Ektar 25 vs New Ektar 100 Results

[Commando303]

What I really wonder is how it differs from Reala, 160C, and 160VC, not Ektar 25.

Also, any differences would be purely out of curiosity for me until it is released in a larger format, as I would only perhaps want to use the film in medium or large format. In small format color, I use Press 800 probably 75% of the time, and Provia 400 for most of the rest. Occasionally I use Fuji 64T, and I am very happy with Reala on the special occasions where I put a 100 color neg film in my 35s.

I agree. It's interesting to analyze how Ektar 100 compares with its predecessor of the same name, but it's a bit of a moot effort — one won't be at B&H deciding whether to go for Ektar 100 or 25.

Does anyone have any impressions of how Ektar 100 feels in contrast (ha, ha) to 160VC or 100UC?

 

[Commando303]

#pragma rant_on

Makes you wonder about the photo magazines though, I was in Chapters a week ago, yeah was last Friday, opening day for Quantum of Solace, which I thoroughly enjoyed..... Flipped through the photo magazines, and it's like film never existed, except in the abandoned equipment classifieds. It's sad though, because I know of only one magazine that still talks about techniques and composing and all that stuff that allows you to shoot one image and be happy with it. The rest of them are more like computer magazines with cameras as a sideline.

I think that one image is a forgotten ideology. Let me explain it, the concept is that of a guy with an 8x10 camera, who comes upon a scene, sets up his tripod, puts on his camera, composes on his ground glass, slides in a film holder and trips the shutter. Puts away the film holder, takes off the camera, breaks down the tripod, and moves on. Versus the guy with the digital camera and superzoom lens, who comes upon the same scene and machine guns everything in sight, hoping against hope itself to get at least one image that isn't complete crap. I was out shooting with a friend, he had one of the latest fancy DSLR's, I had my trusty Konica FC-1, yeah I know it's a quarter century old. I took 50 photos, he took around 500 images. I got twice the number of keepers though.....

#pragma rant_off

Bringing this back on track, when you need to spend real money on film and chemicals, it forces you to conserve the resource, because in the back of your mind is the £0.25 (sometimes a lot more) that image is costing you (between film and processing or chemical costs), so you take a little longer to compose, and make sure that when you trip the shutter you know that what is on the film is going to be a keeper, even without a LCD display and a histogram.

I often think if I had $5,000 to spend on camera gear (come on lotto numbers ), I would buy a nice MF kit.

I'm a bit tired of this ridiculous idea that persons who shoot digitally are careless machine-gunners who spread their cameras — almost perpetually on auto-.-mode — around the field, to later sit down at their desktops and discover the two–three images that aren't terrible; whereas the bearded pro., with his dusty T.L.R. or Leica or Brownie or some such, takes just about four pictures, and frames them all.

I admit that one is more likely to take more shots with digital, as the medium offers so much more capacity than any roll of film, but that can be as good as, it's claimed it can be, bad. Bad photographers don't turn goods just because they're handed a view-camera and told to "take their time," and good ones don't become glaze-eyed twits with more memory cards than sense simply because they're given an EOS 40D for Christmas.

 

[wogster]

I'm a bit tired of this ridiculous idea that persons who shoot digitally are careless machine-gunners who spread their cameras — almost perpetually on auto-.-mode — around the field, to later sit down at their desktops and discover the two–three images that aren't terrible; whereas the bearded pro., with his dusty T.L.R. or Leica or Brownie or some such, takes just about four pictures, and frames them all.

I admit that one is more likely to take more shots with digital, as the medium offers so much more capacity than any roll of film, but that can be as good as, it's claimed it can be, bad. Bad photographers don't turn goods just because they're handed a view-camera and told to "take their time," and good ones don't become glaze-eyed twits with more memory cards than sense simply because they're given an EOS 40D for Christmas.

