Kodak Ektachrome E100G Colour Slide Film ISO 100 35 mm 36 Exposures Transparent

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You’ve seen already the three best-exposed shots I got from this roll. The first one below is okay too, but then they’ll get progressively worse to show you how things can change when shooting slide film in just slightly different or sub-optimal light. When shot well, slide film like Ektachrome E100 should give results that colour negative films would struggle to replicate.

Elite Chrome EBX: Properly called Kodak EliteChrome Ext While the consumer-grade Kodak colour negative films are hardy enough that they don’t need to be cold stored, the company does recommend on the datasheet that you keep your Ektachrome in the fridge until you come to shoot it. In a word, there’s just a lot more depth than I’ve gotten before from even the best colour negative films I’ve shot like Portra 400 or Ektar 100.

Kodak Ektachrome E100 is a daylight balanced, ISO 100 colour positive film that was first released in 2018. When shot well, as we’ve already explored, it’s meant to give bright whites, moderately enhanced colours with a neutral balance, low contrast tone scale, and extremely fine grain.

The American film’s giant’s answer to Fujifilm’s super-contrasty Velvia films, E100VS (VS stood for Vivid Saturation) was aimed at landscape photographers when it was released in 1999. It remained one of the last slide films in Kodak’s roster until it pulled the plug on the Ektachrome films in 2012. While no actual silver halide “grains” are left after processing a color film, image formation nevertheless begins with them, and Ektachrome is beautifully fine grained. Even in 135, as you’ll see in the examples below, the image sharpness and reproduction are incredible. The praise lavished on slide film in this section was prefaced with when shot well, and that’s something else that sets it apart from negative film. The increased need to shoot it well. And when I say well, I really mean well-lit and well-exposed. In my first post I talked about how I made the mistake of thinking I needed to underexpose this film slightly. In the comments and elsewhere it was recommended that I try using an incident meter rather than a basic iPhone meter and guessing. Regardless of the method of metering I was going to use moving forward, I concluded that I should stop concerning myself with hearsay about how to best expose reversal film, and just concentrate on exposing it accurately. My favourite image from my first roll Easy exposure with familiar cameras We knew that Kodak Ektachrome 100, and E6 film generally, are known for extremely fine grain, and clean colours. And it is the colours that are the first thing you notice when you see the photos. We are really impressed at how the film has handled colour tones. Bright colours like the reds really pop, and natural tones such as the blues and greens remain true to life. If colour accuracy is important to you, then you have to try this film.E-6 is different to the C-41 process that colour negative films use, although it’s something that can be done by any lab worth its salt. You can even buy a kit and do it yourself at home. It’s difficult to hold any of the following against Ektachrome itself, as these pertain to color reversal films more broadly. I’d be remiss, however, if I didn’t mention them: Ektachrome, initially developed in the early 1940s, allowed professionals and amateurs alike to process their own films. It also made color reversal film more practical in larger formats, and the Kodachrome Professional film in sheet sizes was later discontinued. How will new EKTACHROME compare with the original? Well, images I have seen from film sent out for Beta testing certainly have that EKTACHROME look. This brings me up to the couple of rolls I shot on holiday in Wales. Actually, as I say in my post about my Pentax Espio 80, by the time I went on holiday, I was feeling a little down about photography and just wanted to point & shoot. As such, I resolved that I wasn’t going to think about metering with an incident meter, and that I’d just snap and see what I got. As it turned out, the meter in the Pentax Espio 80 is very good.

What are the advantages of this troublesome film? Ektachrome’s technical data sheet notes a remarkable sharpness and a neutral, but rich color palette, which should result in a truer-to-life image compared with most C41 film. While this is objectively true, it only scratches the surface of what this film really is. Let’s dig a little deeper. Shooting on a point and shoot like we did was always going to be a challenge when it came to fine grain results. That being said, we are happy and certainly can’t fault the film. It handled well and produced some crisp, sharp photos despite the limitations of the camera. (We are really looking forward to try out the medium format and seeing how that compares). Your last link between disappearance of Agfa Precisa and emergence of Kodak Ektachrome 100 is drawing a very long bow. Agfa CT Precisa was in fact either Fuji Trebi 100 (the Japanese amateur version of Provia) or Provia 100 batches, which does not pass the very strong Fuji QC for Provia 100F. I have that from reputable sources, and there are many example showing comparisons of the edge coatings online. Elite Chrome: There are actually several in this family, but I was never able to find a definitive date when it was introduced, and with no inception date had to leave it off the timeline. However, as slide film was mainly used by professionals or those shooting editorially, and indeed keen hobbyists who liked to project their holiday slides onto the wall to show them off, the benefits of digital photography hit its sales hard.The mighty Kodak also made the Elite Chrome range aimed at consumers alongside the pro-spec Ektachrome films. Like Precisa, these films were more wallet friendly than their professional grade brothers. And if there’s one thing that LOMOgraphers liked, it was cheaper film. I’m not sure that these digital representations really do the film justice. When I put any of the originals on my light table, they look far better than any of these. Perhaps that’s due to Ektachrome’s roots lying in projection of the images as slides, perhaps it’s subjective reactions. Either way, it’s an incredible film. Kodak Ektachrome 100D Color Reversal: Film 5285 / 7285 Discontinued" (PDF). Motion.kodak.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 2, 2013 . Retrieved May 14, 2015.

When I walked out the doors of my local camera store holding an actual roll of new Kodak Professional Ektachrome E100, I was astonished. Those crazy folk from Rochester actually did it , I thought. They revived slide film . The current E-6 process was first released in 1977 and then modified in the mid-1990s to remove the formaldehyde from the stabiliser. I don’t know much about developing film but that sounds like a good move to me. The E-4 process was generally discontinued after 1977, although continued in use for Kodak PCF ( Photomicrography Color Film) until the 1980s, and for Kodak IE (Color Infra-red film) until 1996. This was due to a legal commitment by Kodak to provide the process for 30 years.Perhaps if I shoot enough of it, that extra thought will remain present and improve my work when I mess around with a cheap and versatile Kodak ColorPlus too. Or perhaps not, but being pushed to raise my game certainly can’t hurt. The aforementioned movies, Three Kings and Inside Man, both used Ektachrome in their production purely because they wanted the stylised effects you get from cross-processing it. In case you’re wondering, a transparency or reversal or slide film is a film that gives you full colour slides – hence that name – instead of the negatives you get from regular colour or monochrome negative film. Once you’ve shot your slide film, these are brilliant things to have and to look at. The most notable benefit for E100 for me was its overall sharpness. When using proper technique and with limited diffraction, the film does seem to be incredibly sharp. Particularly with images with a shallow depth of field, where your subject is in focus and you have a clear out of focus area, the prints resolve amazingly at 24×36”. While pouring through images, pixel peeping each drum scan at 100%, I couldn’t help but be wowed by the sharpness I was seeing with 35mm. Below is an example of a 100% crop from a drum scan of a 35mm E100 frame. Another fun fact: The name Velvia is a portmanteau of “Velvet Media” (so named because of the velvety smooth image structure), and the edge code you see on the film strip – RVP – stands for “ Reversal/ Velvia/ Professional series”