Throughout the past five years or so since I have re-entered the realm of photography I have been seeing opinions voiced on printing papers lost and gone. You know the ones I am referring to such as Agfa Portiga and Oriental Seagull (certain types) and other well known papers. Well I would like to ask those of you who have had the enjoyment of using these papers your opinion or perhaps your vote on you favorite lost paper and why it would achieve this privilege in the ranking system?
If it was possible to have a manufacture such as Ilford (randomly picking one) bring back a paper from the past, then which paper would you like to have available again?
I guess that the reason I am asking is that I sometimes feel that I have missed out during the “era of great printing papers” and have been tempted to buy old stock from Ebay. Of course my experience to date with old stock is that it usually has too high a level of general fog for my liking so I shy away from the purchase.
I also frequently wonder if theses wonderful attributes attributed to older papers are just a simple longing for the “old tried and true” rather than actual fact that these papers were better. It is quite difficult for me to accept that manufactures would intentionally stop making papers that were better performers and replace these papers with inferior products.
So for those that have been there… am I am correct in thinking that the old papers are just a nostalgia phase and really do not hold any special merit except for perhaps a few memories?
Kind Regards,
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