It depends more on how one was trained and when. There are guys out there who learned before light meters became popular, that can look at a scene, pick a shutter speed and aperture and be close enough for slide film. There are young people learning now with DSLR's who will never know what a shutter speed even is, they will simply pick between the automatic modes on the camera. They equate using the 'M' setting on that mode dial with stepping off a cliff, because they no longer have a computer making their decisions for them.

I've seen machine gun shooters, I spent half an hour setting up at a lake, Great Blue Heron on the far shore, fishing, not a sound in the air, I knew that I would get one shot, before the Heron was gone, with my Konica FC-1 with the Hexanon F/3.5 200mm attached. Just as I fired the release, a group of about 10 young men, each with a high buck Nikon Digital and a bazooka sized super zoom lens attached come off the trail and machine gun the scene. Fortunately I managed to get my shot, bailed on that trail though, because with their loud voices, in another language and their machine gunning of everything, I knew there wouldn't be another critter within 10km.

I am not saying you can't be an effective shooter with a high buck Nikon digital and a super zoom lens, providing you learned photography properly, which is a lot easier when the camera you learned on is fully and only manual. Then you can get your shot with only one or two exposures.

 

[nickandre]

The issue with this comparison is the difference. If you had done a clip test to find the speed loss the film had sustained, it would be easier to compare.

Plus you can't compare grain on a 20 year old roll of frozen film to a nice fresh roll of film. It doesn't work. The only way to truly know would be to find a frame of color chart shot on the old ektar in 1992, processed then. That would provide more accuracy, but the film could have faded. As you can see this is not easy to assess.

 

[wogster]

The issue with this comparison is the difference. If you had done a clip test to find the speed loss the film had sustained, it would be easier to compare.

Plus you can't compare grain on a 20 year old roll of frozen film to a nice fresh roll of film. It doesn't work. The only way to truly know would be to find a frame of color chart shot on the old ektar in 1992, processed then. That would provide more accuracy, but the film could have faded. As you can see this is not easy to assess.

Probably the best thing is to not compare it to Ektar 25 at all. Unless you have a couple of pallets of Ektar 25 that has been locked in a lead encased freezer, you can't choose between these two films, long term. Kinda like comparing a 2008 Honda Fit and a 1969 Pontiac GTO.

I'd rather see a comparison with other 100ISO colour negative films that are currently on the market, because you can choose between them, I would say a magazine type comparison would be good, but is there still a magazine that isn't digitally possessed these days, save maybe B&W?

 

[Ed Sawyer]

Ektar 25 comparisons are valid

I think comparisons to Ektar 25 are definitely valid and needed. There's some of that around if you look hard enough. I just shot some last week and it came out stunning, no long-term effects of freezing at all that I could see. Lost a bit of speed but that was it. I have a few bricks of it and I am sure others do too, so it's definitely worth comparing it to ektar 100, esp. since Kodak themselves do in their materials.

Nonetheless, I'll definitely stock up on ektar 100 as the extra stop or two of speed is nice to have.

-Ed

 

[Lee L]

I wouldn't be surprised to see Ctein test Ektar 100 in Photo Techniques. He's been in the habit of testing the new pro emulsions from Kodak and Fuji there.

I just got back my first roll of Ektar 100 today. Haven't had time to go through it critically, but my first impression from a variety of subjects and a MacBeth Color Checker printed on a Fuji Frontier doesn't fit with the claims of exaggerated saturation posted in this thread. Looks pretty natural and accurate to me, with the blues going a little cyan and no apparent crossover in the gray scale. It's one of those few films that makes you want to treat 35mm with the kind of care more commonly seen with MF or larger formats.

Lee

 

[donbga]

doesn't fit with the claims of exaggerated saturation posted in this thread

.

I think those that have reported the exaggerated saturation have been over exposing the film by 1/2 to 2/3 stop. The prints I've looked at have normal contrast and neutral color.

 

[Lee L]

.

