With new films like Kodak Ektar 100 being released, is film back on the up?

nworth said:

Speaking of these things, however, Kodak has another high quality, very high saturation, ISO 100 film - Kodak Gold 100. Just because it's marketed as an "amateur" film doesn't mean it is not a professional quality film.

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If I understand it correctly, professional films are aged to the film's optimal point before distribution to stores. They are kept in fridges to keep the film remaining in the optimal state, whatever that state is. Kodak Gold is a good film. But I seem never get consistent colors. It also has a much longer duration before it expires. I just bought a few rolls of Ektar 100. I noticed that the rolls will expire at the end of 2010. That's less than 2 years from now. The salesperson of the store got the rolls out from a fridge for me. Behind him there are other films on a shelf exposed to room temperature. I believe Kodak Gold can be found there.

I think Kodak Gold is (was) sold in every supermarket or drug stores in room temperature. It is a film meant to age all the way until it expires. Ektar 100 and many other professional films are not meant to be sold like that. I believe that makes a big difference. For this reason all professional films are probably made with much tighter tolerance. It has to be more expensive because of that. I picked up 3 rolls of Ektar 100 at $5.25 each last Saturday. I think 15 years ago Ektar 25 was at this price level too.

On the other hand, if you don't care much about consistency you can get away from buying expired professional films. It is not going to be worse than buying Kodak Gold. For the general public snap shooters with P&S cameras Kodak Gold is plenty good for them. They have no reason to use professional films.

Kodak has NEVER aged film to the optimal point. Urban legend, started by some nitwit at Popular Photography who totally mis-understood the explanation from someone at Kodak. Since then it has stuck, but it has always been a canard. Kodak can make any film at any color balance they desire, they don't "select" or "age" any color film. They even make films with subtly different color balances for different markets, particularly based on the local skin color.

Yes, Kodachrome used to shift in color balance due to oxidation of the sensitizing dye in the green-sensitive emulsion layer. So consumer Kodachrome was shipped with a green color balance, chosen to shift red-ward to a neutral color balance after passing through the distribution channel and waiting for the consumer to expose and process the roll. Kodakchrome Professional was manufactured and shipped with a neutral color balance, because it was going to shipped and stored cold until used. This red shift was especially problematic with Kodachrome 200, I never got a properly color-balanced roll of the consumer version, but the Kodachrome Professional 200 was always dead-on.

The modern Kodak professional films are not designed with the constraint of having to age well at room temperature. That's a major constraint on the "Gold" C-41 films, and imposes limits on what they can do in the design. The professional films are expected to be shipped and sold cold, exposed promptly, and processed promptly.

Thanks for point that out, John. It's good to know that fact. However, the point in case is that Kodak Gold is designed to be sold in a uncontrolled environment, such as super markets, drug stores, visitor centers, and small labs on open shelves. On the other hand professional films are supposed to be sold in fridges throughout the entire lifespan before expiration. That does make a difference. You can expect fairly consistent colors of a professional film fresh or near expiration. But you better not expect the same from Kodak Gold films. I am not trying to say Kodak Gold films are bad. You can correct the color shift easily when printing the film. Professional films will give you the convenience to print them with a preset filtration to render the skin tone as an example that you expect. I know this is an ideal situation only. In real life it may be more complex than that. After using Kodak Gold for too long and once I tried professional films I just don't go back to Gold any more.

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/e6/e6.pdf

As John says, there is no aging directly by Kodak, but consumer films ("films for general picture taking", as Kodak calls them) are balanced with uncontrolled "aging" expected.

nworth said:

...Digital has a real advantage for the professional in workflow. It's fast and easy to manipulate for publication. Most of the manipulation advantages can be realized with film by scanning with very little loss in quality, but at a considerable sacrifice in speed and convenience.

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I like to think of the newspaper applications. Who cares about the image quality when it's intended application is a piece of newsprint with a useful life of a few hours at most. As for actual attainable image quality, I believe that film and a high resolution scanner can beat digital capture every time.

fschifano said:

I like to think of the newspaper applications. Who cares about the image quality when it's intended application is a piece of newsprint with a useful life of a few hours at most. As for actual attainable image quality, I believe that film and a high resolution scanner can beat digital capture every time.

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One of the problems in the photographic arts is that people tend to want a universal format. There isn't one, if you want a big, gallery quality print, then you want to start with a big negative, so you may want to shoot that image on a 4x5, If you need a lot of images, quickly, for print publication, projection or Internet, then shoot that with a digital camera, in other words use the right camera for the job. If your print requires that you have a high level of magnification, but your working with a small gallery quality print, then your best to use 35mm, in that you can get your higher magnification, but your print must be smaller to not overwhelm the resolution of the media.

DanielStone said:

[...]
I still would think Ansel Adams would shoot film if he were still alive. But that is just a guess
[...]

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Probably, but note that Adams predicted the day of the "electronic image" as far back as 1981, so there is a hint that he probably would have dabbled in digital today — if only for entertainment value! For the fine art stuff, my guess is he would not budge from established film-based methodology — especially his own.

He probably would have only done it if there had been a non-scanning back for his LF camera(s). Why would he, of all people, trade down to MF or 135?

My guess is that Adams would be using a hi-end digital back in MF if he was still an young man - something like the Hassie. But its a guess just like everyone else.

As AA got older he shot a lot of MF and 135. Being a wise man, he suited the technology to the job. It should be noted however that the large format prints by his own hand are the ones that sell for thousands of dollars and are replicated in ink on a vast scale for mass consumption. That probably has more to do with his use of that format as the appropriate tool for the job, just as HCB used 135 as the appropriate tool for his vision. When persons proffer the notion that such and such is now "as good" a such and such it just illustrates the common big brained monkey impulse to quantify. Aesthetic isn't quantifiable, and those who try only reveal what they fail to understand.

AutumnJazz said:

He probably would have only done it if there had been a non-scanning back for his LF camera(s). Why would he, of all people, trade down to MF or 135?

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As JBRunner points out, Adams was never averse to using 135 (35mm) format and did make a lot of use of this in the late 1970s and early 1980s along with his LF work. When he died in 1984 he had equally massive amounts of all formats.