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Photography Products I Have Loved

I decided to put together a list of my favorite traditional film products while they are still available.

Agfa Products

Agfa has a long and interesting history in the photo finishing world which ended a month ago. Their films have a really beautiful palette that is somewhat similar to old technicolor films. Some of their assets were sold to Photo-Me but the good stuff is probably gone.

I first used Agfa Ultra50 to document the wild flowers in my backyard. If there was LSD for your camera, this film would be it.

Agfa Portrait 160 Color film is a really wonderful way to make everyone look like Kim Novak. You know in that scene from Vertigo in the redwoods, in the vintage Dior. But seriously, I think my last school picture was taken on this film stock.

Agfa Scala is to my knowledge the only mass produced b/w slide film. It has to be sent to special labs and only a few places can still process it, most of which are in the US. You cannot get this film processed in Canada.

Ilford

When I was in highschool and working in the darkroom everyday for three hours, my film of choice was something by Ilford. They only made black and white film but they did it well. At one point they did produce a color film, but I have found very little information about it. They have survived the digital revolution by making high quality inkjet papers.

XP2 was the first chromogenic film that I ever used. It is essentially color film that has no color in it. It is designed to be taken to typical photo places and be run through a standard c41 machine. The film had some issues and if the person running the mini lab did a bad job your pics would come out a weird color.

Other

Liquid Light is fun, you just paint it on stuff and then print with it. I once developed a photograph on my hand.

Kodak

I cut my teeth on this film. I loved it. I can’t say how many rolls of this film I shot in the mountains,in Florida, or at St Gauden’s but it was quite a few. Some of my best highschool photography was done with this film stock before I switched to Ilford.

Photo Products I Never Used

There are products that people loved and used to talk about a lot but that I never used or never really liked.

Fuji

Fuji Velvia or I as I always called it in my head “velveeta” is a slide film that I think everyone loved. My friend Anthony’s fuji digital camera even has a setting for it. I never used it, hated how it looked online and pretty much ignored it.

Kodak

I see your true colors.

I remember when Kodak came out with this film, it was “versatility max.” Yes the 800 speed film you could use on a sunny day. I hated the idea of using grainy 800 speed film in my camera.

I don’t think I ever used this film, it is a pretty standard photography class film but I think I always used TMAX

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