Exposing Ektar 100

kbrede

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On a whim I purchased 5 boxes of Ektar 100. I've never shot this film and don't have time to test before going on vacation. Yes I know that isn't wise. Anyway, any words of wisdom from those who've used this film? I've shot a few rolls of Portra 160 and 400. In comparison to those films, expose about the same?
Thanks,
 

h.v.

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Ektar produces great colour for 100ISO. The colours won't be as true and realistic as Portra all the time, but they will be more colourful and vibrant instead. Think of it as a marriage of slide and colour neg. You don't have to worry about precise exposure with Ektar, though and contrary to what I read about Ektar, I still find the colours usually fairly realistic, just not Portra/Pro realistic.
 

amsp

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polyglot

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Treat it like a chrome, especially if you're printing to RA4. It has huge contrast, so any scene with a lot of dynamic range (or big exposure errors) will result in blocked out regions.

Half a stop over doesn't really hurt but if you're scanning, you need to know how to correct the overexposure so that highlights aren't dead-looking.
 

T-grain

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yeah, Ektar to me is like "velvia in negative format"-I like it in most situations, but it's quite "wild" in character
 

Sirius Glass

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Box speed.
 

rolleiman

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Portra for weddings or any function involving portraiture, particularly with flash. Ektar for general purpose outdoor pics,, i.e. landscape, travel.
 

jakeblues

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TheFlyingCamera said:
While I'd say it is certainly a saturated film, it is nowhere near Velvia (Velveeta???). Velvia's colors are super-saturated, and it's also noticeably more of a green/blue bias whereas Ektar is somwhere between neutral and reds/yellows/oranges.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more. Blues and greens are saturated but nowhere near velvia tones. Reds/yellows/oranges pop a bit more than other neg films i've shot. That said, I like Ektar a lot. It can be great for cool light like a slightly overcast day or northern geography.

The one word of warning I have about Ektar is that it can emphasize any redness in a subject's face. Flushed cheeks or warm light can make faces look a bit red.

Edit:
Example photo. Note skin tones:
 

Sirius Glass

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jakeblues said:
The one word of warning I have about Ektar is that it can emphasize any redness in a subject's face. Flushed cheeks or warm light can make faces look a bit red.
Click to expand...

I would not use Ektar for a portrait of a person with Rosacea or dark red veins on their face or neck.
 

robbalbrecht

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I shot a roll of Ektar at box speed and it came out with a pretty bad magenta cast, easily fixed though. I shot another at 64 and it came out great. Most of my color work is done on Portra but Ektar is fun to play with sometimes.
 

WideAngleWandering

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For spot metering landscapes, what would you recommend? With Velvia I usually meter a highlight and then open up 1 to 1.5 stops. With Provia I meter a highlight and open up 1.5-2 stops.

I've heard some folks suggest metering Ektar like you would for transparency but to open ~3 stops (unlike other C41 film where you'd spot meter the shadows). What say ye?
 

I.G.I.

I somewhat second (there was a url link here which no longer exists)'s experience: shot the first roll at box speed, and shadows came out blocked and horribly blotchy (with mid- and highlight tones properly exposed). Next time I will shot at ISO 64 or lower, depending on lighting.

P.S. Forgot to mention, with proper filtration the said shadows came in very pronounced deep blue.
 
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RPC

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I.G.I, many here have advocated shooting at box speed but unless one has tested their meter, metering technique, apertures and shutter speeds for accuracy you can't be sure you are actually getting a box speed exposure. That is why I advocate adding some exposure, up to a stop from box speed to lessen the possibility of underexposure and loss of shadow detail. Any small overexposure will cause no harm. So shooting at lower ISO as you mentioned is a good idea as far as shadow detail is concerned but robbalbrecht's color problem is likely due to scanning errors.

I optically print Ektar and never have the blue shadow problem any more than any other film. Shot in the sun, any film is likely to have a little blue in the shadows from skylight but Ektar, being a high saturation film, may enhance this.
 

DREW WILEY

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Ektar is for adults. Use a light meter, know how to use a light meter, and understand why a light meter needs to be calibrated. If you can
correctly expose E6 slides, Ektar is a piece of cake.
 

polyglot

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I'm going to try to lay this blue shadows thing to rest once and for all with two shots from the same roll of Ektar.

The first shot is largely illuminated by sunshine but at the bottom right there are areas in shadow and they are very blue. This is to be expected because they're illuminated by skylight (maybe 12000K) whereas the rest of the scene was balanced for morning sunlight (5000K). Ektar's high saturation enhances the colour-temperature difference between these areas so the shadows look blue because they are blue in real life. If this is the "blue shadows" that people are seeing, it's a function of the mixed lighting and high saturation film. Any chrome will do the same.

The second shot was taken on the same day in one of those alleys pictured as being blue above. As you can see, it has balanced nicely for the blue light in the scene and the image looks pretty neutral to me. Note also that there is NO shift in hue towards blue in the shadows here because Ektar doesn't actually have such a shift. With uniform lighting colour-temp, Ektar gives neutral results all the way from shadows to highlights.
 

Alan Klein

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Truzi

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I've only used a few rolls of Ektar so far, and I'm sure I can get more out of it after learning.
However, I didn't find it difficult at all. I exposed it at box-speed, let the camera meter and received perfectly fine photos. They were more saturated than I'm used to from negative film, but I had no problems, and they were great.

That said, as I get better at metering (I know in theory, but practice is always different) and what Ektar lends itself best to it, the photos will only be better. Make sure the exposure is correct, but I'd not worry about it other than that.
 

DREW WILEY

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Polyglot - one common problem is when the overall scene lays comes out blue due to heavy overcast etc, or the dominant portion is in deep shade. This kind of problem needs to be corrected with warming filters at the time of the shot. It cannot always be post-correct (despite the constant progaganda of PS addicts). With mixed lighting, one has to make an esthetic choice of whether to correct or not. But yeah, Ektar is actually more accurate in the shadows than Portra. But folks accustomed to things being artifically warmed for the sake of pleasing skintones
might be find blue shadows at bit unnerving. People were pretty pissed off at Manet and Monet seeing blue in the shadows too.
 

janaby

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And does anyone here know any sort of table with the reciprocity failure for Ektar 100 4"5".
I'm going to be doing some long exposures (30minutes to 1h30) and it would be good to know more about the subject
 
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