I think those that have reported the exaggerated saturation have been over exposing the film by 1/2 to 2/3 stop. The prints I've looked at have normal contrast and neutral color.

I shot mine at EI 80, using both an incident meter and TTL selective ("spot") metering in an R3 that's at factory spec. I would keep it there based on the first roll shadow densities.

Lee

 

[wogster]

I think comparisons to Ektar 25 are definitely valid and needed. There's some of that around if you look hard enough. I just shot some last week and it came out stunning, no long-term effects of freezing at all that I could see. Lost a bit of speed but that was it. I have a few bricks of it and I am sure others do too, so it's definitely worth comparing it to ektar 100, esp. since Kodak themselves do in their materials.

Nonetheless, I'll definitely stock up on ektar 100 as the extra stop or two of speed is nice to have.

-Ed

Yes those comparisons are valid if you still have some frozen, however, not everyone does, I suspect the number of folks with a ready supply, is fairly low, considering that it hasn't been made in over a decade. I don't shoot a lot of film, and I don't have anything that old even. While I keep film in the freezer, I usually don't go more then a two supply. Right now there are 13 rolls in the freezer, 8 colour negative with ISO's ranging from 400 to 800 - I didn't buy the 800, it was given to me by someone who went to The Dark Side® -- funny thing is, he bought a film camera again a while ago, so I may give the 800 back to him. The rest is B&W (all FP4, home spooled)

Just as valid though, is for folks like me, I run out of film, go to the shop and buy a few rolls at 100ISO, a few at 400ISO, for the 100 ISO, why should I pick Ektar 100 over another film that's at the shop? So comparisons against modern emulsions are just as valid, and for the majority of folks, more valid. Actually I'm out of ISO 100 in colour film, debating right now about switching to slides, since labs can print slides as easy as negatives, and you can see what your scanning, if so inclined. Then again I am more likely to use what I have, then to add more film to the collection right now....

 

[2F/2F]

Just shot one of my stashed rolls of Ektar 25 this weekend. We'll see how it turns out. The last one was OK. I've got 4 120 rolls and about 10 35mm rolls left.

 

[braxus]

Since the first post in this thread has broken links to my supplied pictures, here again are those pictures as they were posted.

 

[braxus]

Ektar 100 vs. Ektar 25 grain | Photo.net Photography Forums

Here is another relevant thread on the subject.

Ektar 25 vs New Ektar 100 Results | Photo.net Photography Forums

And if you want to see the comments from my thread on Photo.net on this comparison.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Gosh, how many times have I posted on this subject on other threads in all those intervening years? Why go back to ancient half-baked introductory comparisons?

 

[braxus]

Because it's my thread that's why. Half baked? It's more controlled then you let on. I've never seen your posts, so they couldn't of been that important.

 

[DREW WILEY]

How many of these have you actually corrected per color temp via on lens filtration to begin with? Otherwise, you're not even on first base yet. And how do we know what we're viewing are not just scanning or software biases, not inherent to the film itself at all. Your thread, yes, but being part of a public forum, it's now fair game. Those old reviews are downright full of more intervening fluff than direct comparison anyway, as if any of this matters. Ektar 25 was an interesting experiment but went extinct for a reason. The late Ron Mowrey (Photo Engineer) of this forum correctly identified some of the specific issues and discussed them with me several times, based on his own background with color neg film dyes at Kodak at that time. The cyan crossover was way worse in the original 25 version, for example. The dramatic speed improvement is also welcome. I shoot Ektar clear up to 8x10 film format, and in the darkroom print them as large as 30X40 inch prints. At that kind of sheer expenditure, I had to learn how to optimize this specific film medium. It took me quite awhile, and I've been willing to share certain clues. Take em or leave em, I don't really care. Ektar 25 is dead anyway. I just wish a third round of Ektar improvement were on the horizon.

