New Efke 400

What I'd like to know is how does one come to believe Efke 400 is a multi-layer film? Isn't it possible its a single layer emulsion? And didn't one person on here say Efke 400 is not APX 400 either (by tests he did)?

EFKE 400

as there seems to be quite a lot of confusion going on here I would like to resolve most of the issues.

efke 400 film was up to 2002 Ilford HP5 (without the plus) bought by efke and repackaged for Maco, while some very small quantities were also sold in Croatia.

When Maco stopped the cooperation with efke in 2002/2003 they also ceased business with Ilford and were about to close their film producing plant in late 2003 totally, when they went into liquidation. It was only up to our intervention and a lot of effort by the efke employees that they kept the production alive and from 2003 to 2004 we were their only customer and did all we could to support them to keep up the production including moving orders away from other factories in favour of efke.

In the meantime Forte and Ilford went into trouble and the Agfa disaster happened.

So from mid 2004 on we had a different situation.

We decided to go ahead with our ADOX brand as we did not want to stop efke from seeking other outlets because the most important to us was that the factory survives and we were able to sell their products for many years to come. This involves mass production and more sellers can sell more than just one. In order to separate marketing activities we went ahead with our ADOX brand. Efke kept selling small quantities aside in their own efke boxes.

For this purpose we also sold two pancakes of ILFORD film to them in order to make their KB 400 film for the local croatian market. All Ilford raw material in their stock since 2003 is owned solely by fotoimpex.

These two pancakes (about 2200 films) were sold in Croatia and Europe.
We even sold off 1000 pice at one time because we could not get fresh CHM 400 fast enough.

In late 2005 the last films from this run were sold out and we did not sell any further pancakes to efke because Ilford told us that they would not supply any more raw material for the CHM product line. So we kept the lid on the remaining rolls and also stopped making the bulk rolls of 100ft.
CHM 400 is now being sold at our regular good prices, despite Ilford raising prices three times in the meantime, and when it´s gone we can only offer Ilford for those who look for an identical film. In the future we will sell another 100 and 400 professional film but we will change the name to make clear it is a different product.

efke 400 film currently being sold is AGFAPAN 400+. A film that Agfa was not able anymore to launch themselves. It is cut from jumbo rolls which efke is converting for another customer. It differs slightly from old APX. It is NOT an efke product. Efke cannot make any film with a higher speed than 100 ASA. They lack the possibility to coat multiple layers as well as necessary sensitizing technology.

Regards from Berlin, Germany,

Mirko
FOTOIMPEX

héhéhé
I'm simply the best

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Alicouscous said:

héhéhé
I'm simply the best

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Actually it was Humpty Dumpty who was the best, when he said, "Words mean what I say they mean."

And the word in question is, "rebranding."

Mirko, thank you for your reply, this is clearing a lot of misconceptions, conjectures and suppositions that were cast around. What you are saying corroborates what I've heard from other sources, so it proves they were reliable.

It seems one company is giving false information to keep sales from the other company. Now who for that matter is telling the truth. Foto Impex (Mirko) says its APX 400. Another poster Patrick said: "I have been using the NEW KB400 and I can assure you that it is definitely NOT HP5 nor is it APX400. How do I know this? Because I USE these films." And Freestyle say its NOT a rebranded film. He also gave me this email: "We presently do not have any developing times available for Efke 400 in Xtol...sorry. We do plan to carry it in 120 and 4x5 formats--we are hashing out the details with Efke as we speak.

Michael Tullberg"

So how can they be developing plans for 120 and 4x5 if Efke didn't buy up an old APX 400 in those formats if they haven't been available for the past 2 years? He said its in the works, so is it possible Efke found a way to coat a 400 emulsion on their equipment? At least now we know where all these rumours are coming from. So I say again who is telling the truth? We may never know for sure unless someone from the Efke factory pipes up online here. Now if someone would only test Efke 400 alongside APX 400 and see the results.

Actually it was Humpty Dumpty who was the best, when he said, "Words mean what I say they mean."

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rebranding is a frenglish word for "selling with their name "
when I say "i'm the best, its french humour " - i'm sorry if you prefer the "freedom fies" to the "french fries"
My english is bad, I hope you'll help me again

Now we know KB400 is not a new product and freestyle don't know what they sell .
peace on earth my friend ^^

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It is cut from jumbo rolls which efke is converting for another customer

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Does this other customer sells this film as "retro 400" ???

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For mhv : do you speak french ? would be happy to exchange infos with you Dead Link Removed

So how can they be developing plans for 120 and 4x5 if Efke didn't buy up an old APX 400 in those formats

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They have master-rolls, they can cut thelm in all formats they want ^^

We all know 35mm, 120 and 4x5 film are not the same thickness- so they'd have to have available master rolls of varying thickness to do this. 4x5 has to be quite thick to be stiff enough to stay flat. 120 is quite thin compared to 35mm. And 35mm is thinner then 4x5. So if they had master rolls supporting these different film sizes, then they'd already be available for sale and not in the works so to speak.

Agfapan 400s(or plus) is coated on 100 micron polyester film base hence it is thinner than normal APX400 on 125micron acetate film base and is available in 160ft bulk roll form from Silverprint and RK Photographic in the UK. The stuff both places are selling is a few months out of date but has been in cold storage since manufacture. APX400s is the surveillance version of APX400. Simple test to see if KB400 is APX400s would be to try and tear the film - polyester doesn't tear anything like as easily as acetate! According to Silverprint, the thinner film base makes it possible to get 45 exposures into a normal film cassette. The current Silverprint/RK Photographic price is £5 for 160ft.

