Kodak Ektar Film ?????????????

[ignatiusjk]

Has anybody tried Kodak Ektar 4x5 film? I shoot landscapes so I'm curious to see how it works.I will be in Yosemite in June and will try it out then.If you have used it let me know what you thought of it.

[Mark Sampson]

The 35mm version is very sharp and fine-grained. Also very contrasty and saturated. For that reason I haven't been tempted to try it in 4x5, although I'm sure some people who have will chime in... and hopefully post pictures.

[Kevin Crisp]

I've also tried it in 35mm only. My prints from the local lab came back generally too contrasty and most of them look one to two stops overexposed. It is sharp and very fine grained. Frankly, it looks like a bad printing job to me, something that is becoming very common and is going to kill off any consumer demand for 35mm film. I'm going to scan it and see how it looks. If I'm happy with that, I'll try sheet film.

[Daniel Stone]

its cool stuff, if you like contrast and saturation. I'd compare it to shooting chrome(slides), only you get a negative.

by that I mean:

1. Contrast straight out of the box with normal processing yielded contrastier results than my other comparison shots on 160VC(my normal neg film).
2. Colors are pretty vivid. Some have said its the "velvia of color neg films". I'd say a little more like the E100VS of neg films. Warmer tones are accented more, where as Velvia leaned more to the blues/greens, IMO.
3. Its nice and sharp, but when you shoot contrasty films, sometimes the "sharpness" comes more from contrast in the film.
4. Reciprocity? It stinks IMO. But I don't do long exposures generally, but compared with Portra 160NC or VC, I didn't feel like wasting film to do tests with it. I had a shot rated at 10s, and I added a stop. It came out aboue 2-3 stops too thin .
5. Its nice, but I'd rather shoot 160VC. Saturation, but not too overdone.

but this above is purely my opinion.

I shot it in 4x5 btw, didn't feel like trying it in 8x10

-Dan

[vinny]

No, haven't tried it.

[rguinter]

This one on Ektar 4x5-inch from last summer.

Bob G.

[ki6mf]

I shot 20 sheets to test against Kodak 160 VC. I don't have any scanned images to show on the forum. In reading the Kodak reference material Ekatar has slightly more saturation over 160 VC at a lower ISO rating. I decided to stay with the 160 VC as higher ISO was more important for the type of shooting I do over the color saturation. I did see 16X20 enlargements from smaller format film so the finer grain does seem to work.

[BrianShaw]

I've only shot it in 120 and don't think I'd shoot any 4x5. Not my favorite color film... not at all.

[Greg Blank]

View Camera review March/ April 2010 author Greg Blank begining on page 62.

[edtog]

It's really good stuff, I've done some 30"x20" prints for a client recently, had the neg drum scanned and it's virtually grain free with good contrast and vivid colours.
It's not a film for every subject, but used correctly you will either love or hate the results.
As always, make up your own mind and if you can shoot a few tests of the same scene with 2 different films.
I'm currently shooting portra 400 and that looks like becoming my preferred film, although I haven't shot enough of it yet to make a proper decision.