EFKE Film Cassette - take care!

I have obtained 10 rolls of 35mm EFKE ISO25 film, dated 2014.
Yesterday I was preparing to load the dev tank, and somehow managed, under white light, to flick off one of the end caps ....doh ... so light off immediately and then proceeding load as normal. Will do the dev in a day or two due to work commitments. I am just hoping the fogging isn't too bad, it's a slow film, and I spent quite some time, using tripod and yellow filter.
Did I read somewhere in the past that the Efke cartridges are a bit "flimsy"? On the up-side I will now start a collection of undamaged cassettes and might just start rolling my own again, which I used to do 20 years ago

klaus3428 said:

I have obtained 10 rolls of 35mm EFKE ISO25 film, dated 2014.
Yesterday I was preparing to load the dev tank, and somehow managed, under white light, to flick off one of the end caps ....doh ... so light off immediately and then proceeding load as normal. Will do the dev in a day or two due to work commitments. I am just hoping the fogging isn't too bad, it's a slow film, and I spent quite some time, using tripod and yellow filter.
Did I read somewhere in the past that the Efke cartridges are a bit "flimsy"? On the up-side I will now start a collection of undamaged cassettes and might just start rolling my own again, which I used to do 20 years ago

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They are not crimped like normal cassettes but can be reloaded easily with bulk film best not to drop them!

Xmas said:

They are not crimped like normal cassettes but can be reloaded easily with bulk film best not to drop them!

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that explains .... hoping I can salvage some images.

I pulled the top of my developing tank before I had poured the fixer in and it effected the top half of all the negatives, you have a tighter fit in a canister though.

I had a similar experience. I dropped a reloadable cartridge as I was taking an exposed roll out of my camera and the cover came off of one end. As I was trying to put the cover back on, the cover came off of the other end. There was some fogging in the sprocket hole areas but, except for the first few frames, most of the images on the roll were usable. I made an 11x14" print from the middle of that roll and, if you look closely, you can see one small spot where the light hit it.

Developed film today in Ilfosol 3 1+14 for 6 minutes. The developer came out a brilliant purple colour (nail varnish like)! Clear filmbase. No sign of fogging whatsoever - a lucky escape!

The negatives look great, hopefully I can get some decent scans done - work in progress for the weekend.

I don't like plastic cassettes, the kind where one end is threaded and twists off. They have a propensity to come off. Unfortunately the metal ones are merely the same as those used commercially but lacking the crimping usually found.

Hi Gerald, my batch of plastic cassettes dates from the late 80's and I have never had the end cap fall off. As I screw on the end cap it even seems to tighten up before locking in closed position. Some people like to use a bit of tape to secure the cap but I have never had need of it.

One drawback I have found is that because the plastic cap is sealed at one end the gap between the felt lips is quite small and the cap has to be stretched a bit when feeding the spool and film into the cassette. All good so far.

The oldest factory cassette I have sitting in front of me is a green and burgundy Fuji Neopan SS cassette and the expiry date on the carton was some time in 1968. I just use the film in this as a practise film for loading stainless reels that I have just acquired.

A different question relating to EFKE25, or maybe all EFKE film stock:
The negatives are extremely "springy" just getting them into a negative sleeve or the scanning mask is tricky. Also they don't lie flat, so scanning produces some uneven lighting in the corners.
Anyone remember how they dealt with EFKE negatives - did you avoid the problem in the first place - are there any specifics during dev and drying to avoid the problems? And for scanning ideally I need to use a piece of glass (AN?) to keep 'em flat and how to get the scanner to recognise non Epson filmholder arranegments?

klaus3428 said:

Anyone remember how they dealt with EFKE negatives

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I curse a lot.

I have a geriatric bulk roll of KB100 that cups badly. Can't remember how bad the IR AURA-film I shot was, cupping-wise. There's lots of advice to put the sleeved negatives under a stack of books for a week; as far as I can tell, this has no effect.

Talking of cupping. About 5 years ago I did shoot and process about half of the aformentioned roll of Neopan SS. I ended up with a pencil thick tube of negatives about 2 feet long. Absolutely unusable. Even when I managed to open up the tube of negs I could see very little detail through the base fog.

My small stash of this film will either be used for display purposes or maybe, if I have a major lapse in integrity, I will put it on the great auction site and let some idiots fight for it.