Agfa · ISO 200 Color negative
Agfa Optima II 200
Optima II 200 sat at the top of Agfa's consumer color lineup in the late 1990s, with the Prestige Professional variant aimed at wedding and portrait labs that wanted a European alternative to Kodak Portra 160 and Fuji NPS 160. What set Optima II apart was a slightly cooler color balance than Kodak and slightly less aggressive greens than Fuji. For European skin tones under European overcast it landed in a sweet spot the German wedding market specifically liked.
The Optima line replaced the older XRS 200 emulsion when Agfa rolled out the new branding in 1996. Optima II followed as a refinement before the consumer film business unraveled. Both versions used Agfa's SXM (Surface eXtended Multistructured) crystal architecture, which reads a touch sharper than Kodak Gold 200 at the same speed, with a drier color palette.
Formats were 35mm and 120, which made Optima II the medium-format option for Agfa shooters who did not want to step up to the Prestige Professional tier. The 120 rolls scan well even today if they have been stored cold. Skin tones come out neutral, with magentas restrained and yellows holding back compared with current Portra 400. For a European magazine look from 1998, this is the right negative.
Production ended along with the rest of the Agfa consumer line when AgfaPhoto, the management buyout that took Consumer Imaging out of Agfa-Gevaert in September 2004, filed for insolvency in May 2005 and wound up by year end.
For working with what is left, treat freezer stock as fresh and shelf-stored cassettes as suspect. Rate it at 160 if the roll has been in a cabinet for a decade; the dye layers shift toward magenta and the speed drops a third of a stop. Standard C-41 from any lab.
Reciprocity exponent is 1.20. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second. A metered 5-second exposure becomes about 7 seconds at the negative; a 30-second tripod reading climbs to roughly 60. Past about a minute the color crossover gets severe enough that I would switch to a current stock if you have the option.
How the app handles this stock
- Box speed: ISO 200. 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.