Problems w/ EFKE Infrared

[al olson]

Last Saturday now that the roads are plowed I went up to one of the nearby ghost towns. I like to use infrared films when I am photographing old ruins and I was using EFKE Infrared that had been loaded into film holders and been sitting in my camera case since last September.

My typical experience with the EFKE (and the MACO brand before that) is to expose at an EI of 1.5 (using a Hoya R72) and develop in D-76 1:1 for 11 minutes. The negatives come out a little thin, but printable.

This latest excursion I was exposing at around my usual EI=1.5 (f/11 at 1/2 sec). It was bright and sunny with thin veils of clouds passing over the sun from time to time at which time I would open up a half stop.

When I returned home I developed the first batch (4 sheets in JOBO drum) in freshly mixed D-76 1:1, increasing to 12 minutes to see if that would improve the density. Instead the negatives were thinner than ever and completely unprintable.

I then developed the second batch in D-76 stock for 12 minutes. The EFKE instructions say 7 minutes with the stock solution. These negatives improved slightly, but are still unprintable. I think their instructions are extremely optimistic.

In summary:
(1) The expiration date is 9/09.
(2) It had been stored outside the freezer for 6 months, but at no higher than room temperature.
(3) I don't think that longer development times will help much.
(4) I am ruling out any problems with the shutter or the developer because I also processed a batch of HP5+ taken at the same time that turned out with beautiful tonality and density.

So I am asking if any of you have had similar experience with EFKE Infrared:
(1) Has anyone noticed significant degradation when the film has not been refrigerated or as it ages?
(2) Do any of you use an EI lower than 1.5. I am thinking of going to 0.5 or 0.25. I will be trying that when the snow stops.

It may be that I will just give up on EFKE Infrared and simply enjoy Ilford SFX in my MF.

[Gene McCluney]

I think you should first determine that your stock D76 developer solution is good. Try developing a piece of sacrificial film that you have exposed to light, and see if you get a good black. This can be a snip from a full sheet. Just put some D76 in a tray in the room light and plop the film scrap in and time how long it takes to darken. I know you said "freshly mixed" but things can happen. It is "possible" that the Efke infrared sensitivity goes down over time? But, I would think more likely that the film would develop FOG over time.

I see you have "proved" your developer with developing another film. So, rule developer out. Is it possible that the cold, snow covered landscape has very little infrared energy? I don't know.

[al olson]

Gene, you may have helped put me on to something. A check of the contact sheets shows that the snow texture is the best exposed part of the negative. That figures since it was a sunny day, white would have the highest reflectivity of any of the solar IR. The sky with a few cloud formations, however, was just so-so. The rest including trees, weathered wood buildings, bare ground and dead weeds almost completely disappeared from the negative.

As mentioned earlier, I have been using EFKE/MACO for some time and have put up with the thinner densities because I was still able to make acceptable and sometimes stunning prints. In this case I was basing my judgement on the weathered wood which showed much better on earlier photos I have made of these buildings (I don't know why they don't show better this time).

Ilford's SFX (with Cokin 007) does an excellent job of separating the tonalities with MF. My expectations may also be skewed by the wonderful sensitivity that the Kodak infrared products used to have.

In the future I will try lowering my EI for EFKE to see if I can obtain higher negative densities. In the meantime I have decided that this is the wrong film for this subject matter and for this time of year. I will save it for times when there is more vegetation to help it out. I am returning this Sunday for another shoot, but I will be using TMY and Delta 100 for my sheet films.

[Gene McCluney]

Well Infrared "energy" is not the same as Ultraviolet "energy". Clear day gives you the most energy in the upper blue spectrum (such as needed for wet plate work)..but you need energy radiating from the scene in the infrared (near heat wavelengths), and there can't be much of that in a fridged snow covered scene, can there? I'm just speculating, as I have never shot IR in winter/snow.

[Andrew O'Neill]

Hi Al,

I also use Efke IR 4x5 film for about 2 years now. My EI and development time are the same, except in Xtol 1+1. I never had a problem with this film until I went on a road trip to Saskatchewan last summer. Every shot was very very thin...underexposed. We had deep blue sky and sun everyday. Tons of IR energy.
It is still a mystery to me.

[al olson]

Here is a unenhanced (by my hand) scan of a representative negative. The scanner matched it pretty closely to the darkrooom print I made at grade 4 1/2.

The sunlight is coming from the left. You can see the texture in the snow (it seems to have the best IR reflectance). You can barely see the boards in the cabin. There is no detail in the trees (probably because they are neither emitting nor reflecting IR). The sky had some interesting cloud formations that I thought would stand out with IR ... but not.

I can adjust brightness and contrast so you can see the outline of the boards, but then the snow blows out. This is as good as it gets. The second image is a stretch of the histogram to fill in the dark shades.

One other possibility -- the emulsion could vary from batch to batch. It is a good thing that I live close enough that I can reshoot.

Cheers,

[Wallace_Billingham]

FWIW I shoot hundreds of rolls of the Efke IR820 film in medium format each year, in fact this is my favorite film. I also live in the Lake Erie Snow Belt where we get 200+ inches of snow year and shoot quite a bit of it in the snow.

Snow in the sun is very tricky with this film because if the sun is shining on it it is quite reflective of IR yet the clear blue sky light that is lighting the rest of the snow has no IR in it.

In full sun in the snow I don't use a meter but just shoot for 2 seconds at f/16 using a Hoya R72 using the sunny 16 rule that means I rate it at iso .5.

I have found however that if it is cloudy (which it is most of the winter here) Shooting for 4 seconds at f/16 is the way to go.

When using a Hoya R72 this film has very good tolereance to over exposure but very poor tolerance to under exposure so I always err on the side of overexposure.

[TtamNedlog]

I would give Rollei's infrared a shot before switching to Ilford SFX, as that is not a true infrared film.

[al olson]

Sorry, Andrew, to hear of your misfortune in Saskatchewan. I'll bet that you were photographing some great prairie skies. Thanks, though, for your confirming comments that with similar EI and development times, you were also getting thin negatives as well. Until now I had determined that EI=1.5 produced satisfactory, printable results.

Perhaps I can blame some of the underexposure on lower sun angle, dormant vegetation, etc., but, comparably, I am getting excellent results using Ilford SFX with EI=12 and Cokin 007 filter as I always have.

Good point, Wallace, that it is better to overexpose with the R72 filter. In all the years I have been exposing MACO/EFKE I have never obtained a really dense negative. I will be bringing my EI down to around .25 to .5 the next time to test it out (drove up to Summitville again today, but with 40-50 mph winds and blowing snow I never took my cameras out of the case).

[al olson]

I would give Rollei's infrared a shot before switching to Ilford SFX, as that is not a true infrared film.

The reason I don't use Rollei infrared is that although it is souped up to an ISO of 400, it is coated by EFKE and still has the same poor spectral sensitivity in the IR region as the EFKE/MACO films. I don't see a gain of only 1 EV to compensate for its overall slowness.

While Ilford SFX barely reaches out into the IR spectrum, there is enough sensitivity that using a filter with 50% transmissivity at 720nm (at EI=12) produces a nice Wood Effect with lightened vegetation and darkened sky and water. Even using a Wratten A (at EI=25) that includes some of the visible red spectrum produces a partial Wood Effect.

On the other hand, because the sensitivity of the EFKE is so much weaker in the IR spectrum versus the visible, exposing with a red filter makes the film look like ordinary panchromatic with no apparent Wood Effect at all.

If Ilford SFX were made in sheet film, I would be using it instead of EFKE/MACO/Rollei.