For beginners who haven’t really tried out a more premium-level film, this is a really great place to start and I’m sure you’ll be really satisfied with that ultra-fine grain effect on your photographs. 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. Once again here we can see the brilliant blue tones in the water, with the deep greens in the vegetation, and those dusty earth tones in the foreground. Kodak Ektar 100’s incredible skin tones This is the state that I found myself in when I began to look beyond the drugstore shelves, scrolling through the B&H film selection. There are so many to choose from it can be overwhelming. I’d like to share my thoughts on films that I have recently shot myself in hopes of helping someone make the decision as to which one to try next. Having 5 rolls of this film now under my belt, it seemed like a good place to start. So first up: Ektar.. What Is Ektar 100? In case you didn’t know exactly what the term means, contrast generally refers to the range of brightness in a photo. An image with high contrast has a wide range from bright highlights to dark shadows. An image with low contrast doesn’t have as much difference – the image has more uniform levels of brightness.

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. Kodak Ektar 100 really sets the standard for professional-grade portrait photographic film at a slightly more budget price range. Skin tones are really well preserved with Kodak Ektar 100, where you usually find they come out overly red-y on other films at this price. The colours are really well balanced for skin tones, with the red layers being balanced out by the dusty palette of the warm colour tones. 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

Specification

Maybe I’m easily pleased, or generally overly positive. Maybe I’ve been drawn to shooting mainly good films as they get talked about more and so have subconsciously grabbed my attention. This makes it a contemporary of the likes of Portra and Ektachrome rather than the Kodak consumer films like ColorPlus or Gold 200. The people behind those have done what they can with the resources available to them. Producing film is a massive operation and it’s nigh on impossible for an individual or small business to make a genuine brand new one from scratch. It needs someone like Kodak to do it. Or Ilford with their Ortho Plus. Or Fuji with their Acros II (kinda made by Ilford). Even then, Kodak wanted its customers to know that Ektar isn’t a lens design (like the Sonnar ) but rather “ a performance index, a seal of quality, a sterling mark ” — source . And so, when it became again attached to a line of films in 1989, the nomenclature made sense.

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?

Table of Contents

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. Ektar, in my experience, has been quite versatile. Due to it’s low ISO, people generally wait to shoot it on the brightest days when the sun is shining in it’s strength. While Ektar certainly performs beautifully in these conditions, it holds up very well as the light begins to go down. You can still achieve those deep rich scenes for the more moody side of photography. Don’t feel that you have to be out on the beach or in the middle of a supernova for this film to really work for you. 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.