New to film photography, I need help in choosing the right film for my needs.

[Roger Cole]

I've always had trouble with overblown skies, it just handles over exposure poorly IMHO.

Great image though! Sharp! This is 35mm?

Hum, I don't think I've ever met a color neg film that handles more exposure poorly. Maybe it's just inherently higher contrast (I think this is it) and the paper won't get the entire range and the machines choose the midtones? I've not noted this on the Ektar I've shot, nor have I wet printed my own color in a very long time. That does make it easier - just burn in the sky a touch like we do in B&W.

 

[Roger Cole]

Oh sorry, I see what you mean now, it's a Nikon F3HP 35mm SLR.

Really?! Good to know that about Ektar! as I was being very liberal with changing the ISO setting, overexposing and underexposing like I have the whole latitude in the world

You really can't do that with film like you can with digital. Oh, you can get away with it with C41 which has vast overexposure lattitude - even Ektar doesn't have a problem with over exposure, it's just narrower RANGE. You can expose more but you still won't get the bright skies and the darkest shadows in the same print. The difference on the negative will be too great for the paper, like you found. But exposing less won't likely fix it. You may get detail in the sky from the machine print but at the expense of empty shadows.

 

[StoneNYC]

You really can't do that with film like you can with digital. Oh, you can get away with it with C41 which has vast overexposure lattitude - even Ektar doesn't have a problem with over exposure, it's just narrower RANGE. You can expose more but you still won't get the bright skies and the darkest shadows in the same print. The difference on the negative will be too great for the paper, like you found. But exposing less won't likely fix it. You may get detail in the sky from the machine print but at the expense of empty shadows.

Yes, what Roger said....

I shot this before I knew that Ektar100 "wasn't for people" and wasn't for skies. This whole shoot only lasted 20 frames. So there was also the "haste" factor in the exposure choice.

 

[Roger Cole]

Stone, I think the models look fine. The skies are empty but that's not a horrible thing in those photos because they aren't a large part of the composition.

Ektar can work fine for people in some circumstances. With carefully controlled light, with filtration, where the flesh tones are not integral but other colors are (think sports events with bright uniforms, for example - still technically "people" in 'em, right?) I have some nice Ektar shots I took around a pool outdoors once with my Yashicamat, including people. Oh they look a little more sun-baked than they really were but it doesn't ruin the print.

Still, no, I wouldn't choose it for formal portraits or weddings.

 

[markbarendt]

View attachment 88568

Flatiron Vista on an overcast afternoon. Near Superior, CO.

so this is the Ektar 100. Honestly, I don't think the colors are exaggerated at all. However, it's not the film to get the right skin tones.
I have so many questions after I got my neg and photos back. I'm feeling so sleepy now to start asking. Lesson No. 1 for me though, DO NOT print at Costco! The scans had nothing to do with the prints ... I got the film developed for $1.89 though

With regard to skin tones me thinks you are buying into a stereotype that is flawed. Here are three random Ektar based portraits off the top half of the first page of an "Ektar Portrait" search at Flickr.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/37556068@N06/5044330769

https://www.flickr.com/photos/barushev/4964404797

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kseniya_bulavko/6125592076

And there were plenty more that were nice.

Granted there are a fair number that green, red, over saturated, and otherwise poorly presented shots... but those failures are because of human choices, not a failure of Ektar per se.

Similarly, I met a National Geographic photographer a few years ago at his book signing at a local bookstore. He was living here locally in the Durango CO area and Durango being a sleepy town that day we got to talking. The only film he ever used in his entire career was Fuji Velvia, nothing else, and yes he did more than a few portraits in his time. Velvia like Ektar has been pigeon holed into landscape status by many.

The point I'm making is that it's not the film that makes the shot.

If your primary interest is vivid landscape work then Ektar is a great choice and it can probably be made to work nicely for your secondary interests as well. That NG photographer's bread and butter and passion was for landscape but with experience he had figured out how to make his one film choice do everything he needed. Minimizing film choices reduces confusion when you reach into your pocket for another roll.

As to CostCo, yeah, ya gets what ya pays for.

 

[Jaf-Photo]

With regard to skin tones me thinks you are buying into a stereotype that is flawed. Here are three random Ektar based portraits off the top half of the first page of an "Ektar Portrait" search at Flickr.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/37556068@N06/5044330769

https://www.flickr.com/photos/barushev/4964404797

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kseniya_bulavko/6125592076

To my eye all three faces above have too much red in them.

