Kodak 6031330 Professional Ektar 100/36 Colour Negative Film

Product Information

This issue is usually the worst on lighter skin tones, where Ektar tends to produce an odd-looking red/orange tint. If you tend to mostly take photos of people, you’re probably going to want to choose a different film. One testament I’ve seen to that is comparisons made between Ektar and slide film. Having only shot one roll of slide – the new Ektachrome 100 – at the time of writing, I don’t really have the experience to repeat those claims. But I’d say them getting made elsewhere is worth noting. And for many lovers of digital cameras, this may also be one of your favorite Kodak film emulsions. I see people talk about the colours you get from Ektachrome E100. About how they’re rich and bright. And also the contrast, sharpness, and fine grain brought about by Kodak’s T-grain emulsion technology.

Not having to go through the development process and also having easily shareable digital files was something that couldn’t be ignored. Unfortunately, this meant that Ektachrome increasingly was. Ektar is known for it’s beautiful, saturated colors, especially in the reds. It has some of the most beautiful colors I have ever got out of color film. They’re so rich and vibrant without looking fake. Being so saturated, it’s not exactly ideal for portraits unless you like your subject looking sunburnt or blushing. Though saturated, Ektar’s colours are neither overbearing nor unnatural. The film’s palette is nuanced and is unlikely to be easily replicable by cranking up the “saturation” slider. These were still the pre-digital camera days, so there were a lot more types of film available to buy. Originally, Kodak Ektar was available in 25, 100, 400, and 1000 speeds. The 400 ISO version stayed in production a few years longer than the rest.If you don’t think there’s enough light to fully expose your ISO 100 film, Ektar is better to be left at home. Or pushed in development. When we were sourcing sample images for this article, we noticed a lot of photos of beaches, bodies of water, etc. Long story short, Kodak Ektar 100 is the perfect film for summer vacation and days where everyone is wearing sunglasses. Yes, we have had a number of new films in the last few years, and I feel the same way about all of those too. That it’s better we have them than not. But the fact is some of them are repurposed film that was already made for another reason or a rebadging of another film you can buy anyway.

So with all things said, the image qualities of Ektachrome E100 really do depend on how well you shoot it. Nail the light and exposure and you’ll love it. Get either of those just slightly off and – as you’ll see if you read on – you might find yourself disappointed. Many would agree that the biggest disadvantage to Ektar 100 is that skin tones can look…pretty bad. Sure, if you’re comparing Ektar vs Portra, it’s obvious that Portra is going to shine in this regard, as the film is intended for portraits. It being so exacting is definitely why I don’t recommend it as a regular street photography film today, though. This has nothing to do with its ISO rating either. I’ve had no problem shooting other ISO 100 films out and about in the city before. Kodak Ektar 100 was released as a completely new film in around 2007, designed to cater for photographers looking for higher contrast, ultra fine grain, and vivid punchy colour saturation – infact, the sort of qualities more often associated with colour reversal (slide) film, because, unbeknown to everyone at the time, Kodak was intending to ultimately kill their entire range of colour slide film (….fast forward to 2018, and Kodak re-introduced slide film with E100, but that’s another chapter of the story!) Kodak Ektar is a film very much suited to landscape or travel photography or whenever fine grain and heavier colour saturation is demanded. It’s not known for lending itself so much to portraiture and we would probably agree with this. Saying that, we would say skin tones on Ektar are still miles ahead of skin tones from most digital sensors! Kodak claim Ektar offers the finest, smoothest grain of any color negative film available today. Ideal for scanning, and offering extraordinary enlargement capability from a 35mm negative. A perfect choice for professional photographers, advanced amateurs and enthusiasts. If you’re a street photographer or a photojournalist documenting a very colorful scene then this is surely a film that you may want to consider–especially as Kodak recommends it for being the replacement for Kodachrome.But in the Ektachrome images I personally think are my best, it’s the depth that I’m most impressed by. The layers and separation between elements. Everything I’ve shot before on negative film seems a little flatter and more two-dimensional in comparison. When shooting inanimate objects like these below, I don’t think I did too badly in that respect. They’re slightly duller and bluer than those three posted above, but they are a lot better than some of the bad ones you’ll see in the next section. The ultra-fine film grain would put this film ahead of even some of the premium professional films like E100. The film grain allows you to capture incredible detail, something that’s quite hard to achieve on 35mm format. In fact, the grain is so fine, that the grains are visually indistinguishable on a 4×6-inch print. That’s type of quality you would expect from 120 film! Ideal for long-exposure? Maybe not

Although I don’t do much of it myself, I can see how Ektar would work as a cheaper alternative to slide film for landscape photography.

Specification

Especially if you’re used to shooting a “consumer-grade” film (like Kodak Ultramax 400 or Kodak Gold 200), the difference will be noticeable. No matter what type of film, lower speed = less grain, so it makes sense that this version of Ektar film was only released in ISO 100.

Four short years later in 2017 though, the news came that it wasn’t. At a time when Fujifilm was culling some of their best films like this Natura 1600, Kodak made an announcement that filled people with hope. I’ve tried to use three photographs below that demonstrate the claims Kodak explicitly makes of Ektar. Of the vivid colours, exceptional sharpness, and world’s finest grain. And also one they imply by not including portraits in that list of recommended uses for the film.And that’s exactly what they do with Ektar 100, saying it ‘offers the finest, smoothest grain of any color negative film available today’. I’m not here to say it doesn’t. All I can do is give my take based on the results I got from it. When you have a film that demands you get the light exactly right before it gives you decent results, using it to shoot street photography isn’t the most logical thing to do. However, as slide film was mainly used by professionals or those shooting editorially, and indeed keen hobbyists who liked to project their holiday slides onto the wall to show them off, the benefits of digital photography hit its sales hard. The important thing to know about Print Grain Index is that if it’s 25 or below, there’s no grain to see — the image would appear perfectly smooth. Whereas a 90 will look grainy to most people.