Ektar 100 Now in 120 Format

[Eric Leppanen]

Worldwide availability will be in April. Can 4x5 be far behind....??? :)

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/films/ektar/ektarIndex.jhtml?id=0.2.26.14.5.14&lc=en&_requestid=1488

[harrykauf]

Yes!!!

[D. Bryant]

Worldwide availability will be in April. Can 4x5 be far behind....??? :)

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/films/ektar/ektarIndex.jhtml?id=0.2.26.14.5.14&lc=en&_requestid=1488

I'm speechless but also glad to hear the news.

Don Bryant

[Bruce Watson]

Can 4x5 be far behind....??? :)

Not to be argumentative, but why would we need it in LF sizes? We've got an exquisitely good film already in 160Portra. Finer grain doesn't mean much to me in 5x4; it means even less in larger sizes. And I don't want or need the ultra saturated colors -- if I wanted Velvia I know where to find it. So... how is Ektar 100 an improvement over 160Portra in LF sizes?

I can understand why the smaller formats want Ektar 100. But for LF the bar is already set incredibly high by 160Portra. I don't see (yet -- someone please enlighten me) what Ektar 100 brings to the LF party.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Unlike Velvia, it Ektar 100 can be printed by projection on RA-4 paper. It also has a different look from Velvia or 160NC or 160VC. The difference between 160 NC and VC is fairly subtle to my eye. Ektar 100 has more saturation than 160VC but doesn't look oversaturated like Velvia.

[Eric Leppanen]

I'm not necessarily sold on Ektar for LF personally (I look for color neg film to provide maximum exposure latitude, and Portra/160S are rated at -2 to +3 stops while Ektar is only -1 to +2).

Certainly from an enlargement perspective, the reduced grain size of Ektar is less compelling in 4x5 than in 120. Yet a broader argument could have been made that the C-41 rollfilm market is largely dead (wedding shooters and other C-41 "power users" having migrated to digital capture), yet Kodak introduced 120 Ektar anyway. Why? Has Kodak identified some professional interest in Ektar, which up to now has been primarily positioned as a consumer film? Is Kodak projecting some future rebound in film demand?

Kodak reportedly has tested Ektar in both 120 and 4x5 sizes. So who knows what lies ahead?

[venchka]

I wonder what the minimum run is for 4x5? I wonder if they have some laying around?

[Bruce Watson]

Kodak reportedly has tested Ektar in both 120 and 4x5 sizes. So who knows what lies ahead?

If they've already tested in on the thicker base then the R&D is basically done. All they have to do now is decide to sell it. If they do I'll probably buy a box just to see what all the fuss is about. But it's going to have to be a hell of a film to best either of the 160Portra films. And if it is no one will be happier than I.

[venchka]

If they've already tested in on the thicker base then the R&D is basically done. All they have to do now is decide to sell it. If they do I'll probably buy a box just to see what all the fuss is about. But it's going to have to be a hell of a film to best either of the 160Portra films. And if it is no one will be happier than I.

If it is as you say, then Ektar 100 will cannablize sales of Portra 160. A classic Catch-22.

[Matus Kalisky]

Great news. Just pity I can not get it for my trip to NZ.

I guess this all means that the Ektar 100 was very well received and enough of us cried for the 120 format.

I am also not sure whether I need it in 4x5, but why not to have a saturated C-41 in 4x5 as well?

And - any test rolls to be had beforehand? :)

[Ivan J. Eberle]

Ektar 25 raised the bar for color negative materials and it's having been taken off the market was too long lamented. The ultra fine grain technology went into other subsequent films. Anyone remember what a nice film Supra was? Also long lamented in its demise.

Kodak has been hemorrhaging market share for a long time. But might there now be a couple of convergent events that create an opportunity to perhaps stanch the flow? First is that with the recession, digital SLR sales are about to flatten out if not stagnate or auger into the ground. Few digital users really need more than a 12MP camera and most everyone that does already has one. The MP wars are about played out. People whose interest in photography has been spurred by digital are drifting over to the film forums, perhaps looking to step up their game...

Too, there happen to also be a whale of lot of MF cameras flooding the market, in no small part because pros can't justify passing along the media costs anymore and have gone digital whether they wanted to or not. Probably accounts for why there is such a flood of journeyman pro-level Bronicas, Pentaxes, and Mamiyas available for ten to fifteen cents on the dollar.

But that could smell like opportunity if you manufacture consumer print film. Great time to launch a film that might win Eastman Kodak back not only market share but some sorely lacking customer loyalty, by their seemingly listening to what customer base they yet have left. (Though they're not likely to be winning back all the E6 business they lost ten years ago with all the product churn, not when Fuji has such entrenched loyalty. I'm an Astia 100F convert from Kodachrome by way of Lumiere, etc. Probably 90% of that business is gone forever, gone digital and not coming back.)

This might be a useful analogy: remember how everyone said Apple had dropped the ball in the late 80's, with their paltry $4-5B annual sales, once Windows 3.1 came along? Well, soon everyone was buying WinTel machines on price; Apple, despite a couple of missteps like the E-machines clone SNAFU, they weathered that shakeout pretty well, by becoming a "boutique" computer and by keeping profit margins high.

(Then again, maybe my analogy lacks. Bill Gates just disclosed his 5.4% position in EK yesterday.)

[Toyon]

What special qualities does Ektar 100 have? What film is most like it in terms of color balance?

[mrladewig]

Ektar is not at all like the portra line and I really don't think it will cannibalize those sales. It has a much more saturated and high contrast look than the portra or Fuji Pro lines. But at the same time it has a wider latitude than E100G or Astia. Having used Ektar, Portra and Fuji Pro, I would welcome Ektar as a sheet film, but would still have a place for the portra films too.

[mrladewig]

What special qualities does Ektar 100 have? What film is most like it in terms of color balance?

Its similar to the recently discontinued UC line, but different enough that I wouldn't class it there either. The grain is finer than UC100 by a fair margin. Fuji Reala is a fairly similar film as well.

I can't be 100% certain that I've got this scan right, but here is an image I shot on 35mm Ektar. It was shot with a 2 stop GND. This was scanned on an Epson 4990 with Silverfast Ai using the profile for Portra 400NC. It seemed to have gotten the colors about right.

http://www.ladewigs.com/Gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=1557

It seems to fit into a space between standard color negative films and the wider latitude end of the E-6 films.