Agfapan APX 400 (original)

Original Agfapan APX 400 came out of the same Leverkusen line as the 100 and shared the same end date. Agfa-Gevaert coated it through the 1990s and into 2005, when the consumer division went under and the plant shut. The film sold today branded AgfaPhoto APX 400 is almost certainly Kentmere 400 in different boxing, and it is not the same emulsion.

What the original gave you was a 400-speed film with very sharp acutance and grain that was larger than HP5+ but more structured. Period users describe it as cleaner than Tri-X in the midtones and grainier than 400TX in the shadows, which is the kind of trade you either liked or didn't. Rodinal 1:50 at around 10 minutes was the standard dev, and Rodinal 1:100 stand for about half an hour brought out a compensating effect that helped contrasty street work.

Most shooters rated original APX 400 at 320 rather than box. The film had a tendency to underexpose at true 400, and the extra third of a stop bought cleaner shadows without forcing a longer development. Pushed to 800, Rodinal still worked. Pushed to 1600, Microphen was the safer bet and the grain stayed manageable in 120 even if 35mm got gritty.

Compared to HP5+ the APX was sharper and a touch more contrasty, but HP5+ pushed more gracefully past 1600. Press shooters who needed reliability tended toward Ilford. Photographers who liked the German character and the Rodinal pairing stuck with APX.

Available when it existed in 35mm, 120, and sheet sizes through to 4x5. Today only expired stock circulates, mostly through European sellers. Cold-stored rolls from the early 2000s still print well if you compensate a third of a stop for base fog.

Reciprocity exponent is 1.31. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second. A 30-second meter reading turns into about 86 seconds on the negative, and a one-minute reading runs out closer to three and a half minutes. Night street work on the original leaned into that behavior in a way the modern Harman-coated successor never quite reproduces.