Customer Reviews

Kodak Ektar 100 Professional ISO 100, 35mm, 36 Exposures, Color Negative Film

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I remember how excited I was a couple of years ago when I found out that Kodak was going to release a NEW film. That excitement has definitely been justified.

Ektar 100 captures absolutely beautiful pictures. The grain is razor sharp and the colors are incredible. It has a unique look to it, which I've never seen with any other film (or digital for that matter). The colors are vibrant and saturated, especially red and blue. It's one of my favorite color films now. It's perfect for landscape and architectural photos, or any pictures where you really want the colors to "pop." If you take a picture of something red contrasting against the blue sky, it really jumps...much more so than I've seen with any other film.

Every film has its own unique characteristics and has a certain look. I like using Ektar for when I want kind of a "fresh" vibrant look to pictures, if that makes sense.

I've used Ektar in both 35mm and 120 size rolls.

The only minor complaint I have about Ektar is that it's extremely unforgiving with exposure. This is definitely NOT a film for beginners. It's very picky about exposure, and doesn't handle underexposure well at all. If you underexpose it, you will get some pretty weird color shifts and everything will have kind of a bluish tint. BUT if you use a light meter and you're careful about the exposure, you will get absolutely amazing pictures.

I also recommend that you get your pictures printed (on REAL silver halide photographic paper, not ink jet!) Ektar looks its best in prints, and scans displayed on a computer screen just don't do it justice.

I've been very happy with the results from this film, and am using the film with a Leica M3. I've seen some complaints on a Leica discussion site where people have had bad results with the film, but there are indications it may be due to the processing lab/company not developing the film as specified.

Since its introduction by Kodak, Ektar 100 has been frequently compared to slide film. While these comparisons are not entirely unwarranted given Ektar's fine grain, saturated colors and heightened contrast, in my opinion it is far from a replacement for slide film as many claim it is.

Given the increasing scarcity of labs offering E6 processing and the rising costs of the process and films, the demand for a C41 film with similar characteristics to slide film has been steady building up. Kodak has been discontinuing their slide film range, and revamping their color negative lineup with updated films like the new Portra 400 and 160. Ektar is Kodak's attempt to address the growing demand for an inexpensive and easily processed alternative to slide film (something they are clear about in their literature).

While the colors captured by Ektar are very pleasantly saturated and punchy, they are a markedly different palette from the colors of films like Velvia 50 or 100, Provia 100F or even Astia 100F. The same goes for latitude or dynamic range. Ektar features more contrast than the average color negative film, but still has significantly more latitude than slide film. These differences in color and contrast do not make any of these films better than the others, it just means that depending on what sort of visual quality a photographer is going for one film may be more suitable than the other.

One of the areas in which Ektar shines is for long-exposure images in high contrast situations such as urban night scenes. Slide films such as Provia 100F have excellent reciprocity characteristics, but can be difficult to work with due to the very wide range of tones in such scenes and the limited latitude of the film. Ektar is able to deliver saturated and contrasty images while retaining a great amount detail in the highlights. The wider latitude of Ektar compared to slides is great for situations where lighting is harsh or precision metering is not practical, though the film does have a bit less latitude than other color negative films such as Portra 400.

In conclusion, this is a great slow speed film for a wide range of subjects, just don't expect to get the same image characteristics as slide film.

This film is amazing. If you are shooting with a model or doing formal pix this is the film for you. Here are some suggestions to milk this for all its worth: When you get this developed tell them NO corrections (I ask for a photo cd and edit myself if needed or just use a film scanner) and make sure the sun isn't covered by clouds or you will dull the colors...

Kodak Ektar 100 is extremely unforgiving, not just for portraiture, but for everything. If you underexpose it, it gets a weird blue color. If you overexpose it, you get more weird colors. It is kind of like slide film, with zero room for error (Kodak says the latitude of this film is half a stop, but it is probably less than that.) When you do get the exposure right, the colors look very good. It can be called a cross between slide film and color negative film; not as good as slide film, but on par (or a little better) than regular color negative film.

But if you want slide film, buy slide film.
And if you are shooting negative film, you most likely want something that can be less forgiving. Get some Portra, and if possible, Porta VC.

Not recommended.

I just started shooting Analog after being gifted a film camera. I purchased this film not knowing what to expect and I can say that I am love with the color quality of this film. I love high contrast and saturation and this film provides both. Even the whites in my images came out crisp. Enjoy shooting!!

I bought a roll of this on a whim when I first saw it, I was not impressed with most of my first roll of it, however a couple shots really stood out, so I decided to give it another shot, my second (third, and fourth) rolls however, were mind blowing, super fine details (with no color artifacts unlike my little digital point and shoot), and generally gives me quality that I would get out of a very very expensive SLR, on a EOS Body that set me back a whole 3.95 cents. I would recommend this film to anybody, and I would also agree on the slight over exposure thing, otherwise you can get some weird Green and Blueish shadows in your images.

My digital camera decided to break down on me, at the same time I was asked to take photos at an out door concert. So I pulled out my old film camera, and ordered some Kodak film from Amazon. After the shoot, I took my film to be transferred on to disc so I could edit them in Photoshop. When I first viewed the pics in Photoshop, I was truly amazed at how vibrant the color is and the over all depth in each photo. I think I will use this camera more often and not just as a back up.

When Kodak discontinued this film back in the early 90s', it pissed me off so much that I went digital.
Now that I see it is back, as ISO 100 too, I dug out my old Canon Rebel cleaned it up and loaded it.
I still have prints from the early 90s' that are still vivid and clear. Was a great film then hope it is again

I have been searching for this film - Kodak Ektar 100 35mm color print film, for ten years. Back during the early 1990's, I used this film with my new Canon camera to take photos at dog shows. The color prints I had enlarged from the Ektar 100 film were gems. And, those color enlarged prints of show dogs became the inspiration and subjects of artwork that launched my career as a professional artist and photographer in the dog show world.

One star has been subtracted from my rating of this film. This is due to harsh criticism from photo-developers, tourists who snap photos, photographers who favor other film companies, that the Ektar color films have the tendency to produce too much red in processing and color prints. If too much red is a problem for you then use another film. The Ektar films helped bring out all the rich color and tones in dogs, horses, cats, wildlife, that had "reddish" coat coloring for me to capture in my artwork. Use another film for your blues, greens, whites, if red is a problem for you.