Re: Agfa Portriga Returns?

[eml@xxxxxxxxx]

> 
> It's strange, I heard they stopped making old Portriga because of the
> cadmium salts. Supposedly these violated Euro-environmental laws passed
> around 1987. No one seems to know. I think the ORWO plant in east germany
> stopped making their Portriga too. It is sold in the U.S. by "Freestyle"
> as Warm-tone paper from Europe. I bought some last year and its selenium
> response sucked as bad as new Portriga.
> 
> Getting a straight answer from AGFA is worse than getting one from Kodak,
> so until one of us buys some and tests we'll probably never know for sure.
> 
> Russ Rosener
> 
> 
I had heard the same thing when, on buying some Portriga in the later 
'80's, the damned stuff printed warm black instead of brown-black.
I used to love the cadmium-containing stuff, and in fact sometimes
composed with the olive-black that it could produce near maximum
density, in mind when I was making the image.  I was not happy, but 
Portriga was STILL  the best paper around, so I kept using it and 
began formulating warmer developers.

Agfa has, IMHO, done just about everything imagineable over the 
years to alienate customers in the US.  I really believe that
their inability to either set up or find a reliable distribution
network is the problem.  Certainly the products never have been
other than excellent.  One of my friends told me that while he
was sorking for a major Chicago photo store while going to
college, they never new which version of Neutol they were 
going to be shipped.  

Going way back to maybe 1980, I think the old Gevaert operation in 
Palisades, NJ was the best of all the Agfa representatives in the US, 
easily eclipsing all that have followed.  I still have not forgiven
Agfa for never importing the ASA200 (Orange box) Superpan into the
US in the early '80's, when I had to buy it "grey market".  It
was wonderful film, faster, finer grained, and more tolerant than
the Plus-X that I was using.  Ultimately, I switched from Superpan
to T-Max 100 when the Superpan dried up.  Since then, the only two
products that I buy have been Portriga paper and Viradon toner.
Viradon is without a doubt the best toner I have ever used, yet
even it became unavailable here!  I'm running on hoarded stock.

Gotta go.  

Ed Lukacs

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