Agfapan 25 in Rodinal Developer - River Ice

Agfapan 25 film has not been manufactured since the 1980's.  Agfa later came out with a "new and improved" version of the film that they called APX-25.  To the best of my knowledge the "new" version was only manufactured in roll formats, and never produced as sheet film.

I found a bunch of the older AP-25 sheet stock available on Ebay years ago, and I bought it, together with my friend Jon.  We split the batch, as it was quite expensive and priced well above what it orginally sold for.  The seller assured us that the film had been properly stored, despite the fact that its expiry date was in 1990.  That was obviously not true as when we received the shipment of film, the boxes all smelled musty and moldy.  A couple of the boxes were open and had been partially used, and those were ruined.  We attempted to use them, but the emulsion had been attacked by the mold and was all blotchy.  But all of the unopened boxes seemed to be fine.  

Here we are over 30 years past the best before date and I'm still using the film, occasionally with spectacular results.

I shot this image in late April of 2021 and just recently processed it.  Exposure was at 32 iso and development was in Rodinal Developer, diluted 1:50.  Agfa no longer is in business so not only are their films no longer manufactured, but their chemistry, including Rodinal Developer, is no longer made either.  Fortunately that formula is an old one, and well known, so some other manufacturer's still produce it, including Adox and Blazes.  Some of the chemicals included in that formula are restricted, despite the minute amounts, and since 9/11 the America Goverment does not allow it to be shipped over the border.  This makes it somewhat difficult to obtain in Canada.  I used the Blazinal version offered by Blazes Photo, which is sometimes available at the retail level in Canada.

This is a detail shot of the Blackstone River along the Forestry Trunk Road.  It is about 30km from my cottage at Nordegg.  I used a 300mm lens to get in tight on this detail and used a dark #29 Red Filter to increase contrast.  That dark filter required significant exposure compensation which resulted in a long 8 second shutter speed.  That nicely blurred the moving water and made the rocks on the bottom of the river more visible.