Agfa Portrait XPS 160

Portrait XPS 160 belonged to the Agfa Triade, the professional trio Agfa positioned in the early 1990s with Agfacolor Ultra 50 at the saturated end, Optima 100 in the middle, and Portrait 160 at the soft, low-contrast end. XPS designated the Portrait formulation specifically tuned for skin reproduction in studio and location work. The film was discontinued in 2005 along with the rest of the Agfa-Gevaert color catalog.

The signature is exactly what the name promises: muted contrast, restrained saturation, and skin tones that landed neutral to slightly cool rather than the warm push you get from Portra 160NC. Where Kodak built the early 2000s Portras around a creamy magenta-yellow rendering, XPS leaned into a cleaner skin curve closer to Fujifilm Pro 160C. For makeup-heavy beauty work or fashion in mixed light, it gave colorists a flatter starting point.

ISO 160 was a deliberate choice. Half a stop slower than 200 meant finer grain than the consumer-tier Agfa stocks while keeping enough speed for available-light portraiture in window-lit interiors. Most studio shooters rated it at 100 and pulled half a stop in scanning, which is a habit the film tolerates well thanks to its long highlight shoulder.

Process is standard C-41 with no quirks. The film was sold in 35mm 12, 24, and 36 exposure cassettes, in 120, and in 220, with the 120 format finding particular use among German and Dutch wedding shooters who wanted neutral skin without the Portra warmth.

Surviving stock is freezer-only now, and most of it has drifted past usable territory unless it spent its life cold. Expired XPS scans with a magenta cast that gets harder to neutralize as the years pile on. Rate any roll past its date code at 100 or 80 to compensate.

Reciprocity exponent is 1.10, which is mild. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second, so a metered 30-second exposure becomes about 35 seconds at the negative. For interior studio work where the shutter rarely needs to stay open that long, the math seldom kicks in.