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This is just a little FYI, possibly usefull, maybe not. Maybe someone can ferret out an idea of how Efke renders certain colors. I was looking for a scan of Efke 25 4x5 for an earlier topic and came upon this.
elearning.winona.edu/staff%5Fo/jjs/colors/
Here is a case where B&W wasn't the right choice. LF color would have been. IMHO
the right choice for what?
It a bit like saying cheese was really the right choice rather than marmite...
Or a different filter might have been a better choice.
Efke 25 responds differently in the red spectrum than Efke 100, for example. There is a chart illustrating this on the J & C site. So, quite likely, the photographer chose the wrong film, or chose it specifically BECAUSE this property contrasted more to the colour photo. I'm not sure what the point of that web page is, but if it is to point t out some perceived deficiency in Efke 25, it more likely points out that the user didn't research his tools properly or use them appropriately.
Cheers, Richard
The photos are not taken at the same time of day. Look at how much longer the
shadows are in one. So it's not the best comparison pair. When dealing with color, brightness
and overall temp make a big difference. It would be very difficult to construct a meaningful
test using variable light from the sun ( time of day, etc. ). Better to test under controlled
conditions with measured targets, lights and processing.
Many people like having a film that has altered red sensitivity. It's nice to see so much shadow detail, clean highlights and a value in the sky, etc. I personally like the Efke tonality very much. The Efke
seems to have many of the nice qualities of Tech Pan without the contrast and development headaches, depending upon how one processes it.
It's all a matter of personal taste and intent. I think the B&W shot is quite pleasing. It could tolerate being just a tad darker too. What's wrong with it?
Assuming the monochrome view was unfiltered (and there is nothing in the link so say either way), all it shows is that Efke 25 is panchromatic and has rather more latitude than the digital picture alongside (!). In fact it is a nice example of how blue, green and red of similar brightness is rendered.
That's a very odd example indeed -- I've been reading for a couple years that Efke 25 has reduced red sensitivity, tends to render red objects darker than other panchro films -- yet that image shows (among other anomalies) enhanced cloud contrast in the sky, much more what I'd expect with T-Max than with a reduced-red film like Efke 25. Similarly, other red areas in the image are lighter than green areas of similar brightness (at least judging by the digital image alongside).
I'm more inclined to think it's a film cross-up, and actually shot on Tech Pan or T-Max, than Efke 25. I've seen many examples other places that show the Efke 25 response I'd expect from Efke's technical data: reds rendered nearly black.
MY ERROR - and I am sorry. I posted, then went to work and remembered that the B&W picture was made using a K2 filter.
I will leave it up with the apology in place and take it down tomorrow.
(Don - it was Efke 25. I threw out all the T-Max films years ago and never used TechPan.)
The photos are not taken at the same time of day. Look at how much longer the shadows are in one.
The poster of the above did not look carefully at the page. The page said the pictures were taken several minutes apart. I guess you had to 'be there'. It doesn't take much of a shift of the sun to make a difference at that angle (that early in the day).
Aaah, a minus-blue filter of any sort would explain the enhanced sky contrast, and depending on the exact spectral curve of that K2 (standard yellow, but I don't have the curve handy) might also cut enough green to render the Efke 25 overall response similar to that of TMY.
BTW, I quite like TMY, at least in 120; high dilution HC-110 makes it quite nice, and I don't need a filter to get adequate contrast to show clouds in a blue sky (red response is flat for about 50 nm beyond what you get with Tri-X, and almost 150 nm beyond Efke 25).