 

[StoneNYC]

With regard to skin tones me thinks you are buying into a stereotype that is flawed. Here are three random Ektar based portraits off the top half of the first page of an "Ektar Portrait" search at Flickr.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/37556068@N06/5044330769

https://www.flickr.com/photos/barushev/4964404797

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kseniya_bulavko/6125592076

And there were plenty more that were nice.

Granted there are a fair number that green, red, over saturated, and otherwise poorly presented shots... but those failures are because of human choices, not a failure of Ektar per se.

Similarly, I met a National Geographic photographer a few years ago at his book signing at a local bookstore. He was living here locally in the Durango CO area and Durango being a sleepy town that day we got to talking. The only film he ever used in his entire career was Fuji Velvia, nothing else, and yes he did more than a few portraits in his time. Velvia like Ektar has been pigeon holed into landscape status by many.

The point I'm making is that it's not the film that makes the shot.

If your primary interest is vivid landscape work then Ektar is a great choice and it can probably be made to work nicely for your secondary interests as well. That NG photographer's bread and butter and passion was for landscape but with experience he had figured out how to make his one film choice do everything he needed. Minimizing film choices reduces confusion when you reach into your pocket for another roll.

As to CostCo, yeah, ya gets what ya pays for.

To me, those portraits are very poor in skin tone, the guy looks like he's been spray tanning, the girl is off too and the little one is only "ok" because it's over exposed.

On that point, I have noticed that ektar100 can be over exposed and then the skin looks better.

Velvia isn't great with skin tones either...



But I would guess that using the right filters or having a massive national geographic photo editing department might be able to correct fort that...

 

[markbarendt]

To my eye all three faces above have too much red in them.

Your's is a fair preference; but reducing the red is doable albeit a bit of extra work.

Portra is my first choice for color work because it's takes less work to get the color tones I want, but to my point, I don't switch to Ektar when I occasionally shoot landscape, I make Portra work.

I'm also not one for getting exact matching of colors to the reality of the original situation, just is not that important to me, in fact I normally try to bias color a bit to flatter the subject.

 

[markbarendt]

On that point, I have noticed that ektar100 can be over exposed and then the skin looks better.

You make my point perfectly. It's not as much about which film we use, it's about how we use it.

A fair number of slide shooters purposefully shoot slides a bit dark, maybe 1/2 or a 1/3 stop to bring a bit of extra richness to the colors. Going a bit brighter makes things, like skin, look more pastel.

 

[Roger Cole]

Either can be done but I think it's far easier to get good landscapes with Portra than good portraits with Ektar. Portra works fine for landscapes, just shoot.


Sent from my iPhone via Tapatalk using 100% recycled electrons. Because I care.

 

[MattKing]

Thanks, this is actually a 50mm, it's my go-to landscape lens!

I'm having a hard time with the getting the right exposure. On multiple exposures, I get the skies right, the rest gets underexposed, and vice versa!!! I thought film latitude would compensate, obviously I'm doing something wrong.

I think you are misunderstanding what is meant by "latitude".

A reference to a film's latitude is a reference to how well it accurately records a wide range of scene brightnesses. A negative that has detailed information in both shadow areas and highlight areas may have way more latitude than the media you use to reproduce it (print, slide or computer screen). So if the film has great latitude, you often have to manipulate the image in some way in order to show everything through a medium like a print, slide or computer scene. Techniques like burning in highlights and dodging shadows are necessary.

If a scene with both dark ground and bright skies prints without adjustments, than either your film or some part of your process is actually compressing the subject brightness range of your scene. That compression is different from latitude (although it may accompany it).

 

[alabdali]

With regard to skin tones me thinks you are buying into a stereotype that is flawed. Here are three random Ektar based portraits off the top half of the first page of an "Ektar Portrait" search at Flickr.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/37556068@N06/5044330769

https://www.flickr.com/photos/barushev/4964404797

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kseniya_bulavko/6125592076

And there were plenty more that were nice.

Granted there are a fair number that green, red, over saturated, and otherwise poorly presented shots... but those failures are because of human choices, not a failure of Ektar per se.

