a noticable effect on the unemployment, i.e. unemployment became worse all the time.
Interesting note by Pentaxuser.
Our college chemistry course started with 100 students. Our intstuctors told us that most would drop out. At graduation, we graduated 10.
PE
Our college chemistry course started with 100 students. Our intstuctors told us that most would drop out. At graduation, we graduated 10.
PE
If you write that book, you can sign me up for a pre-order!
I do all my film processing at home which is an apartment with, sadly, a very small bathroom (6 x 7 feet - including the bathtub). This makes wet printing in a home darkroom pretty much impractical.
Worse yet, it's drafty. It takes about 45 minutes to seal up the bathroom to make it light tight using blackout cloth, duct tape (the so-called "200 mph tape" they use in NASCAR races to hold together bodywork after accidents), and various jury-rigged anchors. Nature really does abhor the slightest vaccum.
If all goes well, on a dead-calm day, I have about 90 minutes to do what I need to do for my sheet film before the light seal gives way. If there is even the slightest breeze - forget about it. And one time somebody pulled a fire alarm in my building (false alarm) about 2 minutes after I switched off the lights...
Even overcoming all that - I still can't wet print as I would be violating local ordinances about waste disposal. I'm fortunate to have a friend working in the facilities department of a local University who has the means to dispose of my used fixer. But that's only for film and that's a whole lot less than what would be produced for wet printing purposes.
Sometimes the community darkroom really is a necessity.
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No doubt, employers are also whining about their workers!
But, even in the USA press, mention was made of Agfa going to the "Bundesagentur für Arbeit" to obtain permission for layoffs. And I believe they were allowed to make some layoffs in the first half of 2002.
After that, however, their further appeals were declined and they were encourage to seek a buyer for the unit.
The Agfa saga actually has a chapter in a book on corporate restructuring:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/g40u4t368n07n42l/
SAP AG also appealed to the FEO in late 2002 to layoff some of their staff. They were also denied permission. But it seems to me that SAP was just undergoing a cyclical downturn while Agfa had encountered a problem not destined to get better.
The restructuring was a great failure, and I don't think it was due to problems with layoffs. There are maybe a dozen companies named something with Agfa and it is close to impossible to understand who owns what of the Agfa assets and who has what kind of stake in whom. The construction of this enterprise just failed miserably, and is certainly not a good example of restructuring a business, especially not one in a changing market.
Agfa is, as you said, a very complicated animal and a multi-national one.
It takes the utmost flexibility to save an operation when their core business is in decline. Most restructurings seem to be followed with...another restructuring. It all comes down to answering the question - what could you have done differently? I don't know the answer.
As to what did in AgfaPhoto after it was formed - well, you will need to talk to Hartmut Emans. Somehow both Hartmut and his investors - who owned AgfaPhoto outright - were not required to part with any money when the 2,400 workers were laid off.
It was a large and sad mess.
It takes the utmost flexibility to save an operation when their core business is in decline. Most restructurings seem to be followed with...another restructuring. It all comes down to answering the question - what could you have done differently? I don't know the answer.
As to what did in AgfaPhoto after it was formed - well, you will need to talk to Hartmut Emans. Somehow both Hartmut and his investors - who owned AgfaPhoto outright - were not required to part with any money when the 2,400 workers were laid off.
It was a large and sad mess.
I started out developing in about 1963 or 1964 with a very basic Yankee Home Developing outfit, which had a plastic one reel adjustable tank, a graduate, a small thermometer and possibly a cheap contact printing frame. I made contact prints on Kodak Velox contact paper from my medium-format box-camera negatives. Quickly advanced to a simple Bogen enlarger, and a 35mm camera. I do remember also over the years doing the "see-saw" processing of odd-size roll films in a tray of developer in the dark. Oh, the yankee "kit" came with three 5x7 size color coded plastic print trays, and there may have been a wind-up timer also. I remember one year in there, my father giving me a whole box of 120 roll film as a gift. It was Gevart and a local discount store had it for 19 cents a roll. Ah, those were the days.
I began developing in 1968 by learning from books and magazine articles.
I entered a community darkroom for the first time in my life in the summer of 2006 when I visited the new photography department of a nearby university. I've still never developed a negative nor made a print in a community darkroom.
As for the future of film, I see the students at this university very interested in film, wet prints and alt processes. They seem to regard digital as snapshot photography.
juan
I entered a community darkroom for the first time in my life in the summer of 2006 when I visited the new photography department of a nearby university. I've still never developed a negative nor made a print in a community darkroom.
As for the future of film, I see the students at this university very interested in film, wet prints and alt processes. They seem to regard digital as snapshot photography.
juan
Well, the students I see at NESOP have the attitude: "Don't worry, you can fix it in Photoshop"
On Photo Net, one person who has left APUG is claiming that Sean closed this thread. So, what are we all doing here? 
PE
PE
David A. Goldfarb
Moderator
On Photo Net, one person who has left APUG is claiming that Sean closed this thread. So, what are we all doing here?
PE
Clearly, the computer has gone mad and tied Sean to a chair in the Star Chamber and is deciding on its own what threads to censor and what members to ban and generally how to put an end to freedom of speech, religion, and the American way and universal gun ownership.
TheFlyingCamera
Membership Council
And don't forget those lesbians who are creating global warming!
Bruce Osgood
Membership Council
The British Journal weighs in...
http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=431015
I don't know if this went to press before or after the most recent article that described the proposal from Bergger and FilmoTec, but the prognosis certainly is bleak.
Yes, it looks like the investors are going to sell off the land. And if they aren't - then they aren't answering the phones to deny it. Just for yucks, I tried dialing the main contact number (and, yes, I do know how to dial international numbers...) a moment before typing this (it's about 8:39 a.m. local time there) and it is indeed disconnected.
http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=431015
I don't know if this went to press before or after the most recent article that described the proposal from Bergger and FilmoTec, but the prognosis certainly is bleak.
Yes, it looks like the investors are going to sell off the land. And if they aren't - then they aren't answering the phones to deny it. Just for yucks, I tried dialing the main contact number (and, yes, I do know how to dial international numbers...) a moment before typing this (it's about 8:39 a.m. local time there) and it is indeed disconnected.
In case anybody has any doubts, you can attempt to reach Forte using the contact information available at:
Dead Link Removed
You will note that the three names under sales are exactly the three names undersigning the email posted by uraniumnitrate.
So if anybody with a command of "Magyar" wants to make a go of it...
Dead Link Removed
You will note that the three names under sales are exactly the three names undersigning the email posted by uraniumnitrate.
So if anybody with a command of "Magyar" wants to make a go of it...
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