efke 25

[robert amsden]

Is this a good film? Has it got finer grain than tmax 100?

[erie patsellis]

great film, if you get a good batch, otherwise, a few emulsion flaws here and there. I've bought several 120 bricks, 5 were excellent, 1 was horrid and was sent back for credit.


erie

[Andrew O'Neill]

It's nice film. Scratches easily in conventional developers when nonhardening fix is used I found. More scratch resistant in pyrocat due to tanning/hardening of emulsion I believe.
I use it occasionally in 8x10 and 4x5. Huge enlargements can be made with no grain.
A normal EI for me is 16. I also use it as a masking film.
The last box I bought had really strange uneven emulsion things going on which annoyed me so I stick with my favourites, FP4 and HP5.
To me efke 25 looks sharper than tmax 100 if you look at edge effects...but that could just be my eyes.

[Jim Fitzgerald]

I use this film in 4x5 and 8x10 and get great enlargements and contact prints. I love the look of this film and have had very few problems. Give it a try. I shoot it at 25 and develop in Pyrocat-HD minimal agitation in tanks.

Jim

[uniB]

I've just started using it and love it so far, might change my mind if I get a much spoke about bad batch! Lovely smooth tones. I develop in Rodinal 1-100 with minimal agitation and use a hardening fixer – not sure how much difference the hardening fixer makes but I haven't had any problems with scratching yet.

[IanG]

I've been using this film for about 30 years in 35mm, 120 5x4 and more recent years 10x8.

Yes it give exceptionally fine grain, as good as the old Agfapan AP25/APX25. It's great with Rodinal and Pyrocat.

The more recent versions have better hardening during manufacture compared to a few years ago, I used to use a hardening fixer just for Adox (EFKE) films, but it's not so necessary now.

Ian

[Christopher Breitenstein]

Efke Films are ok. They have coating problems with quality control. The emulsion is not evenly coated sometimes: leading to odd and inexplicable forms in your photographs. This has been my experience with their sheet film, I don't know if they have the same problem with rolled film.

Efke 25 and 50 are ortochromatic. Reduced red sensitivity. Reds print really muddy with little to no mid-tone contrast.

I would avoid Efke films if I were you. Try the Rollie 25 speed. the grain is really tight, and it has amazing mid-tones. You can print 35mm negatives to 30X40 and produce gorgeous prints, which are very sharp.

Hope this was of some help.

Yours:

[IanG]

Efke 25 and 50 are ortochromatic. Reduced red sensitivity. Reds print really muddy with little to no mid-tone contrast.

No, these films are not "Orthochromatic", they are very different to ortho films, however they due have slightly less red sensitivity than conventional Panchromatic films.

I've never had any noticeable tonality problems using these films compared to Agfa APX25/100 and Tmax, and find the Efke 25 excellent for portraits.

The coating problems have been over exaggerated, I've never had an image ruined by a coating defect whether 35mm,120 or sheet film.

Ian

[john borrelli]

Here are some general comments on B+W films I have used, but take them with a grain of salt, as I am a relative novice that shoots both B+W and color.

I have used 4X5 Efke 25 film. It is a sharp film that enlarges well. I have made a 13X19 inch print that looks sharp and I used only an Epson 4990 scanner. The only issue I had with the film I believe stemmed from the fact that I do not develop my own film.

After I bought a box of the Efke I brought some recommendations I got from the web site I bought the film from and some other credible sources to my lab, but they said they did not use any of those products, I found my results to be sharp but not to be contrasty enough even when I used filters(not sure if this film reacts to black and white filters in the same way as other films I have used).

I guess I was hoping for the same look I got with the old Agfa 25 film I had used, with that film I got adequate highlight detail and these dramatic inky black shadow areas which I thought added something to my landscapes.

So I have stopped using the Efke thinking my lab is better suited to other films. Incidently, my lab was able to process Fuji Acros as both sharp and contrasty. However this film I find to be very "modern" looking (like Tmax)and found unless the light was just perfect for this film I ended up with blocked up highlights. The Efke 25 has an older look like another favorite of mine Ilford HP5. The EFke is sharper but the Ilford looks nice in 11x14 prints and I have not had as much of the blown out highlights problem with either of these two films. The darker values look better with the Ilford with my lab.

I think I will go back to the Ilford HP5 and Velvia 100 for color.

[Christopher Breitenstein]

No, these films are not "Orthochromatic", they are very different to ortho films, however they due have slightly less red sensitivity than conventional Panchromatic films.

I've never had any noticeable tonality problems using these films compared to Agfa APX25/100 and Tmax, and find the Efke 25 excellent for portraits.

The coating problems have been over exaggerated, I've never had an image ruined by a coating defect whether 35mm,120 or sheet film.

Ian

Ian


You are right Orthochromatic is the wrong word. Fotokemika describes the film as "Orthopanachromatic," either way it has reduced red sensitivity.

I dont how Efke 25 compares to Agfa; I have never used agfa.

Every photographer I knew who shot Efke has stopped because It has a really odd banding effect on smooth tones. I quit using it a year and a half ago for that reason and, what I am guessing are coating issues. The coating issues don't come up in every sheet or even every box. When they do it shows as a sharp line (usually running vertically on an 8x10) after which everything is nearly a stop darker or light. whether the problem was coating or not. it seems to have been an issue with the film

I switched to FP4, keeping everything else the same, and both the banding in smooth tonalities and coating defects disappeared. My experience and those around me may be unique, I dont know. Their were three of us on different sides of the country experiencing similar problems and those problems went away when we switched away from Efke film.

I am glad to hear that it works for you. I use their paper, religiously! I have nothing against Fotokemika. For the price, their film is really great stuff. They just need to tighten the screws in quality control.

All the best;