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Kodak Ektar 100

Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 9:22 am
by bfitzgerald
In case anyone might be interested, Kodak has brought back the Ektar emulsion in ISO 100 form, and make some strong claims about it too!
More information here...

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professi ... 5.14&lc=en

Not sure when stocks arrive in the EU, probably soon. One to try out if anyone still shoots neg colour film.

Re: Kodak Ektar 100

Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 9:35 am
by Dr. Harout
I've seen the ads. It should be a nice one. Some 25 years ago the first Ektar came out, with 125 ASA (ISO) sensibility and along with it the Ektar 1000 ASA. At that time it was great, now it has to be much much better. Unfortunately I don't shoot films anymore. There is no decent lab which could deal well with film here. So digital is the best option.

Re: Kodak Ektar 100

Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 10:04 am
by David Kilpatrick
I will probably be sent samples, definitely if I request them. My problem is that I can't get any film processed and printed by a true optical method now. All the labs I use have printers which scan the neg, and none of them use a real optical enlarger or printing line any more. That means I end up testing the scanner, not the film. I do still have a usable Durst enlarger, but no colour processor or paper or chems (The Imaging Warehouse, aka Nova Darkroom, might help me out with that though using a slot processor). But, if I do that, it's a huge amount of work to set up the darkoom again and at the end of the process I would have done something irrelevant because only a tiny percentage of readers (pro or amateur) will ever print a negative optically.

Something has been lost, I am certain of that. I know of one wedding photographer, David Oliver (Aus), who hand prints using real optical/wet process methods. But even Jeff Ascough, who used to do that in the UK, no longer works traditionally. Both these guys are rated as in the 'top ten' world wedding photogs.

David

Re: Kodak Ektar 100

Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 4:42 pm
by bfitzgerald
I agree, I don't think that you can beat the real optical prints. Shame to see it go away.
But b&w was always a lot more economical for people to set up their own darkroom, only knew a few who did colour, and that was some time ago, long since gone.
So I guess we are stuck with scanning, which has proved to be a bit of a learning curve in itself. Most local labs I have come across vary from ok ish, to downright poor for print quality, and with some you risk death almost with the way they handle negatives!
The fuji machines produce prints that are pretty poor IMHO, frankly I wouldn't even bother with them. I only get the standard ones, just as a guide, the machines just cannot handles contrasy shots, and do some kind of terrible "auto tone" fix, often leading to wiped out highlights. When you go to the neg, it's there, just a sign of bash it out poor quality from some labs.

I have thought about the idea of setting up a b&w darkroom with a friend who also has an interest, might do that next year. For b&w film fans it is worthwhile, more so if 2 or more people are interested.

The situation with slide is probably even worse, send away and wait for some time to get it back. At least with colour neg, you can get the results quick ish, even if you are stuck with scanning.

Re: Kodak Ektar 100

Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 10:23 am
by Dusty
Dr. Harout wrote:I've seen the ads. It should be a nice one. Some 25 years ago the first Ektar came out, with 125 ASA (ISO) sensibility and along with it the Ektar 1000 ASA. At that time it was great, now it has to be much much better. Unfortunately I don't shoot films anymore. There is no decent lab which could deal well with film here. So digital is the best option.
Didn't they also have an ASA 25 Ektar film? It seems to me that they had an ad for it that had a guy rock climbing, and he was a rather small spot on the mountain. Then, overleaf, they had a full-page blow-up of him from the crop, in very fine detail. I'm sure I shot some of that stuff before.

I've been digging boxes of slides, photos and negatives out of storage from 20+ years ago to see if I can finally find a way to organize them. I'm sure I'll find a lot of surprises, and jog a few old memories when I relate the emulsions I used.

Dusty