Ektar 100asa, the new king?

pentaxuser · Nov 11, 2011

Can you say who are the "we" you talk about? Are you a group of enthusiasts, a recognised institution, a company?

Thanks

pentaxuser

DREW WILEY · Nov 11, 2011

Not exactly a fine grain issue at all, but Ektar having steeper dye spikes than most other color neg films, combined with a less than ideal scan (esp will small film sizes) = more risk for placing the
sample on unequal geometry one curve relative to another (esp if not corrected for color temp
imbalances in the first place); so you end up with a certain amt of 'dirt'. Easier to demonstate than explain. But it's a major source of complaints on this film from people shooting format and doingcasual scans - they blame the film for the off color, but it's generally the scan that's the real problem. One of the ways in which old-fashioned enlarging is actually more advanced in practical
results. It's not the kind of problem one can clean up in Fauxtoshop.(Though contrast increase masks are often needed enlarging smalnegs). Don't have time to explain in detail here.

Photo Engineer · Nov 11, 2011

Drew; Look here: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/e4046/e4046.pdf and here: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/e4051/e4051.pdf for data on Portra and Ektar dyes. Same pages as before. You will see that there is little difference in the dyes in the two films. In fact, except for a slight edge in contrast and interimage, Ektar probably uses the same couplers (image formers) as Portra does. It is the difference in emulsions and coating design that differs between these two films and between these two and comparable Fuji negative films there is a huge gulf.

PE

Henning Serger · Nov 12, 2011

pentaxuser said:
Can you say who are the "we" you talk about? Are you a group of enthusiasts, a recognised institution, a company?

Thanks

pentaxuser

Of course, no problem:
Besides me, two other experienced photographers has been (partly) involved.
Test results were checked and confirmed by more than 15 additional photographers so far, and some experts from the photo industry (e.g. Mirko Böddecker from Adox has seen and checked results).
The scans for the scan tests (comparison to microscope, optical enlarging und projection) were made by three different professional scan services: One working with a Nikon Coolscan 5000, one with an Imacon X5 virtual drum scanner, one with a ICG 370 real drum scanner.

Best regards,
Henning

keithwms · Nov 12, 2011

I don't like ektar's colour rendition one bit. For me it's reala, astia, and provia 400x to the bitter end.

2F/2F · Nov 12, 2011

2F/2F said:
I'd surely switch almost entirely to digital or color.

That should have read "FOR color," not, "OR color."

DREW WILEY · Nov 15, 2011

You missed my point completely, Ron. But I'm not the only person aware of the issue. In the practical sense, by understanding or "psycholoanalyzing" how these damn neg curves really work,
I've been able to signficantly improve visible color reproduction. As the quality of a scan diminishes,
the detail will actually suffer less than the ability to correctly reproduce hues. It's especially a problem with small 35mm negs and amateur scans. Hence the film get blamed. It's the SHAPE of the
three curves RELATIVE to one another which is the issue, and how well a scan picks up the nuances
of a curve shape. I hear goofy arguments about this all the time from the Fauxtoshop crowd; but
if they can really fix it afterward, how come their prints always look like #@@*&!

Photo Engineer · Nov 15, 2011

Drew;

I guess I really have no problem with most any negative or positive color film, and knowing the dye curves kinda dominates my judgement.

PE

pentaxuser · Nov 15, 2011

Thanks Henning for explaining who "we" are in your post

pentaxuser

DREW WILEY · Nov 15, 2011

To put it a little more succintly, if the dye curves are not correctly exposed relative to one another,
it's not only the density that's affected but the geometry one curve relative to another. So when
push comes to shove, a less than ideal scan might pick up a very different slope at the same presumed level of exposure. Seems like a number of pro cinematographers understand my lingo exactly and have been aware of the issue with neg films in general all along. With Ektar's steeper
curves it just gets more exaggerated. I think lots of photographers just shrug their shoulders and
think that a muddied result is inherent to the film, whereas if it its optimized, it can become fairly
clean. Maybe the industry was of explaining this is a little different, Ron; but I'm fairly amazed at
how little the film mfg itself communicates other than published curves and general marketing
applications. Glad I filter, mask, and enlarge, rather than scan.

Photo Engineer · Nov 15, 2011

Drew;

That just sounds like crossover to me. Or perhaps interimage effects. I print optically and also scan my negatives. It depends.

PE

DREW WILEY · Nov 15, 2011

I'd call it cross-contamination on the lower part of the curve, once a particular dye layer gets geometrically pushed down due to underexposure. Analagous in effect to white light spillover in older
subtractive enlargers, where residual unfiltered light ends up contaminating all three color layers in
the paper and results in "mud". It's real effect regardless of scan or not, but as I said, a relatively
poor quality scan, typically from an amateur flatbed scanner, combined with small format, is going
to exaggerate the problem. I ran some scanning tests just to confirm this, even though I print
optically. But when the film exp and workflow is reasonably optimized, Ektar does come closer than
any other neg film in mimicking the cleaner hues reminiscent of chromes. And its not just a matter
of saturation, but of curve steepness itself (which also makes it a bit more finicky than other negs).

DREW WILEY · Nov 15, 2011

Postscript - by curve steepness I meant the shape of each repective dye peak, not the overall characteristic exposure curve. Sorry.

markbarendt · Nov 15, 2011

DREW WILEY said:
I'd call it cross-contamination on the lower part of the curve, once a particular dye layer gets geometrically pushed down due to underexposure.

I can easily see how the exposure for blue zone V could be underexposed and end up somewhere down on the toe with what we wanted in the blue zones II to III lost or nearly devoid of any detail/color info while the exposure for red and green zone V were up where we might normally expect zone V on the curve.

This would definitely screw up the color.

DREW WILEY said:
Postscript - by curve steepness I meant the shape of each repective dye peak, not the overall characteristic exposure curve. Sorry.

Not following you here at all though, are you speaking of spectral senitivity?

zenrhino · Nov 16, 2011

This thread went way over my head with all the tech details of the film, but I'll add in my layman's $.02:

It's ok.

As long as you like that color palate that it gives you, then it's great.
If you don't then it's not going to be any good for you because that color palate is very distinct.

Same can be said for Portra NC (RIP), Fuji C (RIP), Kodachrome (RIP), etc.

keithwms · Nov 16, 2011

Yep this has a lot to do with personal preference.

If you think about it, there is only one kind of technical argument with a firm basis, namely that a film accurately reproduces the colours on a sep chart under particular light. So then the issue for us real-world photographers is: what happens if conditions aren't exactly those of the lab environment... too much or too little exposure, colour temp not quite 5000K, lens rendition a bit off neutral, processing times a bit inaccurate etc.

DREW WILEY · Nov 16, 2011

All of the above, plus now the issue of scan whatever. The difference with a chrome is that folks
can see what they got on a lightbox and rather quickly determine whether something needs correction or not. With a neg they don't, so blame the film for their own shortcuts. That's fine - just
move on to another film you like better with your own habits. But I'm personally interested in optimizing the results. It's pretty damn practical. If Cibachrome is going the way of the dinosaurs,
I need to find something with a reasonably equivalent wow factor; and the combination of Ektar and
Fujiflex is very tempting indeed. In fact, it can be controlled without the idiosyncrasies of Ciba,
and be done much more affordably. But it's NOT just a matter of saturated color, and does take
a bit of experimentation and finesse. But so far, I'm pretty encouraged, at least as long as Kodak
can supply the film. Fuji looks stable for the time being.

Ektar 100asa, the new king?

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