Tag Archives: color

To E-6 or not to E-6

The glory of E-6, inadequately captured by digital.

The glory of E-6, inadequately captured by digital.

I’m still toying with the idea of shooting E-6 after being so very impressed by the Kodachrome I shot in the final days of last year and especially the results I got shooting a roll of 6×6 on Fuji Velvia 50. The film itself isn’t much more expensive, especially in 120 format (actually medium format Fuji Provia 100F is cheaper than Kodak Ektar 100 in 5 packs!), but you can nearly triple the development cost unless you DIY it or send it out in big batches to one of the larger mail-order labs.

I really like the end result though, the workflow is a little simpler because I can easily make selects for scanning using a light table and my 10x-loupe-assisted eyeball, and did I mention how much I like the results? 😉

One option which might work is the Arista 1 pint kit sold by Freestyle Photographic. Pick that up along with a 5-pack of film, shoot the 5 rolls and develop them in one run. Cost is a little under half for development vs processing locally. Or batch up those 5 rolls and send them out to somewhere like Dwayne’s or North Coast, using the local lab if I absolutely must have it developed right away. That would be competitive with DIY and less mess, yet wouldn’t really penalize me much as far as time to development since I’d be batching the rolls up anyway, then finding time to spend several hours developing.

I’ll have to think on it, because color negative material has its advantages too and is cheap to develop locally.

Kodak Ektar 100 First Impressions

The Promised Land?

Is Kodak Ektar 100 the promised land for color print film shooters?

It would be fair to say that Kodak caused a bit of a stir with the introduction of Ektar 100 film. I finally got around to buying, shooting and processing a roll to see if the stuff was all it cracked up to be.

About half the roll was static test shots; I wanted to see how it behaved under certain conditions. The rest was my usual semi-aimless shooting at whatever looked interesting.

I have to say, based solely on the scans as viewed straight off the CVS photo CD (1.5MP or so Noritsu scans, auto corrected to within an inch of their lives) I am very impressed with this film stock.

Just a handful of photos for now. These are all shot on Ektar 100, uploaded as scanned with the only changes being quick cropping and resizing for the web.

I think this was lit by natural light (daylight through window), metered off a gray card. The colors are close to real life, as I remember it.

Lit by natural light (daylight through window), metered off a gray card. The colors are close to real life, as I remember it at the time.

Love that color saturation. Punchy without being ridiculous, again faithful to the real scene.

Love that color saturation. Punchy without being ridiculous, again reasonably faithful to the real scene, looks like it emphasizes reds a bit.

They're not kidding about the grain. I'm thinking you could do some seriously aggressive cropping on this film, even in 135 format. I can only imagine how well it works in medium format, never mind in large format!

They're not kidding about the grain being fine, bearing in mind the proof-quality nature of the scans. I'm thinking with high-res scanning you could do some seriously aggressive cropping on this film, even in 135 format. I can only imagine how well it works in medium format, never mind in large format!

The extreme end of my exposure testing. Lit by flash, underexposed 3 stops compared to the metered exposure, auto corrected by the Noritsu at CVS. I haven't done anything to this yet, it's straight from the CD. Shadows and dark tones are muddy, the brown book on the top of the pile is very undersaturated and dark, and it's a little flat overall, but I'm thinking it could be pushed this far and some repair work done in post if I had to. I'll be curious to see just what I can do with it, or what can be done when I eventually get a decent scanner.

The extreme end of my exposure testing. Lit by flash, underexposed 3 stops compared to the metered exposure, auto corrected by the Noritsu at CVS. I haven't done anything to this yet, it's straight from the CD. Shadows and dark tones are muddy, the brown book on the top of the pile is very undersaturated and dark, and it's a little flat overall, but I'm thinking it could be pushed this far and some repair work done in post if I had to. I'll be curious to see just what I can do with it, or what can be done when I eventually get a decent scanner.

Yes, I do believe it is. :)

Yes, I do believe it is. 🙂