Agfachrome 100

Agfachrome 100 RS was Agfa's mainline E-6 slide film through the late 1980s and most of the 1990s. The RS designation meant it ran in standard E-6 chemistry (or Agfa's own AP44 process, which was effectively the same path). Agfa pitched it as a Provia competitor for landscape and commercial shooters who wanted slightly less aggressive saturation than the Fuji stocks but more punch than Kodak Ektachrome 100 of the same period.

The color signature leaned warm. Skin tones rendered without the slight green undertone you saw in early Ektachrome, and greens stayed in a believable register rather than shifting toward Velvia's emerald. Blues were the weakest link. Sky tones tended to read flat compared with Provia 100F, which is one reason landscape shooters who valued sky drama drifted to Fuji as the 1990s progressed.

Resolution and grain were both solid for a 100-speed slide. Working press labs in Europe loaded it heavily through the early 1990s for editorial and travel work because it scanned cleanly on the drum scanners of the period. The film was reformulated in 1992, then again in 1995 as RSX 100, and once more in 1999 as RSX II 100 before Agfa's consumer photo division wound down.

If you find sealed stock today, it is at least twenty years old. Cold-stored rolls hold up better than most slide films of the period. Process at standard E-6 times. Some labs report rating found stock at 64 or 80 to compensate for sensitivity loss.

Available in 35mm and 120 during production. The 4x5 sheets were limited European runs, essentially impossible to find now. Discontinued; freezer-stock only.

The reciprocity exponent is 1.10. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second. A 10-second meter reading becomes about 13 seconds at the slide, and a 30-second reading climbs to roughly 40 seconds. Old E-6 stocks also tend to introduce color crossover with shadows shifting cool past four seconds, so bracket if the scene matters.