The great Agfa Scala 200x disaster

By nzcarl

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 So at home i found a roll of unused (or so i thought) yet very outdated Scala 200x in the back of a drawer.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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Comments

Daniel Castelli on The great Agfa Scala 200x disaster

Comment posted: 23/11/2024

Hey,
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.
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Ken Tuomi on The great Agfa Scala 200x disaster

Comment posted: 23/11/2024

Love ‘em! Happy assidents with great composition.
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Jeffery Luhn on The great Agfa Scala 200x disaster

Comment posted: 23/11/2024

This is a fun commentary on a mistake! I've done this before and had a couple of interesting results. Serendipity!
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murray leshner on The great Agfa Scala 200x disaster

Comment posted: 23/11/2024

I love them too!

You could not have planned them.
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Tony Warren on The great Agfa Scala 200x disaster

Comment posted: 23/11/2024

A great collection of images, with a nice slant on some well known Christchurch landmarks/features. I would go further than Daniel and not mention the "mistake" at all. Many of these images could be reflections or "polywashes" from nearby windows. The last two in particular are very effective. Pre-exposing to produce doube exposures as a technique has been used before - this is just serendipity as Jeffery says rather than pre-planning.
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James Evidon on The great Agfa Scala 200x disaster

Comment posted: 24/11/2024

I bought a couple of rolls od AScala only to find out that no lab will process Scala anymore as a positive image. Even Dr5, in the states has "scale(a)ed" back and only processes when he announces that he is doing it and then waits for sufficient rolls to come in before processing. I did look into self processing, but the chemicals are very expensive and the "process-remove- expose to light and re-process" routine looks rather daunting.

Your Scala negs, despite the double exposures look excellent, so I guess I'll have it settle for negs and remove them from my freezer for shooting and get on with it.
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Philip on The great Agfa Scala 200x disaster

Comment posted: 24/11/2024

Fantastic. I reckon you'd be hard-pressed to achieve these same results and compositions had you actually tried...
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Paul Quellin on The great Agfa Scala 200x disaster

Comment posted: 29/11/2024

I agree with other commentators, this just looks like the outcome from a fun project. I have done it a few times accidentally with my Agifold and it has made some quite pleasing images. Good read, thank you.
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