After all this forum's discussion over the past couple of months about efke films, I decided to take the plunge and order some. It took about 2½ weeks, but fotoimpex.de delivered via US mail, and there was no customs fee.

I've shot, developed and printed one roll of efke 100 in 35mm and, so far, I'm impressed. I was looking for a film that would stain better in PMK than FP4+ in 35mm. (While FP4+ gives me nice stain in 120, I don't get nearly as much in the smaller format, but I guess that's a problem for another discussion)

efke 100 stains much better than the Ilford film (I tried 8 minutes), and the grain, while not as fine as FP4+, is much finer than other "old world" emulsions like Forte. It seems to have good exposure latitude and a nice gray scale as well.

I have also shot and developed a roll of efke 50, and am sad to say that its limited spectral response plays havoc with orange and red filters. Orange filters need at least one extra stop, and red filters need an extra two or three extra stops of exposure. Other than that, efke 50 seems like a very nice film, and I can hardly wait to print from it.

Interestingly enough, I encountered no surprises. If you go back and read the efke threads on this forum, you'll find all I did was verify them--you guys who shared your experience were right on the money. One more thing: I have encountered no scratches or cracks in the emulsion; efke doesn't seem to have any quality control problems with these batches anyway.

-- Brian Hinther (brianh@onewest.net), August 07, 2001

Answers

Hello!

Thanks a lot for sharing the information!

I love Efke films! I use a lot of Efke R50 and R25. These films are ortopancromatic and are made this way. R50 and R25 are perfect for portraits taken with lamps as light source. You don't have to use filters. Superb skintones and super fine grain. If you're shooting landscapes you would use a tripod, so exposing three instead of two stops more when using an orange filter isn't a real problem as long as you keep in mind how this film works.

-- Patric (jenspatric@mail.bip.net), August 08, 2001.

Efke R100 is the only B/W film that's available in 127-format. I use it in my pre-war 4x4 Rolleiflex and love it!

-- Patric (jenspatric@mail.bip.net), August 08, 2001.