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Agfa Gevaert type 561

1/24/2019

4 Comments

 
Picture
In 2016 i bought 4 cans of Agfa Gevaert type 561 film. Only one can is sealed while the other three where opened and contained bits and ends of (presumably) the same type of film. That year I did some tests with it but not a lot. The test shots where...well... not quite good. I didn't know the ISO of the film nor how long to develop for and with which developer to use. Google wasn't my friend as it turned out when I was searching for more info on this film. But since it stated on the cans that it was a copy film i figured the ISO would be low. Below photo's are my first tests. I tried different ISO's and developping it in HC110 for 9 minutes. That was not good enough. These test showed me that the ISO should be below 10.
Fast forward a couple of years. I wasn't disappointed in the film but i didn't know what to do with it so i left it. This year I decided to give it another try. One can of film contained heavily fogged film. Which i blamed mostly myself for it when the lid came of while not in a darkroom. One can was and is sealed so i know that most be good. I hope because i haven't tested that film. The other remaining cans contain film the has little to no fog. So that can be used in a camera to shoot photo's with. I would recommend shooting it in high summer. Iso 6 is a challenge in the winter. Below photo's were shot on ISO 8 and developped for 12 minutes in HC110 solution B. Next time I wil be shooting at ISO 6 and developping it for 16 minutes. That will give me negatives with decent density.
As you can see my results look better then those from 2016. It is promising to me. But what does the film and the negatives look like? On below photo's you can see the film has a white emulsion. Just like paper. Some folks thought it was just white leader film for cinema film. But it is not. The test film was ok, sort of ok and just plain sh*t. That is the roll you see me holding on broad....tl-light. In the middle photo you can see that the bottom strip of negatives look best in the sense of no fog. However exposure and development are both way off. The middle strip looks usable while the top strip....
The last photo show the good white strip of film. The yellow one is of no use. Next to it a strip of film partially developped and then completely fixed.
The only thing i haven't tried was the film true purpose: Copying film! That is what i did today. In complete darkness I made a contactprint of a strip of negatives. i put it under an enlarger in complete darkness to see what I would get. I was geussing slides and yes I got slides! next thing i have to do put it in a projector. But for now here are the results of today:
Picture
4 Comments
Adam link
2/12/2019 07:57:45 pm

Just picked up some of this myself and am just starting some testing. A tidbit or two to share.

My example may be ca 1980 or so and has appreciable fog if developed at room temps so I’ve tried developing in refrigerated water while exposing the film between ISO 1-2 and it works much better to cut the fog. I use HC-110 at a 1:63 concentration.

I’ve only done some bracket tests so far but hope to have more to share very soon. Looks like this could be a fun film!

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Peter
2/13/2019 01:19:57 pm

Hi Adam,

Thanks for your thoughts. I have te say I only have one smal bit that has a noticable fog. The other part is remarkably clear. I have no idea from what year the film is. I have to check the unopened can of film. If that is good as wel i might sell some to others that are interested.

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Adam link
2/14/2019 06:17:33 am

I did my first test shots with this film and am quite pleased with what I got using an ISO of 1.5 and cold development techniques. If you get a chance, feel free to check out the album link below for some samples - the tonality is quite good as is the grain.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/v9N68r44S5DSPycZ7

Developed in 1:63 HC-110 Cold for 30 minutes with a single agitation.

Reply
Peter
2/14/2019 11:47:25 am

That looks pretty decent! Really nice.

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