From: Liam Lawless (lawless@ic24.net)
Date: 02/05/00-02:05:40 PM Z
Hi All,
Thanks to everyone for your responses. I hadn't intended yesterday's message to James to be public, but since I
inadvertently sent it to the list I'll tell the whole story.
A few months ago Paul Caffell, my mysterious friend, had been looking for a replacement for the discontinued Agfa films
N.31 and N.33 when I received some Aristatone samples from Judy. I passed these on to Paul, who was delighted with them
and ordered some 20X24 from Freestyle. Unfortunately, what he got wasn't the same as the samples, and had the problems
I described yesterday.
Having talked to Paul today, it turns out that the film he got is unlikely to be faulty; the spec had merely changed,
and what I got from Judy was probably old samples. Aristatone is, apparently, Agfa P3p, which is used for aerial
reconnaisance by our Ministry of Defence, and it was they who insisted on the changes that were made 12-18 months ago.
(The MoD is also the reason for the 10X10 size.)
Seems that what I said yesterday isn't quite accurate: Paul can get adequate density, but only with exposures of several
minutes, and extremely long dev times; his enlarger has a thermal cut-out and invariably cuts him off before the
exposure is complete (the head of the thing has to go up in a hole in the ceiling where there's little ventilation).
Part of the problem is that he uses an 8X10 enlarger with (usually) 6X7 cm negs, but, he says, with N.33 his exposures
took only seconds, and development a couple of minutes.
He insists on continuing to work the way he's always worked (via an interpos), and ideally wants something on a thick
base that isn't easily scratched. I'll pass on all messages that have come in so far, for which thanks again, but
suggestions are still welcome: either something that resembles N.33, or something like Aristatone, but faster (and on a
thicker base if possible!)
Liam
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