Efke KB400

On the market, we can find Efke KB 400 now .

Do you have infos about this film ?

Is it same that adox chm400 ? is it rebranded ilford film ? or another rebranded film ?

Or is it simply a new Efke film ?

Will Fotoimpex sell this film in the next months ?

Thanks for infos <img src='http://forum.fotoimpex.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />

[Mirko Boeddecker]

Herve,



find attached my answer on the APUG forum regarding this issue.



Regards,



Mirko

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