Differences or Quality of Efke 25 vs Adox/ Rollei Pan 25

[braxus]

I have used quite a bit of Efke 25 over the years compared to other B&Ws I have. I bought some Adox Pan 25, as well as Rollei Pan 25. I understand those two films are basically the same film. Being these two options are the only 25 ASA speed film left out there, how would you compare the quality of pictures between the Efke and Rollei films? What differences do you notice in terms of grain size, contrast, sharpness, etc? Which one do you find easier to get results from? Which one handles high contrast situations better? Post sample of the Rollei Pan 25 if you can, as I haven't yet used this film. I see B&H still sells this film, though Freestyle no longer does. My developer is stock Xtol. Any comments?

 

[Ian Grant]

Maco/Roolei only repackage films so if Rollei Pan 25 is made by EFKE it's exactly the same film as EFKE 25/Adox 25. I've been using EFKE/Adox 25 since the 1970's in formats from 35mm through to 10x8.

First it's not really a 25/14º ISO film, thats actually it's Tungsten ISO, its Daylight speed is 40 ISO. in practice I shoot EFKE/ADOX at 50 EI, the same as Tmax 100 with the same development times. EFKE has less red sensitivity compared to most other films (except orthochromatic) and this is why it's so much slower in Tungsten light compared to DAylight. If you read an Ilford film datasheet they give the ISO speed for Daylight, they used to give a Tungsten speed as well but these days theres so many different forms of artificial lighting it's less useful.

Secondly to get the best out of EFKE/Adox films they need careful exposure a and processing, any over exposure has a detrimental effect on sharpness so it's a good idea to do some testing to find your optimum EI and processing times. The poor er hardening, now far better than it was in the 70's/80's means it's very important to control process temperatures tightly and handle wet film with extra caution, but it is worth it for the quality of results you can obtain.

Ian