Kodak Ektar Film Spotlight
Hi there everyone!
In our continuing effort to bring film photography education to everyone in the world we came up with a bunch of new strategies.
One of the many ideas that came to mind was creating a repository of images associated with a couple of the more used currently available film stocks. Needless to say there are a million factors affecting an image besides the particular film stock used (over/underexposure, type of light on the scene, scanning preferences requested, etc), but still we believe there are some main qualities that shine in some particular film stocks and we thought it’s a great idea for everyone to be able to grasp them by taking a quick glimpse through our favorite stuff that has come through the lab.
Of course this isn’t meant to be a “scientific” film stock visual dictionary ’cause we don’t have light meter readings for each photo and how much (if any) overexposure was applied by each photographer. But still, we do feel there is a common thread in all images.
For the particular film stock we’re featuring today (Kodak Ektar 100) these common characteristics are quite obvious: very strong saturation and high contrast.
Kodak Ektar is actually a tricky film and it’s no coincidence we decided to make it our first featured film on the blog. Famous for being “the world’s finest grain” and at 100 ISO it’s a typical go-to film for beginners and/or amateurs. But make no mistake, this film needs to be very carefully exposed or else it won’t deliver the results we feature here.
Most of these examples are metered for shadows (incident light hitting the shadow area), a few have overexposed this shadow metering and a few with very harsh light seem to have made an estimate between metering to highlights and shadows. Kodak Ektar looks great when correctly metered for shadows, but it can get extremely contrasty and otherworldly saturated if very overexposed, so if you’re used to overexposing the hell out of Fuji 400H relax, this is a totally different beast.
While we couldn’t recommend it per se as a “portrait” film due to it’s high saturation it can effectively be used for human subjects providing you appreciate orangy or redish skintones, but hey, it’s no coincidence this film is called Ektar, since it’s meant to be a substitute for the now discontinued Kodak Ektachrome slide film, and if you remember that film those were some serioulsy saturated skintones (and nobody ever complained!). Of course if you want peachy and creamy skin tones we now have Kodak Portra and Fuji 400H films that are specifically designed for that (among other sutff). It is true however that when color correcting in-scanner for very red skins the backgrounds can get a little cyan, but hey that’s part of the Ektar magic, learn to appreciate if you’re gonna use it 😛
So yeah, you guessed it right: Kodak Ektar is a winner in landscape photography and generally in any scenes with high contrast and vivid colors.
Hope you appreciate these examples we compiled for you. We sneaked in two of our staff member’s photos… hope you don’t mind. Hey, we’re photographers too and some of us love Ektar!
Enjoy and hope this compilation is useful 😉
Pentacon Six TL + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Pedro Terrinha
Mamiya 645 + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Kjrsten Madsen
Pentax 67ii + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by DungVo “Vovies
Contax 645 + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Mathias Mosbacher
Mamiya 645 + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Pim Van Boesschoten
Contax G2 + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Speaking Through Silence
Contax 645 + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Christoph Zoubek
Contax 645 + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Mathias Mosbacher
Contax 645 + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Buenaventura Marco
Contax 645 + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Teva Cosic
Contax 645 + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Stefan Hellberg
Canon 1V + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Ivan Sanchis
Contax G2 + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Joao Mascarenhas
Contax 645 + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Toni Raper
Contax 645 + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Stefan Hellberg
Canon 1V + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Ivan Sanchis
Contax 645 + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Stefan Hellberg
Contax N1 + Kodak Ektar 100
photo by Buenaventura Marco
Wow, stunning pictures to go with the article! Since you mentioned overexposure in the article, do you have any experience on underexposure and pushing? I found an article where the photographer rated Ektar at ISO800 and pushed it (http://canlasphotography.blogspot.co.at/2015/04/kodak-ektar-rated-at-800-and-pushed-3.html).
That photographer owns a lab in the US which in a way is a competitor to Carmencita, fyi.
haha no worries Paul, we’re actually really great friends with Jonathan and many of us have either attended his famous FIND workshops or even “interened” at his lab, so no competition here ^_^
Of course, check out our article regarding under and overexposure on color negative film https://carmencitafilmlab.com/how-exposure-affects-film/
Regarding pushing we did an “tutorial” a while back 😉 http://carmencitafilmlab.com/pushing-film/
Oh and the Ektar at 800 pushed 3 stops in development has got to be Jonathan Canlas. We’re great friends with him and have talked about this a lot, but haven’t really experimented enough with Ektar’s “pushability” that much
Great stuff, guys. I found a few more film photographers to follow on Instagram – thanks to this post. Ektar is my favourite travel film though like you guys said if exposed properly and depending on the light, etc it can work on people.
Really glad to have contributed to that. Keep film alive!
After seeing this article I became interested in Ektar due to the colors it produces. Is it possible you make a tutorial on how to properly expose this film?
Thanks!
We’ll try!
I love the smooth buttery texture of Ektar 100. It’s my go to film stock for everything from the Nikon to the Hasselblad. Here’s some images I captured over the weekend. https://youtu.be/azbL1HznTxs
Amazing photos, I can’t even decide which I like best.