Film Review: Agfachrome CTx 100

Another bright and bold design of a canister is the mysterious Agfachrome CTX 100 that I got my little eager fingers on. I’ve always been partial to the Agfa color palette and finding out that this is the father of the legendary Agfa CT Precisa, well I got slightly aroused. So I popped a roll into my trusty M6 to see what this thing was all about.

Background History

The legendary Agfa CT Precisa has its roots traced back to the CT100 released in 1984. It was part of the release of the new AP44 process for developing positive films that would rival Kodak’s E6 and Fuji’s CR56. With the success that Kodak had with the gradual tweaks of original Ektachrome, during the Photo Marking Association 1995, Agfa released a successor to the thrown to take on Kodak. This new film called CTx was said to ‘share improvements in color intensity, accuracy, and edge definition along with enhanced pushability’. The CTx film is the predecessor of the legendary CT Precisa. One thing to note, earlier production runs have CTx spelled in dark blue, light blue and a yellow x. Later production runs have CTx written in all blue as in the sample I received here.

Sample Images

The following images were taken on a Leica M6 and the LLL ELCAN 50mm f2. It’s a shame I could not find a local lab that does AP44 so the results are from E6 processing. They were then scanned on a Plustek Opticfilm 8200i. I have no idea how old this roll was, it didn’t even come with the box where an expiration date would’ve been printed. So I just decided to go ahead and shoot it at the box speed of ISO100.

 

Final Thoughts

I’ve never shot Agfa CT Precisa unfortunately but I do love what I see from its forefathers in CT100 and this Agfachrome CTx 100. It strikes a nice balance between the warm blue oranges of Kodak and the purple green coolness of Fuji. Like any slide, it really sings in good light. But the CTx 100 does a nice job too on cloudy days, adding a dramatic color tone and nice line rendering. CT Precisa was reknown for its xpro-ability, I hope to someday give it a try with this as well.

I really wish there was more of this stuff. Rare, but not quite stupid money yet. If you do come across any, I recommend you give it a go, I highly doubt you’d be disappointed.

MN