Agfa · ISO 400 Color negative
Agfa HDC Plus 400
HDC Plus 400 was the last serious revision Agfa made to its consumer ISO 400 color negative before the Leverkusen film division collapsed. Agfa positioned HDC (High Definition Color) above the bargain Vista line and below the Optima Prestige tier, against Kodak Gold 400 and Fujicolor Superia 400 in European drugstore racks through the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was 35mm only. No 120, no sheets.
The character is recognizably Agfa: slightly cool blues, restrained reds, and a green response that lands closer to natural than Fuji's punchier Superia. Skin tones come out a touch less warm than Gold 400, which some shooters preferred for overcast European light and others corrected back warm in print. Grain is tighter than Superia 400, slightly more present than Gold 400. The base layer is thinner than Kodak's, so scans pull flatter unless you push contrast in software.
Latitude is where HDC Plus 400 falls short. Roughly minus one to plus two stops gets you usable negatives; beyond that the dye couplers fall apart faster than Kodak's. Rate it at box speed in even light. Pull to 320 in shade for cleaner shadows.
Production wound down around 2001 when Agfa replaced the HDC Plus line with the cheaper Vista line. The remaining bits of Agfa's consumer film business then collapsed entirely after the Leverkusen consumer division spun off as AgfaPhoto in late 2004 and filed for insolvency in May 2005.
What exists now is freezer stock and estate-sale finds. Rate it at 200 if a roll has been at room temperature for more than ten years. The yellow base fogs before the cyan and magenta layers shift, so old rolls look slightly muddy in the highlights even when the negatives still pull.
Reciprocity exponent is 1.20. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second. A metered 10-second exposure becomes about 16 seconds at the negative; a 30-second reading climbs to roughly 60. Color crossover past about half a minute is real on this stock, with shadows shifting magenta, which is why HDC was rarely loaded for night work.
How the app handles this stock
- Box speed: ISO 400. Picker exposes pull/push chips so you can shoot it at any speed you want and the meter follows.
- Reciprocity: Above one second the app raises metered time to the power of 1.20.
- Expired film: if you load an old roll, set the expiry year and storage in the app and the ISO scales for you. Color negative decay rates are baked in.