Ektar 100 - interesting quote on Kodak website

So... somebody remind me, why should I care what Kodak thinks of E6? Or the future of film in general? Film has plenty of future left in it, but it's not at Kodak, that's for sure.

Photo Engineer said:

2F/2F;
As it is, Negative originals hold far more information than Positive images. I'm sorry to disssapoint you and shake up your world, but this has been true for about the last 30 years since C-41. If you "see" better results in positive imaging it is probably due to the higher contrast rather than real sharpness, and as for color reproduction, there is no equivalent to masked negatives.

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I don't see how you've shaken up anybody's world or why anyone should feel disappointed. The ‘better’ results we see in positive film are, of course, due to its higher contrast. The price we pay for it is limited dynamic range. Photography is a science of trade-offs.

frdrx said:

I don't see how you've shaken up anybody's world or why anyone should feel disappointed. The ‘better’ results we see in positive film are, of course, due to its higher contrast. The price we pay for it is limited dynamic range. Photography is a science of trade-offs.

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Quite a few people disagree with what I said! Simple as that.

PE

keithwms said:

So... somebody remind me, why should I care what Kodak thinks of E6? Or the future of film in general? Film has plenty of future left in it, but it's not at Kodak, that's for sure.

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Keith;

Fuji has invested more heavily in E6 products than Kodak. Kodak has worked more on negative. So, if the E6 market collapses, it will impact Fuji more than Kodak.

PE

Indeed, I agree. My point is... ach never mind it'll just turn into another Kodak bashathon :roll:

All I am saying is... ganbatte Fuji-san!

As all E-6 formulae and the process have been disclosed in detail, it is not difficult to prepare the E-6 bathes from the chemicals. A good balance and a pH meter will help, but such equipment can be obtained used e. g. from internet auctions.

Meanwhile, the only industrial photofinishing lab left here in Austria appears to switch to a dip-and-dunk processor in times of low slide film processing volume. But the few remaining professional labs in Vienna still offer a fast service.

Kodak's position in E-6 slide films is weaker than Fuji's, as the Japanese manufacturer offers products with color characteristics for virtually every purpose. Even in the hybrid workflow for reproduction by offset printing, slide film offers the distinct advantage of "targeted color accuracy" and inherent plasticity.

frdrx said:

I don't see how you've shaken up anybody's world or why anyone should feel disappointed. The ‘better’ results we see in positive film are, of course, due to its higher contrast. The price we pay for it is limited dynamic range. Photography is a science of trade-offs.

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Not quite.
The 'better' results you 'see' in slides are not (!) better. Just more contrasty.

The price you pay is not one you pay to get better results, but for results that please you more.
It's just like those extremely poppy colour consumer films. The exagerated rendition may appeal to some, but that does not mean it is better.

It is a matter, not of science, but of taste. And that's a different discussion entirely.
And you know how it is: there is good taste, and there is bad taste...

What i see when i see slides is a rather limited dynamic range.
I do understand that people would want to use slides for projection. It (the slide-show thing) however is a passion i do not share.

There is always a technical reason why what I have *decided through practice works for me* is so much worse than some other option....but I am ok with what I get from E6 when I use it well....and not so pleased when I should have used another type of film. The key is picking a controllable tool that does what you need it to do in a certain situation, not picking the absolute technically best tool across the board.

What if I am not as interested in "hold[ing] more information" (which negative film certainly does), but moreso in being able to decide how information is rendered on the film, and to do it as directly as possible? Often I want to place, push, and pull to have something that lands just where I want it to land right out of the camera, in order to more finely tailor the shot to my intended final result before the printing stage.

I am not in pursuit of that which has better specifications. I am interested in being able to control a color medium similarly to the way I control a black and white medium: by doing a great deal of the aesthetic decision making via exposure and development. I am comfortable and quick this way. The struggle for me is not to find the film that can capture the largest range of luminances, but to be able to be as direct and "post-process" (HA!) free as possible.

I use color neg film as well, but I would still prefer to use transparencies in a situation in which I need to lower contrast a few "grades" more than I would to "dig" a few stops of highlight information out of a negative via printing or computer work. You can't argue with preference. The situation and desired result makes my choice of film, and there are occasions where I will choose digital (low-light, flat situations in which the main desired end result is not a print, or when I need to shoot a large volume of images as quickly and cheaply as possible), occasions where I will use color neg. (general use, when I want to make an RA print or need a fast film or am in varying colors of light, etc.), and times to use transparency film (when I want to have a transparency as the final product, or scan, or Ilfochrome, etc.).

