Film is dead…or so many people though until Kodak released their new Ektar 100 film to the public last year. Coming to market with the daring claim of “Finest Grain Ever” it would be an uphill battle to sell a new color print film to the general photographic public in the age of 10+ megapixel consumer-level DSLR cameras. It would take a really special film introduction to stand a chance up against the modern resolution of DSLR’s with a 35mm format film. Did Kodak do that? Yes they did.
First thing to note about Ektar, is that it was designed from the ground up to be scanned into a computer. As most labs now do digital prints, requiring the negative to be scanned before printing, Kodak had to design a film that could easily be scanned, have great color and high resolution. I have been scanning my rolls of Ektar with an Epson V500 at 3200 and 6400 DPI and my Plustek OpticFilm 7200 at 3600 and 7200 DPI.
[NOTE: All Scans are made with V500 at 3200 DPI with Digital ICE off to avoid blurring. Click for fullsize.]
On either scanner Ektar 100 brought forth good contrast, bold colors and almost no grain. In fact I notice digital noise from my scanners more than I do traditional grain. Ektar has required little correction in Photoshop or Lightroom after scanning is completed.
As far as image quality goes, I have been successfully printing excellent 8x10’s from 3200 DPI scans on my V500 and 11x14’s at 7200 with my Plustek OpticFilm at 7200 DPI. No other negative film will allow me to make quality prints with these scanners and resolutions. Even most slide films will not scan this high quality for me with consumer grade scanners.
Ektar delivers a clarity nearing slide film, color characteristics not found in any other film with the wide exposure latitude of negative film. Ektar shows to produce good images in my testing from -1 EV to +2 EV (or shot at ISO 50 up to ISO 400) without needing to push the development. Albeit the further you get away from box speed the more image degradation occurs, but in a pinch you can pull a good image out of Ektar shot at ISO 800 with some good scanning techniques.
Ektar’s next big advantage is price. You can find Ektar in 135 format for little more than a roll of Kodak Gold and quite a bit less than Portra. At my local photo shop, Gold 200 goes for $4 USD, Ektar 100 for $5.25 and Portra 160 NC for $7. So for little more than the price of regular consumer film, you can get a high resolution professional-quality film. A film that can be scanned with an inexpensive flatbed scanner and produce images equal or greater than current low-end DSLR’s. With better scanners you can even outperform the quality of many high-end DSLR’s and still retain the unique look of film. I have a 20” x 30” print on my wall made from a drum scan of one of my Ektar shots and the print is beautiful with a barely perceptible grain, my Canon 400D XTi or 5D could never even come close to producing that print. At this point a $10 dollar yard-sale SLR and a few rolls of Ektar can do you as good as a $500 XTi, if not better.
Cost, ease of scanning, resolution, grain and exposure latitude alone are good reasons to grab this film, but the unique look is worth the price of admission and then some. What really gives Ektar a unique advantage is its appearance. I find it to have a strange modern nostalgic look when shot at ISO 50 or 64, like a quality film shot from the 70’s. It shifts a bit blue and retains bold colors. If Ektar is shot at box speed, I have found that it reproduces colors reasonable accurately, although more punchy than normal. I find myself overexposing street photography for the vintage look and shooting landscapes and nature at box speed. It is nice to have the option of two distinct looks from one film and get good results at either setting. Again, you can take Ektar on upwards toward ISO 800, but plan on spending some time in post getting you image looking good. Still, it can be done though.
Some have complained of Ektar being inappropriate for human subjects, being a bit too saturated for skin tones. I have not found this to be the case, as some simple adjusting of saturation in Photoshop can alleviate this issue without dulling the overall picture.
Oversaturated skin tones with Ektar tend to be most common at box speed, and taking it to 50 or 64 can help as well. However I have no issue shooting portraits at box speed with Ektar. In fact Ektar has almost replaced Portra 160 VC in my wedding gear for outside, nature portraits. I have been happy and so have been my clients.
In general, Kodak’s Ektar 100 is a great general purpose film. It is well suited for travel, with its punchy colors and great contrast. It can capture human subjects and look fairly natural, while at the same time give you saturated backgrounds. Ektar is the new film of choice to take for family photos at the Grand Canyon (Now that Kodachrome is gone).
It’s great to keep in your camera for indoor flash photography. Ektar is a great choice for a primary film, and I have shot the same roll at ISO 50-200 varying between frames and got great results with standard processing. Give Ektar a try and don’t be afraid to experiment with it, the results may surprise you.
If you are interested in grabbing a few rolls of Ektar to try out, please go down to your local pro shop and get yourself a few rolls. If you don’t have a good pro lab, then consider ordering from Amazon or Adorama from the links below, it’ll give me a little kickback then, but please support you local photo lab before ordering online. You may pay a bit more, but to have personal service and knowledge people nearby it is well worth it.
