Taiwan B/W – first time using Agfa APX 100 (new emulsion)

Eventually winter is over and summer arrives in Taiwan. I used the first weeks of nice and sunny weather to take more black and white photos with the Olympus 35DC.

The film I used was the Agfa APX 100 b/w film. It is a quite cheap film compared to other b/w films, therefore I was a bit sceptic about the results. However, the photos turned out to be pretty awesome, in my opinion. The images are very fine grained (something I always appreciate), contrast and tonality are perfect to me. They also have a very nice “classic” black and white look. I am very happy with the Agfa APX 100 and will use it more.

I developed the film with slightly old and a bit brownish Kodak D-76 for 9 minutes at 20°C.

Enjoy the photos!

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Roofing tiles of an old house

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One of many small scooter repair shops.

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Cages, cages everywhere. Taiwanese really love to put cages in front of their windows. I am thinking to make a whole series about them.

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Photo was taken against the sun, hope there is something to recognize.

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Zhongxiao East Road and Fuxing South Road intersection in Taipei. I am surprised that the night shot turned out so well.

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Early morning in front of Taipei 101. The tourists are still having breakfast 😉

0 Comments

  1. Great shots! Did you use the original (old stock) AGFA APX100 or the new reproduced one that have new reproduced one (the packages have NEW has written on it) ?
    I never tried the new one, I really like the old one and I´ve still a couple of them in my fridge 😉 . Sometimes it´s just a bit tricky to get the film the the scaning frame cause it is not really plain, especially the 120 roll film version.
    Greets Peter

    1. Hi Peter, it was the new Agfa APX 100. I changed the title of the blog post to avoid confusions 😉 If you still have the old original version, then a direct comparison between both films would be interesting.
      All the best
      Alex

      1. So it looks like they did a good work on the new one!
        Good idea with the APX new vs old stock comparison, maybe I will go for it…
        Greetings from vienna, Peter

  2. I also really like these photos! My favourite is the one shot in the dark. Beautifull contrasts as well. It also shows the high quality of the Olympus-lens! Well done!
    I used APX100 and APX25 for more than 20 years, always developed in Rodinal – a very ‘Classic’ combination.

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