I like the look of the Efke films and, as they are produced not so far away from here they are the cheapest available locally.
But, I've become really frustrated their extreme curliness - in both dimensions. This means that getting them into the film holder for scanning can be a real bother and ends up with having lots of dust on the film. So, yesterday I bit the bullet and bought some Ilford HP5.
Time being short I decided to shoot a roll indoors of the one daughter that doesn't normally get collared for my photography. I promised just the one roll of 10 shots to get her to comply.
The next decision was developer - after a quick trawl I realised that Rodinal apparently is not so well suited to this film but I had some Microphen at hand - so I used that at 1+3 for 23 mins as recommended on the MDC.
End result was that the film stayed much flatter - some curl across the film but nothing, NOTHING, like the extreme curliness of the Efke.
Here are some of the shots - not a lot of dust to be seen at all (but a few water marks).
1.
2.
3.
Not too bad. I need to improve my exposure and development to get a bit more sparkle in the highlights but I guess that's going to be unlikely with Microphen as a compensating developer?
Having bought a 4x5 camera, I've bought a pack of Efke 100 film so we shall see how we get on with that (once the blooming film holders arrive).
ps. the above did have a bit of twidling in PS to improve contrast slightly.
But, I've become really frustrated their extreme curliness - in both dimensions. This means that getting them into the film holder for scanning can be a real bother and ends up with having lots of dust on the film. So, yesterday I bit the bullet and bought some Ilford HP5.
Time being short I decided to shoot a roll indoors of the one daughter that doesn't normally get collared for my photography. I promised just the one roll of 10 shots to get her to comply.
The next decision was developer - after a quick trawl I realised that Rodinal apparently is not so well suited to this film but I had some Microphen at hand - so I used that at 1+3 for 23 mins as recommended on the MDC.
End result was that the film stayed much flatter - some curl across the film but nothing, NOTHING, like the extreme curliness of the Efke.
Here are some of the shots - not a lot of dust to be seen at all (but a few water marks).
1.
2.
3.
Not too bad. I need to improve my exposure and development to get a bit more sparkle in the highlights but I guess that's going to be unlikely with Microphen as a compensating developer?
Having bought a 4x5 camera, I've bought a pack of Efke 100 film so we shall see how we get on with that (once the blooming film holders arrive).
ps. the above did have a bit of twidling in PS to improve contrast slightly.