Moving from Efke to Ilford

[Timing]

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.

 

[Grant]

Lovely! I have always been a fan of Rodinal + Ilford. Is there any substantial claims that suggest against that combination!?

 

[ekimeno]

Great results. So you used HP5 and Microphen here? I really like this combo - very detailed and superb depth... what camera and lens did you use?

 

[joxby]

I always though Rodinal was good for just about anything, maybe a bit coarse on some films but a real jack of all generally.
Ilford have curly films, 3200 ties itself in granny knots and feels really thick.
My latest scanner film holders do an anti newton glass sandwich, so curly isn't a problem now, but 3200 was a complete cow on the 4490 with open holders.
Those are damn fine photos btw

 

[Timing]

Thanks for the comments.

I will try the film with Rodinal but after a quick google came across more than a few comments which suggested that it was not an ideal combo with this particular film due to excessive grain. I wanted to make sure that my first use of the film wasn't beset by any problems with the developers I had.


The camera was a mamiya RZ67 pro II with 110mm lens - most of this film was shot at either f2.8 or f4 to get a more limited DOF - especially as I got in closer.

Cheers.

 

[Freester]

Some really nice shots there. I'd be pleased with them. I've had nice results with HP5 and ID11 developer if you don't want to use Rodinal.