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Topic: After Fuji, now AGFA shows some degree of fade, check yours!
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Winbert Hutahaean
Film God
Posts: 5468
From: Nouméa, New Caledonia
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted January 07, 2017 09:25 PM
I beleive it never existed a "no fade" stock, but "low fade" does. In this case "low fade" can be 25 years, 50 years or 100 years, we never know.
About 5-7 years ago, our friends in UK reported their Fuji stock has shown some degree of fade to be purplish. I quicky checked mine and that was the case.
So if those Fuji stocks were struck in 1976 - 78, the life span is about 30-35 years.
I always wrote down the color condition of my prints with the date it was last screened. So my AGFA prints which were projected in 2008 were written as "excellent color" conditiion, i.e no sign of fade.
Today,I re checked those screened in 2008, and most of them have sign degree of fade. The worst condition was shown for AGFA prints from France (Film Office) which have faded to just pink.
So if those AGFA prints were also printed in 1976-78 it means the life span is about 40-50 years.
Next will be Kodak LPP stocks, you must be ready when they also are found to get faded in 10-30 years to come.
Now please check your AGFA print and report here please.
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Winbert
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted January 09, 2017 12:28 PM
I remember those screenshots well, Winbert, it made me gasp at the time.
From what I have heard, there were certain batches of Fuji that are terrible, but after a certain point, in the late 70's the fuji film stock was much better and long lasting. I have a number of the Walt Disney 400ft digests from the late 70's on fuji, and they are as beautiful as the day that they were printed. It took awhile for fuji to "come of age", as Derann fuji prints from the mid 70's or so tend to be purplish these days.
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Alexander Vandeputte
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 243
From: Belgium
Registered: Nov 2009
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posted January 09, 2017 12:59 PM
All color print stock prior to 1982-84 is prone to fading. This also goes for Agfa and for Fuji. Usually Agfa is the stock that fades more elegantly than Eastman (red, pink), Kodak SP (orange, brown) or Fuji (some degree of purple). Agfa more or less tends to fade evenly across the color spectrum. Colors become less saturated but the color balance is more or less maintained. Also S1, S2 or S4 is all the same Agfa stock.
I personally have never seen an Agfa print fade to pink. But when fading starts it can exaggerate any deficiency already present in the pre-print material, such as a warming internegative...
(When the first 35mm Star Wars prints started to fade, the matte boxes around space ships etc... became visible...)
In 1982 Kodak introduced their low fade LPP stock and within the next two years also Fuji and Agfa had their low fade stock. So it is safe to say that any print made after that period will be low fade regardless of the brand.
From my own collection I can attest that all 'late' Agfa prints, Kodak LPP prints are still fine. My early, mostly seventies, Agfa prints are holding up OK and have developed 'pale' colors at the worst. Most of my seventies Fuji are OK but generally there is always a hint of purple in there. Seventies Eastman Kodak is mostly faded to varying degrees of red, pink and brown. With some exceptions: I have a full length Kodak SP print of The Warriors that only exhibits the slightest fade...
Will low fade never fade ? I personally doubt that, but my guess is that this will be a very long and slow process
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted January 10, 2017 12:24 PM
Actually Alexander, I would take issue (in the most polite way, of course) with you're statement that any film stock prior to 82 to 84 would be subject to fade. I have Cinecolor standard 8mm prints that to this day, after over 70 years, still have as vibrant of color as they did when released on standard 8mm, and the Agfa color prints, (called "Ansco-Chrome" before they were called "Agfa") from over 70's years ago are the same ...
So, there were most definitely low fade forms of color stock utilized for home movie releases before 82 to 84. in fact, they have over 70 years to them, and the more well known LPP has only been around for 30 or so years and while they do look great at the moment, lets see how good they will be in 70 years. Don't get me wrong, nearly all of my collection have been converted to, (whenever possible), a low fade print, but there is always that slight uncertainty of all film stocks.
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted January 11, 2017 11:51 AM
Winbert ...
Are you speaking of the Ansco-Chrome (early Agfa), and Cinecolor standard 8mm's?
If so, I could probably take some shots of the film unprojected, (just put the films up to the light and take a photo), but if I project them, I'm never able to get the color right.
I think we're mainly talking "package" films, but i just help but add home movie film stock as well, as there is Kodachrome way back from the late 30's (when it first came out) that is as colorful as the day it was shot, as well.
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Adrian Winchester
Film God
Posts: 2941
From: Croydon, London, UK
Registered: Aug 2004
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posted January 11, 2017 11:36 PM
Agfa stock displaying some warming is no surprise to me as I've been noticing it on 16mm for some years. On some prints, you mainly seem to lose some dark blacks but it then doesn't seem to get any worse. However, I recently viewed my Super 8 400' of 'Roustabout' on Agfa stock and it showed no fade whatsoever. But it has always been unclear to me when Agfa became as reliably 'no fade' as LPP. If this was also 1982, that's useful to know, but presumably it's virtually impossible to define whether the later batches of Agfa prints from Walton, Ken, Marketing, etc should or shouldn't be low fade. No doubt some were printed in 1982 - but I believe there's no obvious way to make certain - and even if they were, we can't assume that every lab had the improved stock at the start of the year.
But I don't see why any such issues would necessarily invalidate Kodak's prediction that LPP would hold its colour for 75 years.
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Adrian Winchester
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