Similarly, I met a National Geographic photographer a few years ago at his book signing at a local bookstore. He was living here locally in the Durango CO area and Durango being a sleepy town that day we got to talking. The only film he ever used in his entire career was Fuji Velvia, nothing else, and yes he did more than a few portraits in his time. Velvia like Ektar has been pigeon holed into landscape status by many.

The point I'm making is that it's not the film that makes the shot.

If your primary interest is vivid landscape work then Ektar is a great choice and it can probably be made to work nicely for your secondary interests as well. That NG photographer's bread and butter and passion was for landscape but with experience he had figured out how to make his one film choice do everything he needed. Minimizing film choices reduces confusion when you reach into your pocket for another roll.

As to CostCo, yeah, ya gets what ya pays for.

I personally like the second two links, to my eyes they're good photographs. I don't think the skin complexion is 100% accurate and I don't think it needs to be. I highly dislike manipulation, at the same time I think that spending a long time trying to get colors rendered 100% accurate is a waste of time - I don't think anybody does that anyways.

It's true that I am collecting different opinions on different matters, at the same time, I don't make critical decisions based solely on what people say. My comment about Ektar's skin tones is largely because of a couple exposures like this one:



I agree that in experienced hands, and filtration , almost any film can be good for any situation. However, I'm just starting out with film, and although it would be a "nice project to improve my photography" to make Ektar work well for portraits, I don't see the benefit of doing that at the mean time when there are other alternatives like Portra.

I've just shot a roll of Portra 400 this afternoon, it included people and landscape. I'm gonna get it developed and scanned and what I want to find out, is which one (Ektar or Portra) would be a better film if you needed to shoot the two scenarios on the same roll. I don't think it's gonna be totally fair to Ektar though, because I believe I've done a better job exposing my photos on Portra today after my experience with Ektar and Pro 400H. Regardless of the results, I feel like I'm keeping both, unless Portra REALLY stood out.

 

[alabdali]

You really can't do that with film like you can with digital. Oh, you can get away with it with C41 which has vast overexposure lattitude - even Ektar doesn't have a problem with over exposure, it's just narrower RANGE. You can expose more but you still won't get the bright skies and the darkest shadows in the same print. The difference on the negative will be too great for the paper, like you found. But exposing less won't likely fix it. You may get detail in the sky from the machine print but at the expense of empty shadows.

So what's the solution?

 

[alabdali]

Your's is a fair preference; but reducing the red is doable albeit a bit of extra work.

Portra is my first choice for color work because it's takes less work to get the color tones I want, but to my point, I don't switch to Ektar when I occasionally shoot landscape, I make Portra work.

I'm also not one for getting exact matching of colors to the reality of the original situation, just is not that important to me, in fact I normally try to bias color a bit to flatter the subject.

lol ... I swear I read this comment AFTER I read your first one with the links. I think we're on the same page, at least on making Portra work...

 

[alabdali]

Either can be done but I think it's far easier to get good landscapes with Portra than good portraits with Ektar. Portra works fine for landscapes, just shoot.


Sent from my iPhone via Tapatalk using 100% recycled electrons. Because I care.

Seems quite the case looking at images from Flickr.

 

[markbarendt]

The example you provided looks like it was just "printed" too light.

 

[alabdali]

I think you are misunderstanding what is meant by "latitude".

A reference to a film's latitude is a reference to how well it accurately records a wide range of scene brightnesses. A negative that has detailed information in both shadow areas and highlight areas may have way more latitude than the media you use to reproduce it (print, slide or computer screen). So if the film has great latitude, you often have to manipulate the image in some way in order to show everything through a medium like a print, slide or computer scene. Techniques like burning in highlights and dodging shadows are necessary.

If a scene with both dark ground and bright skies prints without adjustments, than either your film or some part of your process is actually compressing the subject brightness range of your scene. That compression is different from latitude (although it may accompany it).

I believe I do have latitude confused with the ability to overexpose (for example) and still keep details in the highlights, while in digital, when you overexpose, many times you hit the wall of white (no detail at all) parts of the image sooner that it can happen with film. I thought that this difference is what latitude is. Thanks for the explanation!

Now, are you saying that you can not get a great latitude on print UNLESS you dodge and burn?

 

[alabdali]

The example you provided looks like it was just "printed" too light.

I don't think so, because here is what happened with Costco, they actually printed too dark, my friend's beard lacked detail, when I came back home and checked the scans, they were lighter than the prints.
Correct me if I'm wrong, don't the develop, scan the negative, then print?

