color film for 4x5 advice

[xkaes]

I use lower-class Beseler 45 MXII and CB7 enlargers and have never had a problem. I started using EKTAR 25 in 35mm when it first came out -- for two reasons. I had been doing the Kodachrome 25/Cibachrome thing -- with great results -- but you know what happened with that!
I also made the switch to Ektar 25 because my main film was AGFAPAN 25 -- which made switching from B&W to COLOR a breeze.

Before EKTAR 100 in 4x5, I had been using AGFACOLOR 100 & 125, but when I made the move to EKTAR 100 4x5, I did not see any significant change in color -- or anything else.

I still miss the results from Kodachrome 25, but 100 in 4x5 is good enough!!!

[newt]

I bought the color film but haven't shot it yet. I bought ektar, not portra because when I shoot color, I am interested in saturation. Back in the 1990s and early 00s I shot ektachrome 64T and they were printed cibachrome. but with the takeover of digital the ciba "paper" (was it ilford then or just changing over?) was reformulated, optimized for digital printers, were they called Lambda ? I don't even remember, but the point is that the paper was no longer good for optical printing. Laumont wanted to scan my film, and print them digitally. I lost my interest because I was raised on analog, light and shadows and silver crystals and magic, things interacting thus forming new things. and back then digital was at only an emerging stage and it showed. Anyway I have the Ekatr and will experiment with that. Since I am shooting in blackwhite also, I can do that first, and have a strong guide of exposure. I dont shoot people so don't need to match tones pleasingly. I am interested in whatever spectral product the light and the objects and the lens and the film agree on. My lens is made of Topaz and Spinel, so is not a passive actor in the process.

[newt]

Back to the point of my original post. I have read the kodak spec sheet. But I asked because on the B&H website many of the reviews mentioned the great exposure latitude with this film. It seemed odd to me because back when I shot ektachrome64t it had pretty much no latitude at all. Processing -1 or more would shift the balance as well so exposures really had to be right on. But ektar is negative film, which I had been told, admittedly decades ago, has tremendous latitude, that's why I felt the need to ask people who actually use the stuff. For now, I am just going to make experiments, nothing really beats empirical data in the setting in question. I am going to bracket around what I think is right, leave everything set up so I can look at the results together with the source.

[xkaes]

Your supposition is correct. Compared to negative film, slide film has very little latitude. But it's higher contrast (and less "forgiveness" in exposure) makes it great for projection -- assuming you nail the exposure. Like many shutterbugs, I always shot slide film 1/3 f-stop/ ISO HIGHER -- so I shot Kodachrome 25 at ISO/ASA 32. For MOST negative film, I do the opposite and shot at around HALF the recommended ISO.

But in either case, it's best to run some tests for your ISO and development and taste.

I still remember my 35mm Kodachrome slides projected in a dark room on a 30 foot screen. It seemed like I was watching the real deal. Just amazing. Can't do that with a negative and print -- even a mural.

[Alan Klein]

Making slide shows for display on my 75" 4K TV is really nice. Very convenient. Just copy the slide show onto a memory card that gets plugged into the USB jack on the smart TV. The "back lighting" of TV rather than the reflection of projection, is quite impressive. It also looks great on a smaller monitor screen.

[sperdynamite]

I would just use proper filtration in camera and fix what you need in the scan. Print via pigment. If your subject is not moving I'd probably advise you shoot Ektachrome E100. It's a fabulous film stock. If not then Provia which is a little less expensive.

The color negative films are also very good. I like the slide film when scanning though because there is no issue with color conversion. That being said, Negative Lab Pro has really changed the game in that regard too.

[agregov]

I don't know what planet you're having this alleged issue on agregov.

Drew, you need to take a chill pill. There are differing opinions in the forum and most forum members are pretty polite in sharing observations even when they might disagree. I see you bully other members all the time and I think it's bad form. I stand by my observations with Ektar as they've been corroborated by other color printers I've worked with side by side in the darkroom who saw my results first hand. I'll keep your points in mind, there may be something, somewhere broken in my workflow. I respect your experience. But don't disrespect mine simply because I have a different experience than you may be able to understand.

Apologies to others in the thread for any derail.

[Drew Wiley]

It's not a chill pill. You made an unfair stereotype about a very high quality film - no, not totally idiosyncrasy free (no film is) - but where all the tech specs and dye curves match my own considerable experience with this, if one understands how to read into all that kind of data. Please try to have a sense of humor about this. I'm not trying to insult you! You're free to throw some barbs of you own if it helps. Won't bother me. Sorry if I offended you.

Otherwise, Ektar is capable of a cleaner overall hue palette than any other color neg film ever that I'm aware of. But that very fact makes it different from most of the CN pack, which are artificially skintone warm-balanced and lower in contrast. There are some tricks to it, and don't expect it to be as forgiving as Portra, for example.

Outdated paper itself might trend too magenta. And the cleaner steeper spectral peaks of Ektar film dyes might trigger a response to that which more common CN films with the gentler dye curve slopes don't.

[Drew Wiley]

Spydermite - have you EVER printed color neg film via pigment? That would be a formidable amount of work to do. (Hint - inkjet is NOT pigment printing). Think of Richard Kauffman and real pigment prints (tricolor carbro) from color negs. Inkjet inks are complex blends of pigments, lakes, and rather common photographic dyes. Terming them "pigment prints" is a common but basically deceptive second-hand marketing ruse, one implying that they're hypothetically more permanent than they really probably are. Time will tell. Mislabeling these doesn't affect me personally, but REAL pigment printers might not appreciate the misapplication.

Newt - Durst Lambda is just one of the major brands of RGB laser printing machines that could be used to print onto either Ciba or chromogenic sheet paper. Ciba is gone, but these kinds of machines are still widely in operation and create a sharper cleaner image than inkjet printers. They're very expensive, and currently output onto a variety of RA4 chromogenic products, including Fuji Supergloss, which resembles Ciba. I prefer to do optical enlarging. But big commercial labs need to be on a tight schedule, so doing the contrast and saturation tweaks via scanning and PS is better for them than the old and slow, but potentially more nuanced, method of film masking.

[agregov]

No worries Drew! Thanks for the response--appreciate that. Another way of describing my experience with Ektar is for every one point of movement in magenta, I might see an equivalent movement of 2-3 points in Portra films. I've made .5 pt changes in the color pack with Ektar and have seen bigger swings in color than I would expect. It makes the film harder to color correct in the. darkroom (for me at least). Perhaps that's an aftereffect of the extra saturation over Portra.