My first time shooting and self-processing Ektachrome was a whopping four decades ago. Things have changed since my days trying to temper a water bath for the chemistry in the family bath tub; these days, I use an immersion circulator — sometime erroneously referred to as a “sous vide machine” — to temper the water bath in which my color chemistry sits while processing rolls. October 8: Kodak introduces EKTACHROME 7294 Color Reversal Film in Super 8 format. 16mm format to follow. 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. From what I gather, Ektachrome is a more modern film (with its associated process, E-6) and solves some problems Kodachrome had — while it introduces some other problems for some. It’s a more convenient and economical process, less prone to development errors and does not require a complex machine like Kodachrome did. 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.

For a long time, even with some of them being rebranded as Elite Chrome, everything was going great for the Ektachrome family of films. Until, like Uncle Kodachrome before it, a new technology started to affect its sales and usage. And this time it was digital. A. EKTACHROME is a colour reversal film. You get a positive image that can be viewed or projected immediately after processing. All the other KODAK PROFESSIONAL Films available today are negative-working films. To view an image, these films must be exposed, processed, and then either scanned and/or printed. The Super-8 version was exhibited at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, and was named Ektachrome 100D 7294. Williams, Tom (November 26, 2021). "Rina Yang on shooting Taylor Swift's All Too Well: The Short Film". British Cinematographer . Retrieved June 11, 2023. Kodachrome was introduced in 1935 and discontinued around 2009 with the last lab that could develop it closed in 2010. Kodachrome, as we know, being the the most iconic film, used I gather for the Afghan Girl photo for example. No plans to reintroduce that.Slide film is difficult to produce; it has more layers than colour negative film and requires specific processes and components. This unfortunate reality eventually led to the complete disappearance of all Ektachrome (and its Elitechrome rebrand products) from the shelves in 2013. The wide variety of film speeds, up to ISO 400, including the tungsten-balanced versions, were all suddenly gone. 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. KODAK PROFESSIONAL EKTACHROME Film E100 delivers extremely fine grain (rms 8), a low D-min for whiter, brighter whites, and features moderately enhanced color saturation with a neutral color balance and a low contrast tone scale. This film is designed for exposure with daylight or electronic flash.

E-6 was made available to the public in 1975, but only the pro films were available at the time. There were some color stability ("keeping") issues to verify before the amateur films could be released. The discontinuations began in 2009 – incidentally the same year as Kodachrome went – with Ektachrome 64T and Ektachrome 100 Plus being the first to go. This trend continued until the entire range was gone in 2013. Ektachrome 120 is the fantastic E100 colour slide film from Kodak in medium format glory. Enjoy the unique experience of colour positive film, with the fantastic image area and resolution of medium format.A difficult film like Ektachrome needs a more experienced touch to be shot to its advantages. Ektachrome demands an intimate knowledge of how to meter for specific situations, or at least an incredibly accurate metering and autoexposure system, lest you end up with a horribly exposed shot. I would hesitate to trust this film inside a pure auto-exposure camera, and I would also be very careful while running this through an old meterless mechanical camera unless you have a good handheld light meter or a perfectly-trained eye for light.

In my second post, I talked about shooting Ektachrome E100 in cameras that I’m comfortable with when it comes to metering. I got some great results out of both Konica Hexar RF and my Olympus XA4. Both cameras have light meters that I’m familiar with and so both gave me mostly well-exposed images without me having to tweak my usual techniques for obtaining good exposure. Using the light meter in my Hexar I was able to read this higher contrast scene and get a result I was happy with While the faster ISO speed/1-stop advantage makes this a marginally more versatile film than its slower counterpart, you really have to be dead-on with the exposure as Velvia 100 has an extremely low dynamic range. If you’re looking for more, you can jump over to my Kodak E100VS experimentation article. for examples of push processing, cross processing and both.To see what each film could do I tried to shoot Kodak Ektachrome E100 and Fuji Provia 100F in a variety of lighting conditions. E6 slide film is known to have limited latitude compared to colour negative films. As such it is more common to shoot slide film in subdued light where there is less contrast. Personally I love hard light such as direct sunlight so I put the films to the test. Spoiler alert EDIT: Kodak is making slide film again. Say hello to Kodak EKTACHROME E100! Read the Kodak EKTACHROME E100 review at EI 100, 200, 400 and 800 here. A. Colour reversal film has a much narrower exposure range than negative working films -- roughly +/- a half stop. Proper exposure is critical, because that’s not a lot room for error. With slide film though, you don’t have that luxury. A shot underexposed by a stop will come out underexposed. A shot overexposed by a stop will come out overexposed. In truth, I find that easy to accept. If my exposure is off by that much, maybe I deserve a ruined shot.

Elitechrome 100 EB3: This was the consumer version of Elite Chrome whose discontinuation was announced in 2011. There are anecdotal reports that EB3 is the older version of the emulsion that was continued after 2003. E-7 is the "mix-it-yourself" version of E-6. Functionally it was equivalent, but there were a few differences.

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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. The magnitude of Kodak successfully rereleasing a film like Ektachrome is huge. It’s also a milestone that, frankly, many of us never thought possible. When the staff here at CP first heard whispers of an Ektachrome revival, we were happy, but skeptical. We’d been through this before with other film projects. Big promises on social media to #keepfilmalive, the flashy promotional campaign, the buzzworded crowdfunding, and the whole load of nothing that happens afterwards. For more than a year we heard just a few intermittent reports that Ektachrome was still coming. But we were entirely ready to be disappointed again. The transparency also features a clear base (low D-min) for “whiter, brighter whites.” This is relevant for projection and getting better results with initial scans — although the histogram equalization technique, outlined above , should take care of any fogging either way.