Response to Has anyone tried Efke or Foma films?

I forgot to add that the developing time of 10-12 minutes in R09 /F09 1:100 for T200 refers to the contrast range for "normal" graded paper in AGFA parlance (used by most European manufacuters, e.g. Foma, Forte, but not by Ilford, the European grades are "soft" [ISO 110], "special" [ISO 100], "normal" [ISO 80], "hard" [ISO 60]). Graded "Normal" is grade 3 with an ISO contrast range for printing paper of ISO 80. With variable contrast paper according to the Ilford standard this is roughly filter 3 (ISO 90) to filter 4 (ISO 80). I can highly recommend to stadardize on on this contrast range with Foma T200 and Efke 50 films (as with all other low and medium speed films), since the overal contrast rendition greatly improves, also the tonal rendition in comparison to the "Anglo-Saxon" system (Kodak and Ilford) to use a grade 2 (ISO range 100-105) as standard. Especially contrasty scenes benefit. An additional benefit is finer grain, but one loses a little film speed (according to my measurements this is not dramatic). R09 /F09 is the classic form of Rodinal (the manufacturer Calbe was formely part of ORWO, which was East German AGFA. ORWO gave up the trademark AGFA only in th 1960s), no longer sold by AGFA. The current AGFA product is very different in forumlation and working qualities. One last comment to Brenner: According to their latest catalogue Brenner do no longer sell outside the European Union. I guess that this is the reason why they do not respond to queries from the US. The excellent range of Fotochemicals by Calbe which they carry can easily be purchased through Fotoimpex though.

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