Kodak Ektar 100 is Great for Scanning

[divewizard]

At the risk of being impolitic (well, when has that stopped me?), almost every picture shown in this thread has a cyan cast (or is still on the cold side after post-processing). This is the same thing I experienced with this film scanned with Frontier, an LS-8000, and a SprintScan 120. I used both Vuescan (many, many settings) and Silverfast. The only thing that ever really brought the colors right was Kodak's Digital ROC correction module. It is very reminiscent of one of the Vericolor films from the 1970s (5035 if I recall) that consistently scans blue (and that was how I got the idea to use ROC). It's possible that there are new profiles out, but I don't see any reason why this film should have been so far off the C-41 spectrum that some existing profile wouldn't work.



Is Ektar "easy" to scan? Yes, if your main criteria are grain and resistance to dust/scratches. Otherwise, this film is fairly unsatisfying (seriously lacks punch) and lacks the red bias that the original Ektars (and indeed, Kodachrome) had.* I know that some people are fascinated with the fact that this is a "new" film (really a reformulated cine film, right?) and that it has ultrafine grain, but if you want poor latitude with concommitant color shifts, you can get to that cheaper and easier with a digital point-and-shoot.

*Kodak told me over the phone on one of my many calls with them about this that Ektar 100 is also very sensitive to temperature - starting at 90 degrees and exposure for one day.​

The thing that makes my dissatisfaction with this film really acute is that the Supra films (later rebadged HD) had better latitude, better color, and only marginally more grain. Portra NC was great, too. Gold 100-6 was a fantastic film for scanning, though good luck finding it now.

Dante

The scans I got back from PCV looked like a more green than cyan cast. However the new Portra 40o was very green.

My best ektar shot (Ga645zi)

This one looks overly green

 

[Tim Gray]

At the risk of being impolitic (well, when has that stopped me?), almost every picture shown in this thread has a cyan cast (or is still on the cold side after post-processing).

While I'm not disagreeing with you, a blatant color cast of any color is more an indication of the post processing of the scan and not necessarily an indication of a deficiency in the film film. It's quite easy to adjust out a uniform cyan cast that exists in the shadows, midtones, and highlights. Hell, all modern color negatives have a cyan cast when inverted due to the base. You balance it out though. If you don't balance it out completely, then you are left with a cast.

That's not to say that Ektar might not have a uniform gray scale (it probably doesn't). It might very well have cyan shadows when midtones are adjusted to neutral, or cyan highlights with neutral midtones, etc.

Taking a play out of the cinema playbook, when you convert/scan negatives, you need to adjust the offset of each RGB channel and the gain until you get the color your want. Also adjusting the gamma of each channel can help you get the color you want. All of this is quite easy to do with curves - move the endpoints around and then move the middle point if you need to.

 

[Darkhorse]

I really want a nice available 100 speed film. Portra 160 is great and all, but I want a general use film, not just a portrait film. Reala was great (albeit a bit grainy) but not widely available at all, and even discontinued (?) in some markets. I've had trouble wrangling with Ektar's cyan cast. Usually I just adjust scans in Aperture as TIFFs. Mainly because it's faster to do than in Photoshop for instance.

Ektar

Reala

 

[ItsReallyDarren]

My scans of Ektar from my local 1hr lab came back with and extremely blue cast. When I sent the film out to be developed at a better lab the blue color cast went away.

I have a feeling Ektar may be more sensitive to developing variations. Also I had noticed my local lab was declining in quality after its main tech quit.