Efke 25 with R09, any advice?

battra92 · Mar 23, 2006

I recently decided to try out some Efke 25. However, the biggest problem with it is that it will not develop with my standard developer (HC-110) so I decided to give Fomadon R09 a try since Rodinal is not in huge supply at the moment.

Checking the Massive Dev Chart they reccomend the following:
1+40 ISO25 6 minutes
1+100 ISO25 18 minutes

Any suggestions on which dilution I should give a try first. I use a small patterson tank (haven't quite got the hang of stainless steel) so are there any agitation reccomendations? For my other films in HC-110 I used to do the first 5 seconds of every 30 seconds.

Thanks in advance for the advice.

titrisol · Mar 23, 2006

What d'you mean it will not develop in HC110?
Do you mean no good results or no time/temp data available?
I firmly believe that Hc110 will do a good job at dilution H or so. Look into the covington innovations website for more information on those high dilutions. Beisdes HC110 tends to give low contrast negatives which is exactly what EFKE 25 calls for.

I have used Rodinal with EFKE 25 (35mm), 1+100 seemed to work better for me, and agitating once every 3 minutes helps to keep the contrast in check and build shadow detail.
IMHO that combo helped getting true Ei25 out of the film.

avandesande · Mar 23, 2006

This is my 'tripod film' that I use for just about everything. Expose at 25. Times don't mean squat with rodinal, agitation determines development (at least of the highlights).
Here is what I do: 1:100, no water presoak. I dump the rodinal in and invert two times with a sharp tap to get rid of any bubbles. Invert two time every 5minutes for a total of 30minutes.
When loading a reel, use cotten gloves or you will get low density fingerprints with the film. I use kodak rapid fix with hardener and distilled water throughout except for the final rinse. After rinsing let it sit in distilled water overnight and hang up to dry in the morning.

Lee L · Mar 23, 2006

I posted a comparison of R09 and Rodinal with times, temps, agitation, gamma in this thread: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Lee

Tom A · Mar 23, 2006

The 18 minuts for R09 1+100 with continuous agitation the first 30 sec. and then 10 sec. every 3. minut worked fine for me.

The EI was at or very close to 25, except for a coupel of shots, but that might be a error in the lightmetering.

Tom

fschifano · Mar 23, 2006

avandesande said:
After rinsing let it sit in distilled water overnight and hang up to dry in the morning.

Why the prolonged soak?

avandesande · Mar 23, 2006

I always get every little bit of dye out, and there are no water spots on the film. Also I take a shower in the morning so I hang it up to dry after that. My little ritual yields defect-free negatives so i stick to it.

fschifano said:
Why the prolonged soak?

titrisol · Mar 23, 2006

I have to have curling with this film yet, maybe it was just that I bought form adefective batch

To eliminate the dye, I prefer a presoak of 3 changes of water with vigorous agitation and tapping (cocktail shaker)

SteveH · Mar 23, 2006

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

fschifano · Mar 23, 2006

avandesande said:
I always get every little bit of dye out, and there are no water spots on the film. Also I take a shower in the morning so I hang it up to dry after that. My little ritual yields defect-free negatives so i stick to it.

Nice. Efficient. Thanks.

battra92 · Mar 23, 2006

Okay, I ran my first test with it today. I did 3ml to 300ml of water in a paterson tank agitating for 10 seconds every 3 minutes for 18 minutes total. The high dilution makes R09 cost less than 9 cents a roll. That's certainly a steal.

I did do a three minute presoak with moderate agitation and new water every minute. I was initially only going to soak it for a minute as J&C reccomended but figured the three changes of water would be okay.

And Lord was this film curly! I had a heck of a time getting it on the reel and I never have problems with my loyal TriX and Fomapan.

Gerald Koch · Mar 24, 2006

avandesande said:
After rinsing let it sit in distilled water overnight and hang up to dry in the morning.

Obviously you have not experienced any problems but I would be afraid of damage to the emulsion after a lengthy immersion in water.

battra92 · Mar 24, 2006

For those curious, I have uploaded a scan Dead Link Removed of one of the shots I did with the Efke 25. As reported, the red does come out black as is evidenced by the green and black poster that comes out near solid black.

Tom Hoskinson · Mar 24, 2006

I just developed another 120 roll of Efke 25 in Sandy King's p-aminophenol version of Pyrocat. (The subject, African Violets) I presoaked for 3 minutes in deionized water, then I developed Semi-Stand for 16 minutes at 71F. No stop bath - 3 minute rinse in deionized water instead. Fixed for 10 minutes in Ryuji's ammonium thiosulfate fixer (APUG Chemical Recipes). Washed via the soak and dump method in deionized water. The negs (6cm x 7cm) look very good.

battra92 · Mar 25, 2006

Tom Hoskinson said:
I just developed another 120 roll of Efke 25 in Sandy King's p-aminophenol version of Pyrocat. (The subject, African Violets) I presoaked for 3 minutes in deionized water, then I developed Semi-Stand for 16 minutes at 71F. No stop bath - 3 minute rinse in deionized water instead. Fixed for 10 minutes in Ryuji's ammonium thiosulfate fixer (APUG Chemical Recipes). Washed via the soak and dump method in deionized water. The negs (6cm x 7cm) look very good.

When you say deionized water, what do you mean? I got a B+ in Chemistry but I'm not sure what that means.

And do you feel that the water rinse is better than the acidic stop bath? I've always used a stop because I was told to when I first learned.

By the way, I am so far in love with this film. It scans marvelously! (I know, a dirty word around here but it's my setup as of now)

Tom Hoskinson · Mar 25, 2006

battra92 said:
When you say deionized water, what do you mean? I got a B+ in Chemistry but I'm not sure what that means.

By deionized water, I mean water that contains very few (or no) metal ions.

I am fortunate to have two sources of deionized water in the lab that I use. We have a commercially supplied water filtration/ion exchange system that provides bulk deionized water to our lab.

In addition, we have a Millipore filtration chain that takes the bulk deionized water as input and produces 18 Megaohm (i.e. semiconductor grade) deionized water from it. The electrical resistance of the water from the Millipore system is monitored (real-time) to insure that it meets the 18 Megaohm resistance criteria. Water with High Electrical Resistance = Water with low ionic content.

You also wrote: "And do you feel that the water rinse is better than the acidic stop bath? I've always used a stop because I was told to when I first learned."

I wouldn't say that plain (or deionized water) is better than an acidic stop bath. It simply isn't needed with the film developing and fixing process that I am using, (i.e. a highly diluted developer and an Ammonium Thiosulfate based fixer).

Papa Tango · Mar 25, 2006

battra92 said:
B+ in Chemistry but I'm not sure what that means.

And do you feel that the water rinse is better than the acidic stop bath? I've always used a stop because I was told to when I first learned.

Me too. I had a difficult time reconciling a water bath stop. But, experience with the thicker emulsion films have shown me that using a water bath can eliminate problems like pinholes. Occassionally I had a few issues with this and they stopped when I quit using an acid stop bath.

Tom Hoskinson · Mar 25, 2006

battra92 said:
And do you feel that the water rinse is better than the acidic stop bath? I've always used a stop because I was told to when I first learned.

In my previous response, I failed to explain that Pyrocat-HD (all versions) is a staining developer (this type of developer stains and tans the film emulsion proportional to the amount of exposure the silver image receives).

In the process, a stain image is formed that complements the silver image.

An acid stop bath can reduce the density of the image stain, so a water rinse is recommended instead of an acid stop bath.

Efke 25 with R09, any advice?

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