To be honest, I have the feeling that the current version of the Agfa APX films is not the same quality that I was accustomed to, until a few years ago. I am not talking about the AgfaPan, which was a different story, but of the APX thing. I don’t know, it used to be more forgiving, you could’ve almost chat with this film and convince it of your good intentions. The grain was pretty not there, although it had its moments when the grain was really noticeable. But the skin tones were magnificent, the latitude really forgiving, and entirely “shootable” without serious issues.
Not anymore. My results for this new APX version are either very good, or very bad, no in-between. I do not believe it’s me, I mean not only me, with my amateur approach to processing and such. I used to have great results with this film, so why not anymore. What bothers me the most is the grain, which seems to be boulder-size most of the time. I haven’t change a thing, so why this difference?
Here, 3 frames shot with Minox 8×11 camera, with the old APX version (at some point during the 2011-2012).