Hope this helps,

Lachlan

Maybe I'm wrong. It would not be the first time. The emulsion does seem to be different than apx400. I tried tearing it and it tears so it is definitely not the polyester. The base does seem to be very close in color to the apx400. I don't know what to say. I'll try to shoot them side by side and develop them together the next chance I get and see what it looks like. APX400 was my favorite film, so if kb400 is apx400 I am screwed again! Life just is not fair.

Patrick,
fotoimpex says :

It differs slightly from old APX.

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Maybe it's why you don't recognize it
Honour is safe
you don't have to kill you now

ADOX FOTOIMPEX said:

efke 400 film currently being sold is AGFAPAN 400+. A film that Agfa was not able anymore to launch themselves. It is cut from jumbo rolls which efke is converting for another customer. It differs slightly from old APX. It is NOT an efke product. Efke cannot make any film with a higher speed than 100 ASA. They lack the possibility to coat multiple layers as well as necessary sensitizing technology.

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Guys, please re-read that paragraph correctly.

Efke 400 = AGFAPAN 400+

AGFAPAN 400+ is NOT, NOT, NOT APX 400.

"...our Vice-Presidents, who has told me to inform you that Efke (Fotokemika) has told him in no uncertain terms that the Efke KB400 that Freestyle sells is not a re-branded or re-badged film of any kind--it is Efke's own creation, based on classic older-style emulsions pre-dating more modern films like Tri-X. In other words, according to Efke's own people, this film--meaning the film that is in Freestyle's inventory--is not made by Ilford, Agfa, or any other outside party. It has a look that some say is similar to films made by Foma and Forte, but it is Efke product, made in Croatia. We quite frankly have no idea what the basis of Fotoimpex's claim is regarding Efke's inability to produce 400 speed film.


Yours truly,
Michael Tullberg
Freestyle Photographic Supplies"

Last email I received. If it is Agfa 400, then someone sure doesn't know about it. Secondly I wasn't aware there were two versions of Agfapan 400. I don't recall seeing two versions on their site or for sale here

yes
and my grandmother puts the chocolate in the aluminium paper

Alicouscous said:

My english is bad, I hope you'll help me again

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Your English is just fine, Alicouscous. My comment wasn't directed at you at all.

It would be nice if the manufacture would on their web site just publish clarity on all products-include the distributors and retail outlets where they can be ordered and purchased, including spec sheets etc...not exactly a novel idea....

I think the easiest thing to do is get some Agfapan 400+ (or Rollei Retro 400) and see for themselves if it compares to Efke 400.

I saw on another thread that Rollei Retro is the same as APX 400. So as far as I can see there was only APX and not 400+.

I just got my roll back of Efke 400. It seems grainy per say compared to Tri-X. I'll do some scans of both Efke 400 and HP5+ I shot with it and post some examples.

I found the efke has much nicer tonality

I was going to do this as a test to compare these two films, but right when I got the two rolls back I knew I wasn't going to get a decent comparison. The problem was the HP5+ roll seemed to be a stop overexposed compared to the Efke 400. This severely biased the whole test. The HP5 negs were obviously denser and had more shadow detail, but the contrast was off giving muted tones. I shot each roll with the same exposure settings and f stops, but its possible the one camera may be different compared to the other. That or they over developed the HP5+ film. So for fun I decided to see what I could notice between the two in terms of grain size. There was no point in comparing tones since one was over exposed/developed. Both were done in Xtol at a lab. The Efke 400 I asked them to do at 8 minutes which by visual inspection was correct. Since all this I can't draw any conclusions between the two films because of the bias. Even grain size seemed similar which suprised me since I was expecting the Efke 400 to be grainier then HP5+. When I tried Efke 100 it seemed rather grainy for its speed. Inspecting the prints Efke 400 did have a gritty texture to it. I haven't yet come to a conclusion of whether I like the Efke 400 yet, especially when compared to my favorite Tri-X 400. Anyways take a look. I can post more scans from Efke 400 by itself if anyone is interested.

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Here are some more scans from Efke 400 on this same roll.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=32113684

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=32113784

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=32113984

I noticed how this film has scratches in it already from what I don't know. Also on the film itself it says KB400 on top every few strips.

EFke has nicer tonality

Thankyou for shedding some light on this issue Zvonimir. I suspected someone was mislead, but who I wasn't sure. It seems Freestyle was correct. As for the film itself- I like the results and the grain seems to be as fine as Ilfords HP5. Whether it will replace Tri-X for me Im not sure yet. It does scratch easily as my negs already have a few in them. How they got there Im not sure. As per my developing in Xtol- 8 minutes seemed to be correct. If you wanted more shadow detail- maybe 8 1/2 would work.

Also Zvon- did they have this in 4x5 yet? Freestyle said they were working on bringing in the bigger formats, so it seems Fotokemika may already have those in production?

braxus said:

As per my developing in Xtol- 8 minutes seemed to be correct. If you wanted more shadow detail- maybe 8 1/2 would work.

Also Zvon- did they have this in 4x5 yet? Freestyle said they were working on bringing in the bigger formats, so it seems Fotokemika may already have those in production?

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Thanks for the Xtol developing information, I also use it. I will start with a 8 minutes as a starting point.

I didn't ask for a 4x5 sheets, sorry, I was in rush. Hope I will have more time next time I visite them for a new supply.

Pozdrav,
Zvonimir