 

[Roger Cole]

I personally like the second two links, to my eyes they're good photographs. I don't think the skin complexion is 100% accurate and I don't think it needs to be. I highly dislike manipulation, at the same time I think that spending a long time trying to get colors rendered 100% accurate is a waste of time - I don't think anybody does that anyways.

Is it something about folks who came up with digital that they like blown highlights?

That's not a dig, but an honest observation. I like the first one. To me the second too have way blown highlights - overexposed or at least need to be printed down. In the darkroom you'll need to manipulate too if you get into it. But there is no "straight print without color changes" - you have to get the color right as you can and it doesn't start out from some machine defined baseline. Dodging and burning are manipulation in a sense but really just essential tools (though less essential in color than in black and white in my experience, but still valuable.)

 

[Roger Cole]

The example you provided looks like it was just "printed" too light.

So what's the solution?

Exactly.

Film does have more latitude, or at least negative film does. Slide film is closer to digital. But to get that on the print you will have to dodge, burn, or use a similar technique like masking. It has "latitude" in the sense that you can record both highlight and shadow detail on the negative, which with C41 is almost always just a matter of exposing enough for the shadow detail, but if the range is too wide for the paper you still won't be able to print detail in both without one of those techniques. You can sort of think of them as "analog HDR" in a way.

 

[MattKing]

I believe I do have latitude confused with the ability to overexpose (for example) and still keep details in the highlights, while in digital, when you overexpose, many times you hit the wall of white (no detail at all) parts of the image sooner that it can happen with film. I thought that this difference is what latitude is. Thanks for the explanation!

Now, are you saying that you can not get a great latitude on print UNLESS you dodge and burn?

It depends on the Subject Brightness Range ("SBR") of your scene.

If the SBR of the scene is larger than what can easily be recorded in a print, some means must be employed to compress that range in order for the print to look accurate.

In most cases, people use the wide latitude of the film to record the SBR fairly faithfully in the negative, and then use tools like burning, dodging or contrast adjustment to compress that SBR to fit into the brightness range that the print is capable of showing. There are lots of tricks you can use to make the result look really good.

If the original scene has a more limited SBR - think evenly lighted scenes on a high overcast day - then less compression will be necessary in the printing stage.

 

[Xmas]

I believe I do have latitude confused with the ability to overexpose (for example) and still keep details in the highlights, while in digital, when you overexpose, many times you hit the wall of white (no detail at all) parts of the image sooner that it can happen with film. I thought that this difference is what latitude is. Thanks for the explanation!

Now, are you saying that you can not get a great latitude on print UNLESS you dodge and burn?

If you are enlarging you are fitting the negative range into a print range.

In monochrome paper/resin you can get variable range contrast to capture most negatives the enlarger will have a colour filter control you dial to control.

But you may still want or need to dodge and burn locally and more generally.

An expert printer will take a difficult negative and straight print it for mid tones separated so they look good but frying and boot polishing the high and lows and then do 2nd print recovering the highs and lows same exposure as first... but burning and dodging.

I spend a week end with a box of prints all rejected...

This is the simplistic description...

 

[markbarendt]

Correct me if I'm wrong, don't the develop, scan the negative, then print?

Sure, but they don't necessarily hit the save button for the scan that matches the print. You are making an assumption and projecting your idea of how things should work in digital.

You got your $1.89's worth, it takes more than that to get a nice print and well corrected scan from a lab.

 

[markbarendt]

Now, are you saying that you can not get a great latitude on print UNLESS you dodge and burn?

Latitude is basically a description of how far you can "miss" the target film exposure and still get the "straight print" you planned. Straight printing is simply staying inside the red lines.

It is not about burn and dodge. Burn and dodge are used to print things outside the red lines and "move" the placement of things inside the red lines.

 

[Xmas]

Correct me if I'm wrong, don't the develop, scan the negative, then print?

Yes but the person(s) operating the machines are shop assistants working for the bulk of customers... not print artists.

When you look at a scan on a screen it has a higher dynamic range than a print. You need to be really good to get the print near to optimum.

If you need fine art prints you need a scanner, PC, Photoshop and gilee printer and two years training, the hardware is cheap

Or enlarger and two years of training, the hardware is can be free...

Note I gave up on the latter in colour and only do monochrome. I could do colour prints I liked but too difficult.