Iso 25 B/W film

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A couple of years ago, I heard about ISO 25 B/W film (I believe from AGFA?) . I've been meaning to try it, but have had little luck in finding it. I'm sure I could use Agfa's page to locate a supplier, but first I'd like to ask others out there if they have tried it and what their comments are on this film.

-- Anonymous, April 15, 1997

Answers

I tried it, shooting about 200 sheets of 4x5. I intermixed the exposures with TMax 100 on the same subjects. I stuck with the TMax 100. Its only a personal taste thing, but I like the reciprocity characteristics of the Tmax and the ability to fine tune contrast seemed better with it also. I couldn't tell any real difference in sharpness to 20x24 although the TMax seemed to have a bit crisper feel to it-for me at least.

-- Anonymous, April 15, 1997

Agfa Pan 25

I have been using Agfa Pan 25 in 35mm for the past ten years and I have found it to be a very sharp fine grained film. I develop it for 7 minutes in Rodinol. Dilution of 1:50. I presoak the film for 1 minute priot to developing.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 1997

My experience with AGFA's 25 ASA film is limited to 120 film (medium format). For portraiture, I find it too sharp, it shows every imperfection of the skin. For landscape and architecture, it is my favorite; beautiful and subtle grey tones and increadibly fine grain, unsurpassed by any other B/W film. However, it does not come off well with high contrast subjects, then other films are probably better. I use Ilford's Delta 100 as an all purpose film, in particular for high contrast subjects. After trying a number of developers, I settled with Ilford's ID 11, although other developers are also fine. Paterson's FX 39 is only slightly better (hardly noticeable), but a great deal more expensive than ID 11.

-- Anonymous, December 13, 1997

In terms of resolution (line pairs per mm), APX-25 significantly out-performs Ilford Pan-F, as well as the various ISO-100 films. Under optimum conditions, I get almost 40% higher resolution with it than with Pan-F (up to 125 lpm with my two best MF lenses). Probably not as good as tech pan, but (imho) it has better tonality not to mention being lots cheaper.

The earlier comments about it being bad for portraits is true; I think the picture my wife hates most is one I took of her with APX-25 and an original Rolleiflex -- she claims you can see the remains of every blemish she's had since she turned 13. OTOH, for landscapes it makes a 2x3 field camera almost rival a 4x5.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 1997


Re: 25 ISO films

I have only been into B&W photography for two years now and all along the way I have been striving for the finest grain possible. I found it with Kodak Tech Pan film. It's got great diversity; for example...you can expose it at 200 ISO (instead of the actual 25 ISO) and then develop it with regular Dektol developer for 2 er 3 minutes and get some really striking extremely high contrast negatives. Also, the film has some sort of extended red sensitivity which somehow contributes to it's great portrait applications, especially when developed with Technidol Liquid Developer (also by Kodak). I suggest experimenting with a couple individual rolls before getting any large amounts though. I bought a 150 ft bulk roll of the 35mm and it ran me about $70. I think it was worth it though. Please let me know what happens if you decide to use it!

-- Anonymous, December 21, 1997


I use Agfapan APX 25, it has beautiful tone, but not as fine grain as Kodak Technical Pan. Technical Pan also has much higher resolution.

-- Anonymous, December 18, 1998

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