I've always had trouble with overblown skies, it just handles over exposure poorly IMHO.
Great image though! Sharp! This is 35mm?
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.
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
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 my eye all three faces above have too much red in them.
On that point, I have noticed that ektar100 can be over exposed and then the skin looks better.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
The example you provided looks like it was just "printed" too light.
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.
The example you provided looks like it was just "printed" too light.
So what's the solution?
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?
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?
Correct me if I'm wrong, don't the develop, scan the negative, then print?
Now, are you saying that you can not get a great latitude on print UNLESS you dodge and burn?
Correct me if I'm wrong, don't the develop, scan the negative, then print?
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