Kodak Ektar VS Portra 160

[Tim Gray]

I'm not arguing with what you're seeing firsthand, but on a technical level, all the "4th layer" does is provide a slight boost in the sensitivity of the magenta-forming layer to a very specific band of "cyan" frequencies.

It's worth noting that Kodak achieves a very similar spectral response curve in their magenta-forming layer without the use of "4th layer" technology.

Agreed.

..............

 

[wilonstott]

Tim, I hope you don't mind, but I'm attaching modified versions of a couple of your images. Just let me know if you want me to take em down.

I hope this illustrates just how "wrong" the images straight out of the Noritsu can be. They're quite difficult to color correct, because the Noritsu takes every opportunity to blow out highlights and fog the blue channel.

First off--great and informative thread.

Second, this looks like a vast improvement to me.
My PS knowledge is limited.
Any online tutorials you could steer me toward.
I often rely on minilab (Noritsu) scans, and would like to be able to color correct them.

Thanks.

p.s. sorry if this is slightly off topic. you can pm me if you like. I have no desire to hijack the thread.

 

[atlcruiser]

I shoot mostly the portra 160NC and now the 400. I jsut got a box of ektar 810 to try out. If anything I want a film that records what is actually there light wise not what it "thinks" we want to see. The portra looks as if it compensated to avoid the green cast from the flourescent lights while the ektar renders the green color correctly.

I use a color meter now to figure what i need to do to avoid the color casts. Color shifts are generally due to age of film, storage or processing. Color cast is more due to the film recording what it sees not what our eye sees and can be modified by color correction and/or color temp filters.

The color meter i bought has really opened my eyes to the difference between what we see and what is actually in the light around us. I use LR3. I took some corrected shots using both CT filters and CC filters t exactly match the meter. They looked perfect to my eye when scanned and imported "as shot" into LR3. On a whim, I hit the auto correct LB mode and LR3 wanted to warm both images quite a bit. I wonder if there is not a bias in LR3 to warmer colores.

 

[Dektol Dan]

Porta v. Ektar

Porta v. Ektar

I've finally had a chance shoot 4 rolls of Ektar in various conditions, and I have been a regular Porta 160 shooter for years.

I love the new Ektar, and I've read the reviews posted here and elsewhere. In a nut shell, my take is that Ektar is a sunny day film (but not even a bright a grey day film) and exposed in sunlight it will pass for old timey Kodachrome.

In lower light conditions it does go blue no matter the exposure (there is no exposure compensation, period). I believe this to be caused Ektar's a sensitivity to UV.

Porta is the Swiss Army knife, Ektar is the sunny day fine grain king.

 

[kzphoto]

I agree with everything here. Ektar on a sunny day is great. Portra 160/ Fuji 160s for anything else.

I've finally had a chance shoot 4 rolls of Ektar in various conditions, and I have been a regular Porta 160 shooter for years.

I love the new Ektar, and I've read the reviews posted here and elsewhere. In a nut shell, my take is that Ektar is a sunny day film (but not even a bright a grey day film) and exposed in sunlight it will pass for old timey Kodachrome.

In lower light conditions it does go blue no matter the exposure (there is no exposure compensation, period). I believe this to be caused Ektar's a sensitivity to UV.

Porta is the Swiss Army knife, Ektar is the sunny day fine grain king.

 

[Lilserenity]

I agree with everything here. Ektar on a sunny day is great. Portra 160/ Fuji 160s for anything else.

I have found Ektar to be excellent on a cloudy, dim day as well:





In fact it's the best film I have found for dull days like this because the saturation adds punch to the dull shadows and wet ground, whereas the latitude then boosts those shadows from inky blacks and so forth that were a hallmark of being a longtime Kodachrome shooter.

Don't get me wrong I'm sure Fuji 160S/NS/NPS (whatever they're calling it this week 🙂) and the Kodak Portra (which I know from experience) are also great for dull days, but in a different way.

It's at the end of the day what you like, but I find Ektar performs admirably in pretty much all instances. I take it if the photo is not working, it's not really the film, it's a crappy photo regardless of what it would have been shot on (well there are exceptions e.g shooting a wedding portrait on a blazing hot day with Velvia 50... -- but hopefully the point is understood.)

Vicky

 

[bensyverson]

So much misinformation in this thread it's frightening... But I guess the key is to use whatever works for you.

 

[craygc]

Just an excuse to post an Ektar 100 shot from last week which offers absolutely no value to the discussion...

 

[jcrutcher]

Just an excuse to post an Ektar 100 shot from last week which offers absolutely no value to the discussion...

I see value, great colors. Did you turn up saturation any in post?

 

[craygc]

I see value, great colors. Did you turn up saturation any in post?

No I havent turned up the saturation - if anything, I tend to desaturate Ektar somewhat in areas; usually skin and reds. However, what does drive up the saturation though is pulling down the overall mid-tone of the image as well as any increase in contrast. As well, both of these activities tend to introduce colour casts...

 

[Jamie123]

While I agree with that statement for the most part - I still wonder why the cast in Ektar scans vs Portra... Portra, as I have said (and have been told) is "made for scanning" - is it that NikonScan seems to "understand" Portra better than Ektar?/QUOTE]

It does seem that way, although it's also possible that Ektar just reacts differently to certain light temperatures.

In any case, as far as Portra is concerned, I can't say that NikonScan always gets it right for me. As NikonScan does not offer the possibility of doing a true raw scan from a negative I can't always rely on NikonScan's conversions. Sometimes I get one frame where the WB is spot on and then the next (from the same roll) is off. I'll have to try Vuescan with its raw scans.

 

[alistair.o]

I struggled with Ektar 100 and went all out for Portra VC160. But I kept coming back to Ektar in a real attempt to try it in all situations., I'm glad I did. So much so, that I now use mainly Ektar and just a little Portra.

Here are a couple straight from the scan (just resized) Birmingham.UK last week. Very hot and bright day but both of these were taken in shadow and shade of the buildings.

Doorway.

Portico Ceiling

Here is a picture taken using a Monolta Autocord and Portra 160VC. From the garden towards the other side of the valley.

Poppies.

 

[craygc]

Ive been post processing a few more Ektar shots over the weekend and have ended up learning something that maybe others might find useful. As I mention above, Ektar gets some pretty funky colour shifts as you make any significant tonal changes to the image, which I had been trying to correct after the fact.

What I've been trying that works very well is to convert the image to L*a*b mode to perform tonal correction - working on the "L" channel. This is actually one of the functions L*a*b excels at. Changing overall tonality and contrast changes now no longer includes unwanted colour shifts; and this usually is a big problem with Ektar. When finished just convert back to RGB.

 

[filmfan]

The big differences people are seeing are a result of their scanning workflow, not the film.

+1 for the smartest comment I have read on this forum in a long time.