Agfa 9400 IR film definitely discontinued

[Contrariness]

Hello Everyone

I am in France, and the IR film is no longer dsitributed. Can you still find it in the contry where you are ?

C.

 

[anfrmite]

Hello,

Of course -no matter what fancy distributors say- IR film IS still manufactured and in production today (May 10th, 2025).

The answer is simple:

- Not all industry processing is as simple as throwing away film technologies and change to direct-to-plate processing (not all industries are "printing things", there are big industries still today that are "exposing things").

- No matter how fancy LDI (laser-direct-imaging) is, for some processing industries it is very time consuming, since the laser is drawing the entire image. With film systems, you only need to expose (flash) all the surface in a fast and reliable way. For batch and very large volume industries (like PCB manufacturing), LDI systems are a real laugh compared to film exposing systems.

Now, going back to your specific question (that maybe IR wavelength spectrum film is dead, because other wavelenghts spectrums are preferred or have more demand). For every distributor I see that have film for sale, there is a section that have IR film without problem, not discontinued, not "outdated", not "outlet sale" type. Do a more deep search with other film distributors, I am sure you will find it.

 

[Contrariness]

Hello
If it's still manufactured, IR film is no longer distributed in Europe. Only HNS film is available for laser with a different wavelength.
My distributors tell me that Agfa has outsourced the manufacturing of HNS film to an Asian company. Indeed, this quality, is available in Asia, and only this one. No IR.

 

[anfrmite]

Yes, maybe not Agfa manufactured anymore, but still available with another brand names. After using IR film for the past 20 years, I can assure you there is not any noticeable difference between Alliance original film, and asian brands, either in densitities performance and film integrity. As I proud owner myself of an ancient Agfa Proset 9400, I do not care about where the film is manufacturated/distributed/sold/branded. If I need it, I could get it from Asia, USA, China, even Mars if were available.