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. As a film produced to be sold in some hot and humid regions, Pro Image 100 is said to stand up well to high temperatures, albeit to the slight detriment of the results it gives when compared to other Kodak Professional films. 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. These two images were shot at different locations, but both were shot during golden hour. As you can see, there is a clear difference in saturation levels and the image shot with Ektar 100 has an impressive color pop throughout the entire image. What’s especially noticeable is the difference in the orange tones between the two images.

Kodak Ektar 100 - Film Profile - Casual Photophile Kodak Ektar 100 - Film Profile - Casual Photophile

Shooting situations may change how elgar behaves, and sometimes in the studio my strobes like to give it magenta cast with saturated greens and yellow, and somehow Ektar still looks like a cool toned film. This film is daylight balanced, and probably would be great for street photography where you want to print large. For a really long time, if you wanted very vivid colors in your film photos you needed to go to a slide film–but when Kodak introduced Kodak Ektar 100 things changed. Photographers were able to get punchy, vibrant, saturated colors with the ease of use that negative film provides. To this day, Kodak Ektar 100 is used to a variety of applications with one of the most common ones being landscapes. However it is also in use for portraiture as its low ISO value allows for incredibly sharp photos. As Kodak say themselves on the Pro Image datasheet, this film features high colour saturation, accurate colour and pleasing skin-tone reproduction.

Now this session was done with the Mamiya RB67 Pro s and the film is expired 10 years. A flash is in a modifier camera right. Considering this, the film has held its own very well. Granularity is virtually nonexistent. Before Ektar was around, Kodak’s finest-grain film came in the form of their professional Ektachrome E100G, and Kodak’s literature on Ektar explains that the new film was developed with foresight in regard to the relationship between Ektachrome and Ektar. Predicting the diminished availability of slide-film processing, the company intended that the modern Ektar should rival (and even trump) the previous pro-grade offering. Again, Kodak succeeded. It’s clear when comparing scans and prints from images made by each film that Ektar is a finer, smoother film. Pretty amazing stuff. The only thing to add here is how different the below shots, taken in a cheap Canon point ‘n’ shoot, look compared to those above taken in a Yashica Electro rangefinder. When coupled with more modern lenses, it’s going to be very saturated. If you shoot landscapes then you’ll probably be okay with this. So if you are shooting this Pro Image and aren’t sure of your metering, maybe aim for a little underexposed. It sounds like it’ll handle that better and will lessen the chances of your images being overexposed.

Kodak Ektar - 35mm Film - Analogue Wonderland Kodak Ektar - 35mm Film - Analogue Wonderland

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. And if you find that your scanning tends to leave certain films with a hint of blue, expect more of that with Ektar. Kodak also say Pro Image has similar printing characteristics to their Gold films, which keeps things simple for those who do indeed put their work to paper.

Conclusion

While Ektar is often not recommended for portraiture as it could make faces of all skin tones appear slightly reddish, I found that this problem is usually corrected by adding an extra stop of even light. A bit more fixing could be done in post-processing using tools like Adobe Photoshop as well. When it comes to landscapes analog photographers traditionally would choose slide film. Before the widespread availability of high resolution digital cameras slide film offered the highest fidelity of image quality. Fine grain, impressive resolving power, and colors that leap out at you are just a few of the qualities that bring chrome films to landscape subjects. Those great features also came with a price in several senses of the word. Slide films are literally becoming more expensive than their b/w and print film relatives in unit cost and processing. In addition they can be notoriously unforgiving with very limited dynamic range having exposure latitude in the 6-8 stops range. Even with all that in mind there are perhaps few pleasures as wonderful as holding a positive image in hand. 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. After hiking in the woods of Ralph Stover, with its palette of heavy greens and subtle reds, I decided to test my new film in different settings. I took a roll to the coast of Sea Isle City, New Jersey. Like any shore town, it’s a place loaded with heavy blues and varieties of light pastels, comfort colors. My father and I drove around until we found something interesting to shoot. We pulled over at the foot of the bridge that connects the shore points of Sea Isle City and Avalon. Lens quality aside, they look a little overexposed. I’m not too bothered about why that would be, but it’s worth noting how much more washed out the colours are than those shot with the Yashica.