This is a tale of discovery, disappointment, joy and finally utter, utter confusion. I have always admired Agfa Scala. The idea of a black and white slide film was absolutely bonkers, but after looking at the results I had seen online, absolutely wonderful. So at home i found a roll of unused (or so i thought) yet very outdated Scala 200x in the back of a drawer. Feeling pretty happy with myself I loaded up the camera and sought out the very best cafe’s and urban landscapes I could find.
I was using an old Canon EOS 100 and a variety of EF Canon lenses I had at home. The camera was making all the right noises, focus, motor, flash etc. Nailed it I thought, off to the lab and should get some prints back next week, right?
Ahh yeah, Nah…
It turns out that processing Scala (at least here in NZ) is a wee bit more difficult and time consuming, but still doable. I elected to have the film processed as black and white neg film and it arrived back after about 3 weeks.
At this point things get weird, Phil rang and said yep, film looks good, negs are sharp, well exposed and nice and contrasty. I was pretty happy and off I went to collect the negs. And thats when i found out the reason why the Scala was at the back of the drawer.
It seems I had already experienced the joy of shooting Scala a few weeks or months earlier in another camera. I had then re-wound it, left the leader out, found it again and promptly double exposed it in the Canon EOS…!
Bugger…
So now i present to you random compilation of rural, urban, overlapped, haphazard and confused mess of images… I love them
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Daniel Castelli on The great Agfa Scala 200x disaster
Comment posted: 23/11/2024
One mistake:
1. You wrote an article telling everyone that you screwed up. Should have said ‘I experimented with double shooting a roll of Scala.’
2. What did Bob Ross say? ‘There are no mistakes, just happy accidents.’
I like the shots.