Just wanted to share the information that Efke 25 is available as sheet film, sold under the name Wephota NP 15. It can be bought in all sizes, and if you have an odd size camera they will cut the film for you!

http://banse-grohmann.de/wephota/sortimix.htm

Efke 25 is the old Adox KB/R 14 film that was born in 1949. It's as sharp and fine grained as Ilford Pan F Plus! :-)

-- J. Patric Dahlén (jenspatricdahlen@hotmail.com), April 29, 2002

Answers

At last! Actually I find it both sharper and more fine grained than Pan F.

Anybody have any experience in ordering and having it shipped to the US?

-- Ted Harris (slberfuchs@aol.com), April 29, 2002.

Hi,

I don't live in US, but in Finland. Anyway, I've ordered it from Fotoimpex, Germany. Even that they don't have it on their catalog, you can get it from them if you ask for it.

http://www.fotoimpex.de

I recently ordered 10 boxes of the 4x5" NP15, and it took 2 weeks for the films to arrive. I don't think there will be any problems in shipping to the USA either.

I've already shot 10 boxes of it last summer, and it really is a wonderful film.

Regards, Jukka

-- Jukka Korhonen (jukka.korhonen@poyry.fi), May 02, 2002.

www.fotoimpex.de also sells Fortepan films in all sheet sizes at least up to 8x10" under the brand "Classic Pan."

-- David Goldfarb (dgoldfarb@barnard.edu), May 02, 2002.

Hi, A question for those of you who use this film: what are the reciprocity characteristics of this film? Thanks, BILL

-- William Mitchell (mitchell.candy@worldnet.att.net), May 02, 2002.

Bill,

Sorry, I can't tell much about the reciprocity characteristics, but this I found: I have to set my meter at about ISO64-ISO80 to get decent negatives. So it appears to be more faster film than I first thought.

Just a couple of weeks ago I took some pictures at the studio and exposed the film as ISO64 using the strobes. The negs came out fine. (I used the Rodinal 1+50 20C 5mins constant agitation).

The film's tonal characteristics are somehow odd, but I really like the old-fashioned look of the NP15:

http://www.jukkakorhonen.com/a_index.htm (In finnish only, sorry)

Best regards, Jukka

-- Jukka Korhonen (Jukka.korhonen@poyry.fi), May 03, 2002.

"The film's tonal characteristics are somehow odd, but I really like the old-fashioned look of the NP15".

This film is orthopanchromatic, and less sensitive to red and more sensitive to blue-green than other pan-films. It is designed that way deliberatly, and it has nothing to do with "they didn't know so much back when the film was formulated". There are a couple of standards for b/w films sensitivity to colors:

Orthochromatic - Red blind, blue-green sensitive (For example Macophot ORT25)

Orthopanchromatic - Sensitive to all colors but little less to red than blue-green. Yellow filter is standard for dayligt photography, but no filter is needed in lamp light. (For example Efke 25 and 50, Macophot OP100)

Panchromatic - sensitive to all colors, but there can be a little difference between films. (Most b/w films, but Agfa APX 100 is on the border to orthopan films since it's a little more blue senstitive) A light yellow or a yellow-green filter are standard filters for these films.

Ultrapanchromatic - more sensitive to red and less to blue-green. (For example Technical Pan) A light blue-green or a light blue filter is needed to get a more normal conversion of colors to gray scale.

Adox low speed films (now Efke or in this case NP15) were very popular for portraits because of the nice skin tones. The orthopan emulsion automaticly compensated for the yellow-red lamplight in studios. Adox 21 (Efke KB/R100) was formulated as an ordinary Pan- film, and has a thicker emulsion and not meant to be a super fine grained film as the 25 and 50 speed films.

-- J. Patric Dahlén (jenspatricdahlen@hotmail.com), May 03, 2002.