This is one of the last shots I ever did with my all-time favorite film: Agfa Ultra. Of course it died from neglect. Actually the whole company died… it went bankrupt several years ago… one more victim of the digital tidal wave. I had heard rumors of the film’s demise, but the company’s techies told me not to worry, that it was here to stay. Soon after, it was discontinued and I was ripping my hair out trying to find any remaining scraps of this treasured film.
Agfa Ultra gave me fantastic colors outside at night - I rarely needed to bring my own lights. The film I use today is Kodak Ultra (ultra, again, for ultra color), which also gives me strong vibrant colors, but it doesn’t see some of the colors Agfa did in the city lights. Instead, today I need to bring my own lights and gels (filters for lights) to round out the spectrum.
A few years ago I called Kodak to see if Kodak Ultra was on the endangered list. A techie told me not to worry, that it was here to stay. I freaked out - I’d heard these words before!! I immediately started hording the film, buying enough to last me more than ten years. Soon after, the film disapeared and will never be seen again…
(except in my freezer! in a sinister voice: HAHAHAHAHAHA!!)
Batman and Agfa-robin (2001, Toronto)
2 responses so far ↓
1 pieter // Jun 12, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Not the ‘whole’ company died…..
2 X // Jun 12, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Yes thats true… I think what happened was Agfa sold its consumer imaging division (the film and camera part of Agfa that most of us used) to an Agfa subsidiary, which then went bankrupt a year later.
I learned something interesting today. Huge rolls of Agfa Ultra still exist in a warehouse. They need to be cut down to fit cameras, and there’s a (German?) company that wants to buy this raw film stock to cut and sell. Maybe the Ultra will make one final brief appearance!
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