Re: [Leica] EFKE 100 film in HC-110

[DonjR43198@aol.com]

Thank you so much for the info relative to EFKE 100.  

After I asked where the film might be purchased in the USA, I recalled seeing 
an EFKE ad by Freestyle Sales Co. in California.  Yesterday afternoon I 
ordered 20 rolls of EFKE KB-25 35 mm 36 exposure film and one 30 meter bulk 
roll of the same film.  The 36 exposure rolls were $1.95 each and the 30 
meter bulk roll was about $20.00.  The EFKE KB-25 is supposed to be similar 
to the Adox KB-14 only a slight bit faster.  In the 50's and 60's, KB-14 was 
probably the best fine grain, high resolution film available.

Neofin Blue was recommended at that time.  Neofin Blue was a derivative of 
the Willi Beutler developer that was formulated for high resolution work.  
There were two versions of the Willi Beutler developer, the first having 5 
grams metol and the second and faster working version having 10 grams metol.

Plymouth Products came along and started marketing another derivative of the 
Willi Beutler developer and it became a standard for high acutance, high 
resolution film.  The Plymouth Products developer is still on the market and 
is named TEC.  This means "thin emulsion compensating."  Mike Tatem of 
Plymouth Products conducted many seminars touting TEC and it caught on with 
those who wanted a fast, clean working developer that seemed to get the most 
speed, acutance, and resolution from the films.  

The Leica Technical School at New York used TEC and recommended it for b&w 
work along with Kodak's Panatomic-X.

Bob Schwalberg (probably not the right spelling) of Modern Photography wrote 
some articles about the thin emulsion films such as KB-14 and the Willi 
Beutler developers in the late 50's.  If you have any of the 57 and 58 issues 
you might check them for articles.  Wish I had cut out those articles.

Some of the Crawly developers formulated for the thin emulsion films should 
also work well with the EFKE films.

Of course, the "Beutler" type developers were very dilute and exhausted 
themselves in the highlights but kept working in the shadow areas or at least 
that was the stated goal for the developers.  At least they did not attempt 
to attack the grains as some of the fine grain developers were designed to do.

Good luck with the EFKE films and please report your results.