Ektar 100: how much can you tell?

Roger Hicks · 10-24-2008

Here are three more Ektar 100 shots -- but how much can you tell about the film from a web posting? Magazines always say 'read what we write, rather than relying on the pictures', and magazine repro is for the most part far more reliable than the chain that leads to the picture on your monitor: in this case, my camera, my lenses, my lab, my scanner, my software, my monitor, my opinions on colour balance, never mind what happens to it afterwards.

A 'raw scan' (no post-processing) is meaningless: why post an image that looks a bit cyan, just because that's the way your scanner rendered it, when you could correct it? Pictures can give you an idea -- but in a proper review, they don't even tell half the story.

Also, one roll doesn't tell anyone much: I'll not be reviewing this on my site until I've shot at least half a dozen rolls, and preferably a dozen, under widely different circumstances.

The grape picture was taken with a 75/2 Summicron, the church and lake with a 90/2.2 Thambar; camera was an MP in both cases. The other two shots, on the Ektar 100 thread, were both with the Summicron.

Cheers,

Roger

Roger Hicks · 10-25-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Double Negative

Quite honestly, the pictures are too small to really say much about anything. From what I can tell, the grain is indeed tiny, the saturation seems nice and not overpowering. But other than that...

Quite. The reason they're no bigger is that's what I understand the site rules to be.

How big can I go? Moderators? Anyone?

Cheers,

R.

charjohncarter · 10-25-2008

I know: who knows what has happened before it gets to the moniter which even does more to the image. This is an image of the front of my house. I digitalized the negative tweaked it and had it printed at Costco. The print has that Ansco Speedex 4.5 glow, somehow it lost something just by being posted on Flickr, well here it is:

Joe Brugger · 10-25-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Hicks

Quite. The reason they're no bigger is that's what I understand the site rules to be.

How big can I go? Moderators? Anyone?

Cheers,

R.

A quick skip through the FAQ doesn't reveal any guidelines. Some of the beach-blanket size photos posted spread the type too wide for my screen . . . My feeling is that a 600x900 pixel image can often be enough to show the basic qualities of a lens or film, and if an image is resized for web use at that size and resolution, it yields a file that loads almost instantly.

Ektar 100 looks pretty saturated -- I'm as interested in hearing your personal impressions of grain, saturation and resolution as I am in seeing the photos.

Finally got a roll and plan to put a variety of pics on to see how it does.

Morris · 10-25-2008

In the "Manage attachments" window you will see:

Filetype Max Filesize Max Width Max Height

bmp 300.0 KB 900 -

gif 9.8 KB 620 280

jpg 195.3 KB 800 800

pdf 19.5 KB

RF-Addict · 10-25-2008

You could at least tell us how well it scans - is the grain really that much better than regular C-41 film? Does it really come close to scanning slides - for the grain that is!

rbiemer · 10-26-2008

All I can tell from what I've seen on line about this film is: I want to shoot some for myself and see if I like it.
Rob

snip · 10-26-2008

All this is very well, where can I find a supplier that sells the bloddy stuff! It should be out now should'nt it?

//Jan

gdi · 10-26-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by snip

All this is very well, where can I find a supplier that sells the bloddy stuff! It should be out now should'nt it?

//Jan

I ordered from Freestyle Friday - they may still have some.

Pherdinand · 10-26-2008

Isn't the lake shot camera-shaken a bit, Roger?
SOmething disturbs my eyes when i look at it.
Colors are nice, though.

Joe Brugger · 10-26-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morris

In the "Manage attachments" window you will see:

Filetype Max Filesize Max Width Max Height

bmp 300.0 KB 900 -

gif 9.8 KB 620 280

jpg 195.3 KB 800 800

pdf 19.5 KB

Thanks. Useful information. Is there a way to control the size of attachments displayed in messages? As opposed to attachments I might post myself?

snip · 10-26-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by gdi

I ordered from Freestyle Friday - they may still have some.

Sorry, I meant somewhere in Europe where I can get hold of the stuff.

//Jan

ljsegil · 10-27-2008

Hi Roger,
Looking forward to your more complete report on Ektar, but any experience as yet with how it handles skin tones? Any thoughts against the Portra films?
Thanks and best,
Larry

Adam · 10-27-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by charjohncarter

The print has that Ansco Speedex 4.5 glow, somehow it lost something just by being posted on Flickr...

It may be that your browser is not set to use color profile information embedded in images. I recently discovered this as the cause of my images on Flickr appearing washed out. Firefox, I believe, does not use the color profile by default. If that is the problem, search for "color profile" and Firefox and you'll come up with instructions on how to fix it.

Adam

Roger Hicks · 10-27-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pherdinand

Isn't the lake shot camera-shaken a bit, Roger?
SOmething disturbs my eyes when i look at it.
Colors are nice, though.

Thambar soft focus -- not camera shake!

Replies to others: yes, the grain does seem comparable with ISO 100 slide films; it scans very well (but a bit cyan for my taste when on automatic with my Konica-Minolta); skin tones are a bit too 'rich' for my taste (Kodak and I both suggest Portra NC for those); and yes, I'd heartily recommend buying some and trying it.

I'm still waiting for a brick for a more convincing test.

Sorry for the delay in replying but we have friends staying.

Cheers,

R.

charjohncarter · 10-27-2008

Adam, thanks, I have MS browser, but maybe FoxFire would be worth changing to. I will have a look see.

Carter

David Goldfarb · 10-27-2008

When I post these kinds of test shots on the web, if I think a detail crop might illustrate something interesting like the grain structure compared to another film, I usually post a detail at higher resolution from the original scan. Here's an example from a thread about the new Portra films over on APUG--

http://www.apug.org/forums/forum40/3...tml#post419964

and I posted a few others like that in the same thread.

I've also calibrated my monitor since posting those, so if we're both on calibrated monitors, we might be in the same ballpark. Of course one can't count on everyone having a calibrated monitor, but I've found that since I've calibrated, my scans look better on a greater variety of different monitors.

Saturation and grain look nice, by the way, in the posted Ektar 100 scans. I picked up a sample roll at Photoplus, so I'll look forward to testing it. I asked a Kodak rep whether this film will be available in other formats, and he said that he couldn't make any predictions, but they are in fact testing it.

Pherdinand · 10-27-2008

Well then Roger, i guess i don't like Thambar. I'm glad about it, my budget won't allow me to get one anyway

But it still looks to me like double image with some camera-shaken swoosh between them