Everything has its pluses and minuses, and only a fool looks for a magic bullet for all situatitions. My point is that there is plenty of usefulness in E6 materials (and a good degreee of uniqueness), and the existence of C41 or digital does not mean that E6 should not be here or should be written off as inferior.

BTW, in my second post, where I used the term "when digital... can match the dynamic range of a transparency pulled two stops...", I should have said "when digital can capture the same luminace range as a transparency pulled two stops". The dynamic range is set when the film or digital sensor is made. It is the translation of the luminance range at the scene of exposure into the dynamic range of the film with which I am concerned.

Photo Engineer said:

good, and if the Pos-Pos train was as good as the Neg-Pos train, then we would be seeing reversal film used in Motion Picture.

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I always understood that negatives were used for motion picture film because they allow for easier duplication.

I believe that E6 is alive and doing OK. There will just be a fewer labs doing more work from further away. That is the reasoning I used when securing a new Refrema VESS for my lab! I now have three. E6, C41 and one for parts - No down time here.

IloveTLRs said:

My local photo place can't do Ektar in-house. They claim because it's a special emulsion that it has to be sent to Kodak. It takes about 2-3 days and costs almost $9. My favorite slide films can be done over night (by Kodak or Fuji) and cost around $6. Results aside, price-wise there is no reason for me to shoot Ektar.

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Your local photo place is ripping you off. The new Kodak Ektar can very well be developed in ordinary C41 chemistry, using ordinary times. I know because I developed all rolls I've shot of it in a C41 home kit. There was a definite advantage it had over other emulsions in grain and color fidelity, but I don't know why everyone touts it as a high saturation color negative film. There are films that are much higher saturated, e.g. some mass-market 100 ISO color neg films.

I've shot rather a lot of E6 over the last two years, the reason being a lack of darkroom access. I've never been happy with how labs print B&W as their vision differs from mine, I've also found C41 prints from labs to be lacking in recent years. Shooting E6 solves these problems and also bypasses the other route: scan/tweak/print. I've come to loathe scanning in general and photoshop in particular for its ability to render everything into measures of a slider bar. Projecting and shooting slides has been a happy experience but I'm now starting to get back to negs as I've got darkroom access and I think a nice print is better than a nice projection.

perkeleellinen said:

Projecting and shooting slides has been a happy experience but I'm now starting to get back to negs as I've got darkroom access and I think a nice print is better than a nice projection.

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Don't give up slides just because you want prints! You can make internegatives or you can scan and print your slides (that does not help if you want print yourself). You could also print on Ilfochrome....

I have been curious about Ilfochrome. It might be something to try at least once after I've mastered (!) RA4. Can you still buy internegative film?

Ektagraphic said:

Don't give up slides just because you want prints! You can make internegatives or you can scan and print your slides (that does not help if you want print yourself). You could also print on Ilfochrome....

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I can't think of a better reason for shooting on print film now in the first place, this is why Kodak are pitching Ektar into the market place, and aiming to convert people from slide.

Inter-negatives are a second best option, and not everyone like Ilfocromes. To be honest even if your final image is going to be digital negative are still an excellent option.

I don't do any hybrid work at all but did one shoot with my local pro-lab who were evaluating some silver recovery equipment for me, I shot images for a UK press release on Fuji NPS 160 processed and scanned by the same lab and the results were far better than any slide scan I've seen off 120.

Don't get me wrong I love looking at transparencies, especially 5x4's, but modern print films are so good, I stopped using slide film when Kodak & Fuji dropped their specialist push processable 800/1600 films.

ian

2F/2F said:

There is always a technical reason why what I have *decided through practice works for me* is so much worse than some other option....

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Ahh, welcome, you've found APUG I see.

In case you hadn't noticed, for a good 50% of the posters on APUG the main purpose of the place is to tell me, you and everyone else

(a) why the way you like to do things is the wrong way,

(b) why the way you like to do things will be discontinued soon and you should be grateful because of (a),

(c) there is hard scientific evidence to prove that if despite (a) and (b) you persist in doing things the way you enjoy doing them you must be blind/incompetent/tasteless/insane,

(d) that although in fact this logic would lead to us all going digital, the arguments fortunately only apply when the 'correct way' per (a) is in fact the poster/engineer/salesman's pet film/project/developer/way-of-life, and it is only you that is in the wrong for persisting with (a) and not buying into aforementioned pet film/project/developer/way-of-life.



