Oh No Efke to cease production

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Phil
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:'( Oh no :'(

Efke is ceasing production voluntarily because they cannot make money in selling film and papers anymore. Market prices are way to low for silver based products since about 5 years, especially if your products contain a lot of silver. Many of our ambitious projects stalled because of this as well. Repairing the machine is not an option because it makes no economic sense to continue the production after the repair has been done. Not because it can´t be done or there would be no money available (this is simplifying things a bit but in general this is true).

We are not moving their production anywhere. This sad news has hit us suddenly and all we do at this point is thinking about ways what possibly could be done now to deal with the situation. Our stocks will be depleted in about 2 months.

One option is to manufacture a similar film on a small scale with modern technology at a higher price. If it sells at this price, production is sustainable. This is only possible in our very small factory which we built from pieces of the former Agfa research dept. We are talking quantities here which are a fraction of what efke did and needed to do in order to support their operation in the size it was. They were small compared to Ilford and Kodak but are also quite large compared to us. For efke this is not an option because on a higher price level turnover will fall and both will lead to the same outcome: Not being able to recover running costs from sales or even think about profit.

Further reading here
lavidaleica.com/content/fotokemika-ceases-production-affe...
 
Adox is still running and their films are the same recipe as Efke, so at least we arent going to lose those emulsions
 
robhooley167 said:
Adox is still running and their films are the same recipe as Efke, so at least we arent going to lose those emulsions
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It's efke who make it for adox as far as I am aware, so it's all in the same boat.
 
Alan Clogwyn said:
And adox don't do Infra Red
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This to me is the big loss, I consider Efke IR820 to be at least as good, and sometimes better than the much lamented Kodak HIE.:'(:'(:'(
 
Efke - the brand name of the company Fotokemika - based in Croatia also makes the Adox CHS films - CHS100, 50 and 25. And the Adox Fine Print Vario Classic and Nuance papers.

They have decided to close the factory because they are making no money. I'm not surprised - customers have often complained at the price of Ilford products - but Ilford have remembered to include a profit margin in the price. How Fotokemika could justify selling their sheet film are less than half the price of Ilford I could never understand - yes, we knew it was not as good quality as Ilford, but in my view it was satisfactory and the character of the films more than made up for any QC issues.

Hence, we knew this was on the cards for some time and this is why Adox themselves have been gradually putting together their own manufacturing facility in Germany. They can do everything now apart from actually coat the film - this they do with Inoviscoat in Monheim.

The demise of Fotokemika will pave the way for Adox's own German made products - we already have the MCC and MCP paper and I hope soon there will be some films too.
 
Aren't Efke the only producer of 127 film? :(
 
No number of asterix's can block out the swearies from me :( Adox 25 is one of my standard black and white films, could do with stocking up :(
 
AgPhotographic said:
Hence, we knew this was on the cards for some time and this is why Adox themselves have been gradually putting together their own manufacturing facility in Germany. They can do everything now apart from actually coat the film - this they do with Inoviscoat in Monheim.

The demise of Fotokemika will pave the way for Adox's own German made products - we already have the MCC and MCP paper and I hope soon there will be some films too.
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Seems that it's not always bad news then :thumbs:
 
sparty said:
Aren't Efke the only producer of 127 film? :(
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No Rollei do an 80S and a 200 iso film in 127 ...i have never tried them but looks like something is still available in that format
 
robhooley167 said:
No number of asterix's can block out the swearies from me :( Adox 25 is one of my standard black and white films, could do with stocking up :(
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Yes I like Adox 25 too works well with my old field cameras but I when I searched recently i was struggling to find a retailer offering it in quarter plate size!!
 
Maybe we could do with a sticky of who is actually supplying what film.....I don't know about you guys but I often find myself going around in circles on the internet searching out a source when i find my previous one no longer offers the film I want!...Only an idea, perhaps a daft one!
 
First stop for now me usually is Photo Supplies, then spiral out from them :shrug:
 
Asha said:
No Rollei do an 80S and a 200 iso film in 127 ...i have never tried them but looks like something is still available in that format
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I feel like a bearer of bad news but that is also efke film rebranded.
 
If everyone else disappears and Ilford remains then they may find it viable to do some of the missing formats/emulsions.
 
So is there a definitive list of film that's getting axed?
 
According to a post Adox made on APUG, all CHS emulsions are going to be 'temporarly' discontinued along with Nuance and Vario Classic papers but CMS20 and other Adox films are unaffected as they coat them at their own coating plant. Apparently they do have enough stock though for 6 months and hope to begin coating the CHS emulsions again at their own facility shortly:

http://www.apug.org/forums/forum390/108560-fotokemika-24.html#post1384785

All CHS films, Nuance and Vario Classic.

Vario Classic can fully be replaced by MCC which is actually better.
Nuance was a graded paper and thus cannot be fully replaced by MCC or Polywarmtone if/when we make it again but MCC can be developed to a similar tone in ADOTOL WA. Also the highlight differentiation of Nuance and MCC are almost equal if you filter MCC acordingly.
The lithability of Nuance was very good. If you used the paper for lith printing Polywarmtone will be the repelacement.

As for the films we plan to bring a replacement for the low speed films and a 100 ASA version.
The 100 ASA film will come first and be made available in the same selection of formats except 127.
We hope to be able to supply without an interruption here.

Kind regards,

Mirko
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As far as I know Rollei 80S and 400S are unaffected as their made by Agfa-Gevaert in Belgium as aerial film, brought by Rollei etc, cut down and rebranded, which includes the 127 version. The Efke 127 film was based on CHS100, it looks like the IR820C is gone although nothing says that someone else might pick it up
 
Asha said:
Maybe we could do with a sticky of who is actually supplying what film.....I don't know about you guys but I often find myself going around in circles on the internet searching out a source when i find my previous one no longer offers the film I want!...Only an idea, perhaps a daft one!
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Not a daft idea at all, I will start a thread, Where Do You Buy Your Film? Hopefully It can be made into a sticky.
 
Perhaps we can start putting all the stickies in their own sub-forum and then we can start having active topics back at the top of the page again.
 
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