NilVenet
Hello,
First of all, please excuse my poor English if there are any mistakes... I am French.
I’m writing here because I’m really interested in Efke/ADOX films, but I have a big question:
What are the optimal sensitivities for these films? On the French pages of your site, you say it’s twice the sensitivity stated on the box. But I find this really odd... and I read on an old page of the English FOTOIMPEX website that the KB25 was optimal at 20 ASA... So I’d love to hear everything you can tell me about Efke films and their sensitivities... :D
By the way, where can I find the development times for these films in Tetenal Neofin Blau? (Perhaps on the packaging of these products? :D )
Thank you very much. :)
cfb_de
Hi Nil,
I don’t speak French. So please excuse my reply in broken English. I’m German. Welcome to Europe :-)
I do have quite a bit of experience with Efke R50. So, I expose that film at ISO 50 for development in Rodinal (1 min pre-soak, 7 mins in Rodinal 1+25 at 20°C, agitation every 15 seconds).
Unfortunately, development times are likely to differ since the switch to ‘ADOX’ labelling. FOTOIMPEX hasn’t provided a satisfactory answer to this question yet.
So: Try it out for yourself (that’s what FOTOIMPEX told us on the German side of this forum) or ring Berlin directly. They do have staff who speak French. Ask for Amelie. She’ll translate for Mirko if he’s at his desk.
But don’t expect any specific development times or information about sensitivity.
Just my personal experience.
Best regards and good luck,
Franz
(Mirko: Time to get a move on! / Mirko: Go! Get a move on!)
MirkoBoeddecker
Nil,
To clear up some of the confusion caused by these various answers, I’ll briefly summarise my comments from the German forum, as what’s being reported here doesn’t reflect the actual situation; rather, it’s simply what some members of this discussion board assume has happened.
First of all, to answer your initial question:
The EFKE/ADOX CHS films do not actually have twice the speed stated on the box. I will have to re-read what Amélie translated to see if this is how it is understood by the consumer. The reason this information is circulating is that these single-layer fine-grain films cannot protect themselves very well against overexposure, unlike modern multi-layer films.
Most modern films are overrated, so many photographers tend to overexpose their films because they think that what’s written on the box is actually twice the effective speed.
Also, some camera manufacturers became aware of the film industry’s overrating and thus readjusted their built-in lightmeters to overexpose rather than underexpose the films. This produced better colour negatives, and the average consumer drew the conclusion that ‘this camera takes better pictures than another’.
Efke/ADOX films are NOT overrated like some modern films; they are close to the true speed printed on the box. So this is the important information that our text should contain.
Not overrated, but true speed – and thus, under certain circumstances, twice the speed of OTHER films in OTHER boxes labelled with the same speed IF YOU COMPARE THESE FILMS against each other.
Why are we publishing this?
Simple answer: If you now expose Efke/ADOX CHS films with one of the cameras that tend to overexpose, and perhaps on top of that give it another stop because you assume the films behave like others, your images will be totally overexposed and completely unusable. A slightly underexposed Efke/ADOX, on the other hand, is still usable, though of course not perfect.
A perfect image is, obviously, perfectly exposed and developed.
Now to the slightly off-topic answers to your questions from other forum members:
Every batch of film coated anywhere in the world in any given factory differs slightly from one to the next when it is fresh, and then it ages differently. Some films age better, some worse, depending on the formula, and then the different batches of any given film of the same type still age differently.
Obviously, a more complex modern film formula is more stable than a formula from the 1950s, such as the old ADOX formulations.
It so happened that there was a noticeable difference between the last films labelled efke R50 and the first films labelled ADOX CHS 50, and those three users from the forum are now using this as proof to try to ‘campaign’ against ADOX, claiming that we deliberately changed something and, for some strange, illogical reason, betrayed our customers by not telling them.
This is nonsense. All that happened was that the two batches aged differently and thus showed a difference. Something which has happened many times before; it’s just that no one noticed it, or perhaps the internet wasn’t around back then, so customers who noticed this never had a forum to use for a campaign.
Now these customers are asking us to test every film and publish this data so they do not have to test them themselves. In a way, this is a good idea – in fact, it is something I myself proposed a few years ago in the context of Forte films. But we found that, due to the varying ageing of the emulsion over the lifetime of a film, it is not enough to test a film just once. The emulsion in question, for example, was tested in March 2005 and was perfectly fine even after artificial ageing. Then, over a period of about six months, the characteristics must have declined by roughly 20 per cent – a decline that normally occurs only over a period of two years. At this stage, the film now appears to have stabilised. This is still within normal limits. If you take average photographs and use an average light meter, you will not notice any of this because the variations in your workflow as a whole (light meter tolerance, developer age, water, thermometer accuracy, agitation, etc.) are even greater than 20%. However, if you work very carefully under standardised conditions or make a direct comparison, you will see this. And if you work with the Zone System and wish to use a rather exotic film produced according to 1950s recipes, there is no alternative but to test every emulsion. It has always been this way and it will remain so.
So as far as your films are concerned, it will be business as usual. The first roll will turn out so-so, and then you’ll need to extend or reduce your development time; the subsequent rolls will be fine if you keep them in the freezer or use them within one to two months.
If you buy more next year, a different batch will be shipped, and you’ll need to readjust the development time or exposure after your first roll once again.
We are considering ways to measure, standardise and communicate this, but after all, this effort has to be paid for too, and we have to carefully weigh up product price increases against the services provided, so there is no definitive decision yet, even though one of the forum members seems to have made it a personal goal to get me to change things overnight.
Greetings from Berlin,
Mirko
PS I can understand long French sentences, but I prefer to reply in English.
