Is there still demand for 25 ASA film?

[Jody_S]

Like some others here, I'm a terrible consumer from a film manufacturer's point of view, in that I'll do just about anything to save a buck including buying and using long-expired film. I only buy new, and only in 4x5, when I'm completely out of everything else. That being said, I do buy a number of boxes a year, and if the price point were at all competitive with the other stuff on Freestyle, I would absolutely try this. However, anyone looking for commitments to justify investing $15K for a master roll would look at my comment and say "no f-ing way". I suspect this (to some degree collective) habit of 'doing things on the cheap' is what has cost us several important films over the last few years, including this one. If I won the lottery, yes I would buy a larger freezer and stock up with emulsions like this one. Until then, I'm forced to either continue what I'm doing, or go digital.

[Drew Wiley]

I don't think there is anything cheap about some half-priced film that you have to double your shots to hope one sheet comes out unblemished! Besides, the
cloud or shadow probably moved inbetween shots anyway. And if it was remanufactured, it almost certainly wouldn't be the bargain that it was previously.
Overhead and distribution would have to be recovered at today's realistic rates. And the mere fact Efke is no more demonstrates that they were not making
enough money to keep up with plant maintenance. So as far as I'm concerned, I'd be happy to pay MORE for this film if it was now made to a high level of quality
control, yet retained its relatively unique characteristics of high acutance, extremely long straight-line range, and orthopan sensitivity. Large format isn't exactly
friendly to budgets in general. I'd prefer reliable product and just shoot more circumspectly to avoid wasting it.

[Peter Yeti]

Drew,

I'm absolutely with you in this point but I can understand Jody_S, too. That was at the core of the discussion I had with Mirko Böddecker from Adox. Their market is primarily the price-oriented customers. Improving qc would have been no problem for Adox. It would have meant to throw away 30% and pay for the man power, effectively doubling the sales price of the film. Given sufficient demand, it should be possible to offer a pro version with high qc standard and an amateur version with lower qc requirements at a cheaper price point. But currently we would be lucky if this film could be offered again at all. Anyway, I hope and would think that this other coating facility produces a higher quality than efke did.

Peter

[IanG]

A bit of clarity Adox/EFKE 14, (the old Din name), later renamed EFKE 25 (and many years later sold with the Adox name) it is in only 25 ISO under Tungsten lighting, in fact it's more like 40-50 EI in daylight. I used to shoot both EFKE 25 and Tmax 100 at 50EI and develop them for the same time (often mixed together in the same tank) and apart from the spectral differences the tonality/gradation was similar, negatives printed on the same grade of paper.

ASA has been out of use for years. It is ISO internationally. Not ASA.

ISO uses both the ASA/BS (US & UK) and DIN (German) speeds, ISO requires that films are tested either by the ASA/BS or the DIN criteria, Kodak lobbied hard and had the ASA testing regime relaxed before they could sell Tmax100 as a 100 ISO film, it consitantly failed the older testing regime, they had no US competitor to object.

Ian

[BrianShaw]

They have a price list and a 4x5"/25 sheet box is less then $25.

Oh... well, that could be a game-changer for me. Thanks for the info.

[Jody_S]

I don't think there is anything cheap about some half-priced film that you have to double your shots to hope one sheet comes out unblemished!

I am presently trying to learn/perfect my LF craft. If a sheet is ruined because of a bad emulsion, for instance if one of my rare color shots has color shifts around the edges from improper storage, I'm fine with that and I will just crop the resulting photo if there's something usable. So long as the mistake isn't mine, I can live with it. I can learn just as much from working with my present 300 shts expired tri-x 5x7 (I'm now shooting at 50-100 ASA depending on dynamic range) as I would learn if I spent several thousand $s replacing all that with fresh 8x10 film.

[Bob Salomon]

A bit of clarity Adox/EFKE 14, (the old Din name), later renamed EFKE 25 (and many years later sold with the Adox name) it is in only 25 ISO under Tungsten lighting, in fact it's more like 40-50 EI in daylight. I used to shoot both EFKE 25 and Tmax 100 at 50EI and develop them for the same time (often mixed together in the same tank) and apart from the spectral differences the tonality/gradation was similar, negatives printed on the same grade of paper.

I was on the ASA panel that was trying to standardized the synch plug for electronic flash units, studio and camera mounted, back in the early 70s.
You could not believe how many different plugs manufacturers wanted to use. The panel had been convened after a few deaths and serious injuries that were the result of people plugging a standard household plug flash cord into live wall sockets.

After we, Rollei, Honeywell, Vivitar, Ascor, Speedatron, Norman, Broncolor, Novatron, Elinchro, Bowens and whoever else was on the panel, were throgh there was absolutely no concensus and household plugs remained on many units.

ISO uses both the ASA/BS (US & UK) and DIN (German) speeds, ISO requires that films are tested either by the ASA/BS or the DIN criteria, Kodak lobbied hard and had the ASA testing regime relaxed before they could sell Tmax100 as a 100 ISO film, it consitantly failed the older testing regime, they had no US competitor to object.

Ian

[wiggywag]

Is not a ISO 25 film very unpractical with large format camera? I like to shoot sharp pictures with nice depth of field. Especially for contact printing can a difference be seen?

[Brian C. Miller]

Is not a ISO 25 film very unpractical with large format camera? I like to shoot sharp pictures with nice depth of field. Especially for contact printing can a difference be seen?

For contact printing? No. For enlarging? Yes. Typically slower films have finer grain. Techpan used to be the uncontested king of the hill. Then it went away, and we have Fuji Acros followed by Kodak TMax-100 and Ilford Delta 100. Some people have been able to develop Efke 25 with almost no grain. That's absolutely fabulous for enlarging, but of course it really doesn't matter for contact printing.

Another reason to use a slow speed film is when a shutter doesn't have a range of faster speeds. Some older shutters top out at 1/50th, so to change exposure you then have to stop down. Well, if your composition relies on a shallow DOF, you'll need a slower film. Sure, you can shoot slower and shorten your development time, but some films start to bloom or block up in the highlights, and you can't control that. The film is simply overexposed.

Also, for fine grain, there's the cool factor when you can take a 22x loupe to a negative, and count individual bricks and bicycle spokes over a block away, stuff that would be lost with a grainier film. I have just a few sheets of Techpan left, and then that's the end of it for me.

[Drew Wiley]

I find a lot of these comments odd. For one thing, TMY100 and Efke 25 were among the very few films I personally rated at box speed with consistently excellent
results. I thought TechPan was a miserable taking film due to poor tonality and weak edge effect, even with all the specialized developers. I have plenty of 8x10 sheets left of it, but for use in pan highlight masking, not general photog. Efke 25 has superb edge acutance, as does Pan F (same speed in the real world, but
completely different curve structure). Looking thru a loupe is a different ballgame than actually printing it. A grainier film might actually appear sharper in print.