Under Expose elfke 25 can it be saved???

I got some holder mixed and ended up under exposing some Elfke 25 ( the other holders had 100) I am planing to develop it on Fryday on rodinal 1: 25 or 1 :50 any tips on what may save the film?

Ouch! I did that a few weeks ago with 100 and 400 film. I bit the bullet and developed at the 100 ASA. My reasoning was that I can always get a print with a dense neg but an underdeveloped would be much more work. Luckily it was only 4 sheets of film and while it was dense, it was still printable. Another possibility is to choose the median development time and see what happens. If the difference only a minute, you are ok in most instances. Anymore, it gets to be interesting. Whatever method you choose, I hope it turns out to give a great print

castilg said:

I got some holder mixed and ended up under exposing some Elfke 25 ( the other holders had 100) I am planing to develop it on Fryday on rodinal 1: 25 or 1 :50 any tips on what may save the film?

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Hi Gus, Efke 25 is a rather unforgiving film. I don't think you will be happy with Rodinal in this situation. I would suggest using a compensating developer. If you mix your own, you might consider trying Pextral's staining developer. See Ole's post in the Apug Chemical Recipes :

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In any case, it would be a good idea to run some tests before commiting the film you are trying to save.

Diafine and Microphen are other developers that are often used for push developing, for example.

When I'm not sur about anything except that the exposure is probably wrong, I turn to stand development in half-strength FX-2. About 90 minutes without agitation has given printable negatives from even my worst gaffes.

What I'd suggest is to try a single sheet in highly dilute developer (Rodinal or HC-110 have good reputations for this), with a long process and some, but not much agitation. In inversion tanks, I like to use HC-110 Dilution G (1:119 from USA concentrate, or from Euro "bottled stock solution" you can make Dilution E by the bottle label and then dilute 2 parts E to one part water); I agitate continuously for the first minute, then five inversions every 3 minutes. For normal contrast, I use 3x the published Dilution B time, which gives me shadow detail about 2/3 stop better than a "normal" process; with further extension of development (30-50% increase) you can get a one stop "push" that, at the cost of some loss in shadow detail, will act more or less like another stop of film speed.

For Efke 25, there's no listing I can see for HC-110, but I'd estimate (based on D-76 and Rodinal times) that for this purpose you'd need about 28 to 31 minutes at 68 F/20 C, agitating every 3rd minute after the first. This is a strongly compensating process, so it generally avoids blocking highlights and is pretty forgiving, and it'll get the most possible shadow detail. As others have said, slow films are typically unforgiving, but this is the best option I know of to try to save the images.

After shooting a bunch of this stuff, I'd say give it a try, but don't expect miracles. Tom's comment about "a rather unforgiving film" may be the understatement of the week. This stuff is not at all friendly with respect to exposure and development. Stick with Ole's suggestion and pray.

If you were shooting a very flat subject, there might be enough exposure to get something which prints, but plan on reshooting. If it was full sunlight the effects will be interesting. This film builds contrast readily, but the cardinal sin for me is underexposure with Efke 25. I normally rate it at 12, but for azo I use 6 as my standard speed. Sure is nice for skin tones with proper exposure and does a good job on metallic surfaces as well. tim

EXTOL rules I process the efke 25 on Xtol srtaight for 7 min It came out great
thanks guys I tought to try one sheet as per John (J&C) specs and it worked

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