Efke 50 or 100 users?

A few days ago, I was lucky to take street photographs in very bright sunlight - the last two rolls of film in my pocket were Efke 25 films. Street photography, 25 ASA, right. It worked, somehow, though I am used to Tmax 100 as a sunny daylight film and Tri-X for everything less bright.

That made me think because I am running out of Tmax 100 film... the Efke 25 is great, but 25 ASA is tough, and I don't like tripods... why not try an Efke old-time, old-look film?

If some of you have some experience with the 50 and 100 emulsions (they are sooo long in the market), how are they? Good enough for 35mm? My prints are quite large in many cases, so grain and sharpness are really important.

My experience with Efke 50 in 35mm has been very good. It's just like 25, except faster; sharp, contrasty and tight grained. The 100 is a different animal, but my experience with that has been pretty positive as well. It just isn't quite as blind to red light and so misses a bit of that old-timey look. I meter the 50 at 100 in sunlight with no problem. Both have proved to be good in D76, HC110, Caffinol and Rodinal - with my preference for the 50 being D76 1/1.

I recently tried adox 50 (similar to efke). In my opinion this film is nothing special. (developed in Rodinal) Tmax, Plus-X, Delta or APX are much better.

I love the look of Efke 25 but I gave up on it. The lack of QC burned me too many times.

Efke 100 and Efke 25

cmo said:

A few days ago, I was lucky to take street photographs in very bright sunlight - the last two rolls of film in my pocket were Efke 25 films. Street photography, 25 ASA, right. It worked, somehow, though I am used to Tmax 100 as a sunny daylight film and Tri-X for everything less bright.

That made me think because I am running out of Tmax 100 film... the Efke 25 is great, but 25 ASA is tough, and I don't like tripods... why not try an Efke old-time, old-look film?

If some of you have some experience with the 50 and 100 emulsions (they are sooo long in the market), how are they? Good enough for 35mm? My prints are quite large in many cases, so grain and sharpness are really important.

Click to expand...

My experience with Efke 100 and Efke 25 in 35mm, 120 rollfilm and 8x10 sheet film has been very good. It's sharp, and reasonably fine grained. The tonality is excellent. My overall Efke experience has been very positive.

I develop all my Efke film in Pyrocat, (semi-stand or minimal agitation) I find that Pyrocat does a wonderful job of clamping the highlights with Efke 25.

I don't have any experience with Efke in 35mm, but I can tell you I love the stuff in 120. I mostly stick with the 50 ISO stuff and find it is very forgiving to under exposure and has a great feel to it. I've only used it with Rodinal and at this point don't have much desire to try it in anything else as Rodinal give me the look I'm going for.

I like all the EFKE/Adox emulsions they are all slightly different and as someone mentioned earlier the red end sensitivity is different on the 100.
I have a test of the 50 here:
http://photo-utopia.blogspot.com/2007_09_23_archive.html
In my opinion it's the best of the three (just)
I haven't had any problems with QC and I use quite a bit of this stuff in both 35mm and 120.
Here is a link to a portrait on the 100:
http://www.pbase.com/mark_antony/image/64300514
A landscape on the 25:
http://www.pbase.com/mark_antony/image/76832954
Both of the above were on 35mm I normally develop in Rodinal 1:100
Mark

cmo said:

If some of you have some experience with the 50 and 100 emulsions (they are sooo long in the market), how are they? Good enough for 35mm? My prints are quite large in many cases, so grain and sharpness are really important.

Click to expand...

Consider the Efke50 as a stop faster Efke25.

Efke100 is totally different. Whenever I show the Efke100 prints to friends a usual comment is that it looks like it was shot around middle of last century. In the pictures could be a brand new diesel Lamborgini or 7of9 with all available implants the comments and "feeling" will remain. Hard to explain...

Pozdrav,
Zvonimir

cmo said:

A few days ago, I was lucky to take street photographs in very bright sunlight - the last two rolls of film in my pocket were Efke 25 films. Street photography, 25 ASA, right. It worked, somehow, though I am used to Tmax 100 as a sunny daylight film and Tri-X for everything less bright.

That made me think because I am running out of Tmax 100 film... the Efke 25 is great, but 25 ASA is tough, and I don't like tripods... why not try an Efke old-time, old-look film?

If some of you have some experience with the 50 and 100 emulsions (they are sooo long in the market), how are they? Good enough for 35mm? My prints are quite large in many cases, so grain and sharpness are really important.

Click to expand...

I love the tonality of the Efke 25. Can easily be your secret weapon. I only shoot 120 in Rolleiflexes (just added Mamiya 645 to dump 35mm), and even in "less than bright" instances, you'll get great results. I don't use tripos either that's a myth I'm so tired of hearing still being spread, after all these years.

The 100 as well, complete the Efke I keep in the Freezer. For sharpness go Rodinal 1:50 for 10min and you'll have very easy to print results. Some go the 1:100 for an hour route. Done it twice, didn't care for it.

Efke is great, they stick to 9001 standard quality aspects (which aren't that easy to get) so don't let the rumors of bad QC scare you away. That's the 1st cry of someone who doesn't know how to use the film properly.

There's an excellent Efke group on Flickr and I run the Efke 25 Drive site just for shots with that film.

Mark's shots look fine with Efke too. One thing I've noticed, is that with all the film companies going under (Agfa, Forte) I've got more choices now than before.

My stock consists of Efke 25, 100. Plus-X, Tri-X, Rollei Ortho25, Fomapan 200 & 400. Rodinal, HC-110, and just got some ATM49 to try, which from what I've seen, mixed with Efke films, give a great vintage look.

Got some Efke 25 in the Mamiya now, so I can give the ATM49 (an old recipe Agfa fine-grain developer) a whirl. Unfortunately it's not available here, but thank goodness for friends in Berlin!

That's my answer for ya!
Rolleijoe