Try it...You'll like it!
Michael
Links to purchase Ektar below.
Buy at Amazon or...
Search for Ektar at Adorama.
Jumping right in…
So, you know how to install and create presets in Lightroom. Wonderful, but now you have another situation. The preset you just made is not working right. It is manually setting the basic tone controls, when you wanted it to leave them be. Now you could just save a new preset and delete the previous, but that is redundant. Lightroom gives you the option to update existing presets, changing the problematic settings. Updating a preset is useful when designing presets for others to use, allowing you to make the preset, use in on other images, and alter and update the preset as you move along. Updating allows you to revise your existing work.
Let’s learn how to do an update… go ahead and open an image in LR and apply the preset you wish to modify. If you want to make alterations to any of the sliders, do so now, as any alterations will be saved when you run the update. Once you are ready to update the preset, head over to the presets tab in the develop module.
Find the preset you wish to update and Right-Click (Control-Click on Mac), to bring up the contextual menu:
Click on “Update With Current Settings” option.
This brings up the Update Develop Preset dialog box, which is identical to the New Develop Preset Dialog.
Now enable or disable any sliders that you need to adjust. Remember, disable any tools your preset does not need to use, this will facilitate in stacking and combining presets down the road. Plus, it is just good design.
Once everything you need to have saved in the preset is selected, click the “Update” button.You have now updated your preset with the new adjustments. The same preset name is used, however when clicked, it will apply the new settings.
Another task you may want to do is modify a preset you frequently use. When using a preset designed by someone else, you will often discover that you may need to make minor adjustments to the preset to make it more suitable to your needs. You have two different options here; updating the existing preset or creating a new preset based off the original. If you choose to update, follow the steps above. I recommend that you create a new preset based off the original; you may want to use the author’s original preset still, plus it is good to keep the original around to compare to while you fine tune your new version.
This will be short and sweet, since we already know how to make a new preset. Choose an image you want to play with. Apply the original preset you wish to modify, go ahead and make the changes you desire. Now make a new preset from your current settings, if you don’t know how to do this jump over to Part 1 of this series and follow the instructions for making a new preset. The steps are identical; just make sure to give the new preset a name that connects it to the original preset, so you don’t forget.
When you do modify another designer’s preset, do not release it as your own work. Check to see how the original designer licensed their preset, follow the rules. If they did not include a license, contact them before you release your modification. Make sure they are cool with it. Then give credit where credit is due.
Finally, you will often find that you want to combine the effects of two or more presets into one, stand-alone preset. When combining presets, at least one of the presets must be properly configured, changing only the settings needed. It works best when both presets are well-made, but if a preset is poorly designed, or simply a global preset, you want to apply that to the image first. After you apply the global preset, you will apply your second preset.
In the following instructions, I will combine a Kodak Gold 100 Curve preset and a 110 Frame preset, creating a 110 Kodak Gold preset. Since the Kodak Gold 100 Curve effects more sliders and is the primary effect, we will apply it first.
After it is applied, we will add in the 110 Frame preset; adding in a pseudo-frame with vignette tools.
Now both presets are stacked; the overall color adjusted by the film preset and frame applied with the frame preset. If you create a new preset at this point; you can save the effect of both presets into a single preset. Go ahead and save it as a new preset:
Once you get the New Develop Preset Dialog, make sure to select the tools used by both presets. If you are unsure what the presets actually alter, refer to Part 1 and “read” the presets in a text editor. In my example the 110 effect is in the Post-Crop Vignette; the rest of the tools are used by the Kodak Gold 100 preset. Here is what my New Develop Preset dialog looked like before saving:
Click Save, new preset is ready…follow up with Part 4 to find out how to export your new preset to share with the world.
Here is a download of the 110 Frame and Kodak Gold 100 Curve preset with the final 110 Kodak Gold 100 preset. You can play around and make your own 110 style presets.
Tomorrow will be fun, as I have been working with Brandon over at X= on a new preset. Check out x-equals.com/blog tomorrow for a new preset release I created for his site, then come back here tomorrow for some new presets I created using the new preset from X=. The new preset is an effect preset, enhancing an image for a particular look. It is designed to stack and to be combined with other presets...especially my LIDF Film Emulations. I will have two new presets on the table here tomorrow...so after you get the new release from X=, come back and get my new creations.
Until then,
Michael
Pay attention to how you organize your presets in Lightroom, as they are a pain to sort after you have amassed a large amount. This is since Adobe only allows 1 level of folders in the presets menu. Hopefully in future releases Adobe may endow us with nested folders, and if they do it will drastically improve organization of presets.
