Soft, silvery tones, going through an impressive range of greys, beautiful velvet feeling and great details. This was my first impression of this film and I still hold to my first opinion, even after all these years of shooting it.
I have sampled my first Efke films back at the beginning of 2000s. It was still available, in all the emulsion types the Croatian FotoKemika manufacturer produced them: 25/KB14, 50/KB50 and 100/KB100. Never used the 120 version of it, just the 35mm stocks, and I never shot their famous IR820 (although I wish I now had some of this film in my freezer). Simply, I was just not into the IR photography, nor am I now for that matter).
I am not much of a specialist when it comes to film emulsions and such; that said, here are some highlights regarding this negative: KB 25 is a thin-layer black-white negative film, of very fine grain, with a resolving power of 115 lines/mm. Its applications are particularly sought in technical and professional photography, due to large exposure latitude and superior grayscale reproduction.
The Efke 25, 50 and 100 films are made using the ADOX formulas that were first introduced back in the 1950s. The film is ortho-panchromatic, making it less sensitive to the red end of the spectrum than standard pan film, and its sensitivity is 14 DIN (20 ASA, ISO 20/14° GOST 18). Its high content of silver renders beautiful tonalities, excellent greys.
These samples here were shot with Kodak Retinette 1b and processed in Rodinal 1+25 for 11′, Jobo 1510.
Sadly, FotoKemika Zagreb closed its business in 2012 or 2013, and never re-opened. The availability of this film is rather scarce, and rolls of this film are asking for really costly amounts. Bulk rolls are becoming are, and even costlier. My own stash, frozen at some point in the 2010-2011 is gone; all I have now is a roll of 30metres, just opened the other day to reload a 20 frame length for this article’s purpose.