 

[braxus]

Points taken. I never said my test was conclusive, as your results may vary. But it was done at the lab I worked at and scanned myself. I have also talked to Ron about the old Ektar. I still think the test is valid, even if not up to your standards. People like to crap all over other people's work instead of pointing out where they can improve. Your first post seemed like a troll to me.

 

[macfred]

I never used the Ektar 25 but I can remember another negative film from the Ektar family : Ektar 125; emulsion number 5101 (available from 1989 - 91); back in the days I used it regulary with Leica R4s and R3 and I liked the results.
Yes I know, those are scans ... but for the sake of completeness ...

all with Leica R4s - Summicron R 50mm - Ektar 125 (5101)

 

[Alan Johnson]

In the early 2000s, Ektar 100 was my go-to color film and when I tried Ektar 25 I was seriously impressed by its better resolution of fine detail.
https://www.cacreeks.com/films.htm
You cannot display the detail @200 lppm using consumer grade scanners.

 

[DREW WILEY]

No. I was not trolling. But where do you take things from here? We all have our own kind of learning curve. To do anything like this objectively you have to start with a known standard like a carefully made Color Checker Chart which includes a neutral gray scale. Placed in each scene, you then have some kind of basis by which to compare what might be really going on. But to do so, you first need reference shots of that kind of Chart under totally controlled correct conditions - precise daylight color temperature (measured with a color temp meter, with cc correction filters if needed), and exact box speed exposure. Every deviance from that original can then be compared or contrasted through each step of the workflow. Every studio using color neg film once did this with a reliable gray card at least. It's basic.

I print Ektar directly onto RA4 using high-end enlargers. Can't comment on scanning properties except that you get what you pay for. It would take a helluva drum scan to reliably distinguish detail distinctions old 25 version from current 100 version.
But from a direct optical standpoint, the new product exhibits numerous improvement. It renders FINER detail than Velvia, for example. Again, don't confuse that with how scanning and digital printing might interject additional variables. Perceived sharpness had a lot to do with contrast, and Velvia is high contrast. But such distinctions are almost a non-issue for me, since I almost never print 35mm color anymore, mostly large format film, or at least MF. An actual high-end grain magnifier and true apo process lens on a completely calibrated enlarger with full glass carrier precisely sandwiching the film tells the true story. Chrome film and CN film dye clouds are not easily equated anyway; it's not an apples vs apples comparison, but apples versus oranges, or at least an apple with an integral orange mask!

 

[braxus]

Now that's info I can use. At the time I used what I had available to me, including the Noritsu 3011 film scans. To do the test as you say would take greater resources then I have, or the funds to do it properly. But these were results many people would get if a lab did the work, though that was me at the time. Because of that, I still felt what I got was valid, if not perfect.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Thirty years ago I shot some Ektar 25 with an RB67 6x7 because of its extremely fine grain. Of course, these scans are made with an Epson V600 so the scanner limits the resolution. I did have these photos printed chemically to 16x20" and you could see the vessels on the leaves which was pretty amazing.
https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort...=1&tags=ektar&user_id=55760757@N05&view_all=1

 

[braxus]

My new film scanner does 10,000 dpi. I wonder if I rescanned those Ektar negs, if the results would be anymore telling then before? I know its not a drum scan, but its surely better then the 3200 dpi I was getting out of the Minolta film scanner at the time. The Noritsu scanner could only do 3000x2000.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

My new film scanner does 10,000 dpi. I wonder if I rescanned those Ektar negs, if the results would be anymore telling then before? I know its not a drum scan, but its surely better then the 3200 dpi I was getting out of the Minolta film scanner at the time. The Noritsu scanner could only do 3000x2000.

Which new scanner do you have?

 

[braxus]

I just purchased a PrimeFilm XA SE 35mm film scanner. It is one scanner that does autofocus, unlike the Plusteks currently being sold. It cost the same or even less then buying a used Minolta 5400 or Nikon V, and my scanner is new with warranty.