Kodak 6031330 Professional Ektar 100/36 Colour Negative Film

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Here’s what happens when the flash is put into a 24×32 softbox with a silver interior. See how much extra punch comes out? Unlike other films that met the same fate in recent times though, its demise wasn’t prompted by the rise of digital cameras. The writing was on the wall long before that thanks to its complicated and outdated processing method that could only really be done by trained technicians. 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. The high contrast and saturation are both great fits for landscape, as well. Some of our favorite images taken on Ektar emphasize extremely bright, blue skies, or dense, layered green trees.

Ektar 100 is part of Kodak’s professional range of colour films. In comparison to the ever-popular Portra, Ektar can sometimes be overlooked. We’ve shot it before in medium format but wanted to test out the grain in 35mm. So, for our Kodak Ektar film review, we put a roll in our Contax G2 and took it around Denmark Hill. The film shows the most contrast and saturation near the shadows while slightly decreasing those qualities as more light gets added to the mix. As seen in Figure 1 above, underexposed photographs are likely to shift towards the blues, whereas additional exposure tends to improve an overall colour balance. If you know how to use this film well, it will create lovely results. This premium emulsion is designed to develop sharp, virtually grainless images with lots of contrast and saturation . On top of colour palette shift and a really unpleasant over-saturated effect, you’ll also see a pretty strong film grain on your photographs. 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.

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If there were flash output added to this scene, it would have looked far different. With that said though, you can still see how well it did with holding its tonality.

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. Second, I would imagine that it’s more efficient to produce a single sheet of film and cut it into a large variety of formats than to manufacture multiple film speeds on separate machines (as they did in 1989-1991). And so today we can have Ektar in 35mm, 120, 4x5, and 8x10. “World’s Finest Grain.” Then when going into Natural Light on a semi-cloudy day, you get pretty darn vibrant colors. Canon’s older lenses however are designed with a bit more muted tones in mind. That’s why they’re so popular amongst a select few. Kodak Ektachrome E100 is a daylight balanced, ISO 100 colour positive film that was first released in 2018. When shot well, as we’ve already explored, it’s meant to give bright whites, moderately enhanced colours with a neutral balance, low contrast tone scale, and extremely fine grain.

The red flags, green trees and yellow helmet on the third image are other examples of the high saturation. However, while I suppose it’s possible the guy has a nice tan from riding around in the sun all day, it probably wasn’t to the extent that shot makes it appear.

Not all street photography has to be in monochrome. Indeed, if you’re in a place with lots of colour, it can be a shame not to take advantage of that. And as long as you have enough light for its ISO 100 rating, the sharpness, contrast, and low grain make Ektar a fine film to do so.Figure 1. On the left (1), a scene with a slight underexposure, scanned without colour correction. Middle (2), is a colour-corrected (1) via Photoshop’s Color Balance sliders. Right (3) is the same scene exposed with two extra stops of light with no colour correction. Ektar’s colours.

I’ve been using Kodak Ektar 100 in 35mm format on-and-off for quite a while now, and I’ve gotten to know the film very well under a whole range of situations and environments. Over all this time, I’ve been keeping notes on my thoughts and I think it’s about time I gave my two cents. So, my thoughts and feelings on Kodak Ektar 100 35mm film, all bundled up into one complete review… My Complete Thoughts on Kodak Ektar 100 Let’s see if, in my humble and subjective opinion, it lives up to that billing in the next section. An easy way to get excellent results with Ektar is to photograph scenes that aren’t busy, with minimal textures/fine contrast, perhaps overexposed by one stop. When not to shoot Kodak Ektar.

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. Theres no doubt that Ektar is some of the finest grain film in the world. It’s 100 ISO and rich colors help make the grain so smooth. Almost every shot I have taken on Ektar has turned out incredibly clear with only a little bit of grain showing up in the darker scenes. While I do love grit and grain in my photography, Ektar has such a beautiful character to it I can’t help but fall in love. Versatile I’m not going to spell out everything you can’t do with Ektar though, when I can instead tell you what you can. Shooting colourful scenes lit up in great light seems the obvious place to start. With slide film though, you don’t have that luxury. A shot underexposed by a stop will come out underexposed. A shot overexposed by a stop will come out overexposed. In truth, I find that easy to accept. If my exposure is off by that much, maybe I deserve a ruined shot. 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.