May 102013
Kodak Ektar 100 Professional ISO 100, 35mm, 36 Exposures, Color Negative Film
- World’s finest-grain color negative film
- Extraordinary enlargement capability from a 35mm negative.
- Ultra-vivid color and optimized sharpness.
- Distinct edges and fine detail.
- Incorporates Entertainment Imaging’s Kodak VISION Film technology. Micro-Structure Optimized T-GRAIN Emulsions.
Kodak EKTAR 100 Featuring ISO 100 speed, high saturation and ultra-vivid color, EKTAR 100 offers the finest, smoothest grain of any color negative film available today. Ideal for scanning, and offers extraordinary enlargement capability from a 35mm negative. A perfect choice for commercial photographers and advanced amateurs.
List Price: $ 7.13
Price: $ 2.95
The perfect color film for landscape and architectural photos,
I remember how excited I was a couple of years ago when I found out that Kodak was going to release a NEW film. That excitement has definitely been justified.
Ektar 100 captures absolutely beautiful pictures. The grain is razor sharp and the colors are incredible. It has a unique look to it, which I’ve never seen with any other film (or digital for that matter). The colors are vibrant and saturated, especially red and blue. It’s one of my favorite color films now. It’s perfect for landscape and architectural photos, or any pictures where you really want the colors to “pop.” If you take a picture of something red contrasting against the blue sky, it really jumps…much more so than I’ve seen with any other film.
Every film has its own unique characteristics and has a certain look. I like using Ektar for when I want kind of a “fresh” vibrant look to pictures, if that makes sense.
I’ve used Ektar in both 35mm and 120 size rolls.
The only minor complaint I have about Ektar is that it’s extremely unforgiving with exposure. This is definitely NOT a film for beginners. It’s very picky about exposure, and doesn’t handle underexposure well at all. If you underexpose it, you will get some pretty weird color shifts and everything will have kind of a bluish tint. BUT if you use a light meter and you’re careful about the exposure, you will get absolutely amazing pictures.
I also recommend that you get your pictures printed (on REAL silver halide photographic paper, not ink jet!) Ektar looks its best in prints, and scans displayed on a computer screen just don’t do it justice.
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Superb film, but not a replacement for slides,
Since its introduction by Kodak, Ektar 100 has been frequently compared to slide film. While these comparisons are not entirely unwarranted given Ektar’s fine grain, saturated colors and heightened contrast, in my opinion it is far from a replacement for slide film as many claim it is.
Given the increasing scarcity of labs offering E6 processing and the rising costs of the process and films, the demand for a C41 film with similar characteristics to slide film has been steady building up. Kodak has been discontinuing their slide film range, and revamping their color negative lineup with updated films like the new Portra 400 and 160. Ektar is Kodak’s attempt to address the growing demand for an inexpensive and easily processed alternative to slide film (something they are clear about in their literature).
While the colors captured by Ektar are very pleasantly saturated and punchy, they are a markedly different palette from the colors of films like Velvia 50 or 100, Provia 100F or even Astia 100F. The same goes for latitude or dynamic range. Ektar features more contrast than the average color negative film, but still has significantly more latitude than slide film. These differences in color and contrast do not make any of these films better than the others, it just means that depending on what sort of visual quality a photographer is going for one film may be more suitable than the other.
One of the areas in which Ektar shines is for long-exposure images in high contrast situations such as urban night scenes. Slide films such as Provia 100F have excellent reciprocity characteristics, but can be difficult to work with due to the very wide range of tones in such scenes and the limited latitude of the film. Ektar is able to deliver saturated and contrasty images while retaining a great amount detail in the highlights. The wider latitude of Ektar compared to slides is great for situations where lighting is harsh or precision metering is not practical, though the film does have a bit less latitude than other color negative films such as Portra 400.
In conclusion, this is a great slow speed film for a wide range of subjects, just don’t expect to get the same image characteristics as slide film.
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Very happy with the results,
I’ve been very happy with the results from this film, and am using the film with a Leica M3. I’ve seen some complaints on a Leica discussion site where people have had bad results with the film, but there are indications it may be due to the processing lab/company not developing the film as specified.
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