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Thread: An E100 sheet film tease

  1. #1
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    An E100 sheet film tease

    Spotted on Canham Cameras' Facebook page - look for the exchange with Oscar Wong in the comments:

    No, Kodak is not yet taking orders for Ektachrome in sheet film. Sheet film uses a different substrate than roll film. I know Kodak is planning on Ektachrome sheet film, but I would not expect to see any for 8-12 months at the soonest. ( I hope I am wrong and it is here sooner, but I doubt it. It took two years to get everything working for the 35mm)

    https://www.facebook.com/13132439357...type=3&theater
    Last edited by Oren Grad; 17-Jan-2019 at 20:04.

  2. #2
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: An E100 sheet film tease

    Well, we all know that sheet film requires a different base; so an entire roll would have to be dedicated to it, before getting sliced up into specific sheet sizes. I sold all my remaining 8x10 Ektachrome after I switched over to Ektar. I loved E100G; but with no more Cibachrome, what would I do with it? I already have a mountain of 8x10 transparencies suitable for making internegatives from, or separation negs for DT printing. But realistically, just how many prints via that kind of route am I going to make per year? Just a few. And my favorite interneg film at this point in history is Porta 100. So you take a sheet of that at, say, 25 bucks per sheet with processing, plus at least one unsharp contrast mask on 8x10 TMX at 10 bucks apiece, plus the original Ektachrome 8x10 at possibly 25 bucks too, and that comes out at around $60 just to get to an RA4-compatible interneg, before the cost of printing even begins. Ouch! But at least visually, it sure does justice to the original, if you happen to be patient enough to fine-tune the process, or perhaps crazy enough. Someone will no doubt reply, why not just scan it, and then inkjet it, or whatever? The look just wouldn't be the same.

  3. #3

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    Re: An E100 sheet film tease

    These are fantastic news.

  4. #4
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: An E100 sheet film tease

    It's not news yet, Pere. Kinda like being on a desert island and seeing a ship way off in the distance. It might see you, or might not. And at the rate Kodak has been increasing their film prices, will it be even remotely affordable?

  5. #5

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    Re: An E100 sheet film tease

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    It's not news yet, Pere. Kinda like being on a desert island and seeing a ship way off in the distance. It might see you, or might not. And at the rate Kodak has been increasing their film prices, will it be even remotely affordable?
    Drew, in the EU we have Velvia 8x10 2x the price than in the USA. See Fotoimpex and Maco Direct compared with B&H and Adorama. It looks that Fuji is making a bet for moderation in the LF prices, in the USA at least, this may make kodak think a bit what they do.

    It would be great if they set a prince making a bet for expanding the customer base. We'll see...

  6. #6
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: An E100 sheet film tease

    The bigger problem is that E6 processing is becoming scarcer in the meantime. Those big processing machines require steady daily volume to warrant the cost of keeping them replenished, or frankly, even on hand at all. Just this past year, in this area we lost both E6 and C41 processing in 8X10, and it's a major urban center with a lot of film photography still going on. Fuji is nearly out of the game, and with the total absence of a Kodak product, the remaining labs simply couldn't afford to lease the necessary space anymore. I could have had some of those big dip n dunk processors for free - but where would I put them? Fortunately, 4x5 can still be locally processed, both C41 and E6, but anything larger has to be sent out. Not a huge headache, really; but if it's dying out here, who will decide to quit next? So I hope that if Kodak does revive sheet Ektachrome, it happens quickly enough for an incentive to process it to remain. Volume users aren't going to want to do it themselves in something like a drum. And if there aren't volume users, there won't be any incentive to keep coating sheet film base. And if it isn't still done on stable Estar base, I'd have no use for it. But yeah, it would be great to see again. In the meantime, I'll test the roll film version when it's available. From the preliminary reports, it does seem to be identical to E100G.

  7. #7
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    Re: An E100 sheet film tease

    I expanded the quote so it's clear that the film base problem was understood when the Canham comment was posted on Facebook. It's nice to hear that Kodak is working on it, but I agree with Drew that for users it's not real until they're ready to introduce it. Lots can go wrong in the lab, the factory and/or the market between now and then.

  8. #8
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: An E100 sheet film tease

    Well, I'm on Keith's contact list, so he routinely informs me when any special cut of Kodak film is being made. The problem at this point in life, is that a year or two here n' there missing a particular product category adds up a lot quicker than it did when I was younger. The clock is ticking. That's why is preemptively switched to color neg film and got through that learning curve. Of course, just shooting neg film and even RA4 printing is fairly simple. But doing it as well as I did Cibachrome took a running start; and I still trip on my shoelaces sometimes. Fortunately, the quality of Kodak's color neg sheet film is better than ever. Likewise, E100G was probably their best chrome film ever, though I certainly miss the special idiosyncratic hues the combination of ole Ektachrome 64 and Ciba gave. Once I start seriously printing dye transfer, I've only got enough matrix film to last five years or so - in other words, barely enough to get good at it. But by the time that phase is over, I might be stirring chemicals with a cane. I didn't even print color last year. Did shoot quite a bit of it. But after working so darn hard for nearly fifty years straight, I reckon I deserve to be allowed to print anything I wish; and at the moment, it all happens to black and white.

  9. #9

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    Re: An E100 sheet film tease

    Of course any lacking manufacturing step prevents having the product, but as they are coating 35mm and Super 8 Ektachrome then they have 99% of the job done for sheets. Coating on another base is a joke compared with the hundreds of complicated operations to have the chem ready, Making Kodak Film book illustrates that.

    IMHO in part we have Ektachrome back thanks to cinematography. Today movie film shooting is experimenting an extraordinary prestige. It happend that people that remained analog (for good reasons) where the damn elite in the business, being a key stone Spielberg, not more and not less. His cinematographer Kamiński is like a machinegunner that places every bullet in a target. That kind of people have made such a pool of impressive things with film that his work will be praised for sure in the centuries to come, http://www.peterhogenson.com/blog/20...chindlers-list. (please whatch that video)

    I suspect that sinergy with cinematography was a key factor. They have Vision 3 Super-8 (requiring special chem), they need a camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFOzPVuDHAM, they need the camera to be sold in a certain ammount, so they need a reversal film for the camera, beacuse Vision 3 is negative film and not as many people would know what to do with it. And what would help having enough sells for the emulsion to be profitable is still photography. IMHO Super 8 was a key contribution factor in the game.

    The de-extinction of Ektachrome is a little miracle. Who would say it ??? IMHO we all should be grateful to all people that pushed hard for this resurrection. Just a petition to Kodak, I'd ask for a commercial policy tending to expand market in the long term. The most difficult thing was made by Kamiński and his friends, this time Kodak should be at the same level.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by Pere Casals; 19-Jan-2019 at 04:49.

  10. #10
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: An E100 sheet film tease

    Thanks for that, Pere. But sheet film, esp 8x10 or larger sizes (and heaven help 5x7 users) is a much smaller niche, and does indeed require special coating runs. The secret seems to be someone like Keith Canham who can build up advance orders sufficient to tip the scales in favor of Kodak making a particular size cut. But that requires patience on our part. It can take quite a few months for some requests to be fulfilled by Kodak. And really big users might take up most of a single cut, then stockpile it, which in turn causes much longer delays for casuals users of that particular film format. It's a trickier proposition than black and white sheet film, which stores better.

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