In other news; opinions on the Internet are like arseholes - everyone's got one, and everyone thinks everyone else's stinks.

Tim;

You missed (f) posts like post #66 made by people who like to tell everyone else why they dislike the posts made by everyone else.

And my favorite (g) here is what I would do, usually based on (c), but my motto is "do what works for you".

PE

Photo Engineer said:

You missed (f) posts like post #66 made by people who like to tell everyone else why they dislike the posts made by everyone else.

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Now now, don't come over all petulant, it doesn't suit you. There are more important things to worry about, like what happened to (e)!

I left that one blank so that you could add something nice and comforting by editing your original.

See, there is always a way around errors.

But, I could have done (e) I am not being petulant, I'm being tongue-in-cheek!

PE

Ian Grant said:

I can't think of a better reason for shooting on print film now in the first place, this is why Kodak are pitching Ektar into the market place, and aiming to convert people from slide.

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I don't care what Kodak (or anyone else) says. If slides become unavailable and I have to be 'converted', it will most certainly NOT be to C41. If I can't do K14 or E6, then give me digital any day! And I'm sure that there are ALOT of slide shooters out there who feel exactly as I do.

Not to pour gasoline on the flames, sincerely wondering: are there really so many of us who only use their images for projection in a darkened room?

Q.G. said:

Not to pour gasoline on the flames, sincerely wondering: are there really so many of us who only use their images for projection in a darkened room?

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Ha, how lucky they are! I can only afford looking at them against the sun. I am open for donations of a 5500K or so light table, 35mm projector, and 6x6/6x7/6x9 projectors. Let me know. ; )

Q.G. said:

Not to pour gasoline on the flames, sincerely wondering: are there really so many of us who only use their images for projection in a darkened room?

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All the time! (actually, not as often as I would like, but at least twice a month) It is one of the best ways to look at slides! Good old (fairly new) Ektagraphic projector!

Q.G. said:

Not to pour gasoline on the flames, sincerely wondering: are there really so many of us who only use their images for projection in a darkened room?

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QG let me flip this statement: what is the worth of a method (digital file+ computer projector) that everyone is using? How much impact is lost when a person shows his/her colour work exactly same way that everyone else does?

//

Obviously, in the market sense, discontinuation of products greatly increases the value of the remaining stock. Case in point: I personally saw the value of polaroid materials more than quadruple after the polaroid announcement. Actually, my 8x10 polaroid stock became so valuable that I couldn't justify shooting it myself.

Now, how much would a complete portfolio featuring discontinued materials be worth? Damn near priceless, I'd say, if that portfolio does something truly unique with the medium that cannot be done with other media. But let's face it, even if you just snap some Hollywood starlets with the last 20x24 polaroid, you're going to make a fortune just on sheer novelty of the medium. There is intrinsic value in the medium itself. N.b. I am not saying that it is all of the value or even most of it; I am stating the obvious: there is a certain baseline value in a discontinued medium that a competent photographer can increase.

So I say: shoot E6, use it, treasure your results, and see the declining market as yet another way to distinguish your work from that of the masses of people who value convenience of the process more than they value uniqueness of the final product.

Loupe the slides, project the slides, drum scan the slides, perform fellatio on the slides, whatever.

Regarding louping, I'll offer this much boast: I have shown slides to folks who were completely stunned; actually, all of us who shoot MF/LF slides can report this. What gives me a lot of satisfaction is to be able to show someone the raw shot, with zero modification or post processing, and let people simply see what I saw. Colours as is, edges as is, no cloning, no moaning. Slides are the true "raw" format. Anyone can appreciate slides. Very few people can appreciate negs, even photographers. As for prints, well prints are inevitably one of many possible interpretations of the film, not a raw view of the subject. So there is great value in the rawness of slides, I would say, and that value definitely isn't going down.

And again, who really cares what Kodak has to say about E6??? :rolleyes: George Eastman would kill himself a second time if he saw how things have played out over there.

keithwms said:

Loupe the slides, project the slides, drum scan the slides, perform fellatio on the slides, whatever.

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LOL!