Lee,
There was an incredible uproar when Agfa dropped Agfapan 25 too (relatively
recently). Agfa predicted enough stock to run through the end of last
year, but failed to anticipate the hoarding that would occur. Remaining
stock vaporized near instantly with a feeding frenzy of lifetime buy and
speculator hoarding. The only remaining slow B/W with its level of
resolving power is Kodak's Tech Pan, and it renders B/W differently (even
when developed to optimize continuous tone) leaving the Agfa users quite
irate.
At least Kodak didn't miss picking up on what happened with Agfa when they
announced discontinuation of Kodachrome 25 a short time later. It
continued to dribble into the supply chain and my guess is Kodak
specifically held back on stocks to slow down the immediate hoarding frenzy
that occurred. I have about a dozen rolls of Kodachrome 25 in the
freezer. Got most of them as it trickled into distribution after the
initial feeding frenzy slowed down.
[short rant]
IMHO, the demise of the slow films is a result of the ubiquitous P&S and
Wunderziegel mondo 18-1000mm AF zoom lenses that are, by necessity of
design, hideously slow. Add to that the equally hideously weak integral
pop-up flashes they have. It has driven their users, who buy much more
film than we do, into ISO 200 to 800 films just to make photographs
outdoors on an overcast day or in open shade, and when indoors to get more
than 6 feet of range out of their crippled integral flashes (doesn't fix
their gross red-eye problems though).
-- John
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