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Ektar 100 - Dissappointing Results - First Film in Years


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<p>I am just re-entering film cameras. I took my newly acquired Yashica GSN for a spin this weekend with some Ektar 100. I had it processed (C41) and printed at Costco. The results were really blah. The prints were on 4 x6 glossy Fujicolor Crystal Archive - -the machine was set to "no auto correcting" at my instruction, so I could see where I missed.<br>

1. The prints have a dull grey-purple cast to them.<br>

2. Very unsaturated color<br>

3. Greens leaning toward blue.<br>

Just wondering if this is most likely due to crappy processing, crappy printing, crappy camera (Oh I hope not!) or crappy photographer! Most of the shots I refer to were in a park with early morning light (not harsh) and the exposure looks correct, or at least within a half-stop of so.<br>

Ideas?</p>

 

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<p>Well what battery is in the meter? that camera has no known modern battery for it. You have to get a converter from The yashica guy to use the camera properly. What do the negatives look like? Did you get a CD to go with those prints? And iff you don't like them tell them to rescan at correction...</p>

<p> Think inside and outside the box. When was the camera last used and serviced? the shutter may be off... all kinds of things here...</p>

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<p>I'd say if you are going to err, err on the side of overexposure rather than under. Could very well be the camera. But there are a lot of unknowns here.</p>

<p>Though processing could be suspect. More importantly, all scanners make corrections. What 'no corrections' means is different for every scanner. I find you are better off letting them make their corrections. If you want a scan with minimal corrections, either get a pro scan or do it at home. I've found that scans from minilabs get real nasty if there is a lot of dark or black in them, even if the negs are properly exposed (like night shots). </p>

<p>The printing should be totally dependent on what the file they ended up with after scanning, so presumably that is not the problem.</p>

<p>I've got <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tgray1/sets/72157623780898802/">some examples</a> of Ektar exposed in 1 stop steps from -3 to +4. They were scanned on a minilab style scanner and corrected by the operator. One stop under didn't look too bad to me. Heck, 2 stops under doesn't look great but would work in a pinch with some minor editing.</p>

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<p>i would have just let them do the corrections. also, my advice would be to A: get your own scanner B: ask them to give you a CD with the photos and no prints. That way you can make color corrections before printing. However, scanning yourself would be best.</p>
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<p>Yup, somethings not right.<br>

I tried the Ektar as well and I'm not as crazy for it as a lot of others, but I found it to be ok. This is perhaps I am use to shooting Fuji 400H which I went back to and really should never have left it. But Blah? Nope, far from that, even Fuji or Kodak rolls in the Supermarket (what's left) is not Blah and I'm pretty demanding.</p>

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<p>Tons of good info here. Let me respond to a couple things.<br>

1. The battery. I am using a E164 6.0V alkaline. These are the full size batteries that need no physical adapter. It reads 5.9V on my voltmeter.<br>

2. The camera is new to me, so I have no records of CLA, etc, etc. Seems very, very clean - pristine almost. Well cared for or not used much.<br>

Ok, now, I want to be clear on something here: Can I assume (maybe) that the "developing" in C41 was not the trouble? When I said to them "no auto correction" I was trying to refer to the printmaking machine, which will generally adjust exposure on every frame, right? So, I wanted to be able to see how well my camera was choosing exposures, and the only way I knew how was to say no corrections please.<br>

Yes, I can go back and reprint them and let them make corrections. It's cheap - no problem.<br>

Yes, there were quite a lot of shadows. It was a park setting with creeks and trees. The shadows look rather blue/purple.</p>

 

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<p>In my experience saying 'no corrections' is problematic. Most every frame needs slightly different settings for scanning, just like they need slightly different exposures in the darkroom. </p>

<p>As far as I know, the adjustments at minilabs happen in 2 steps. One in the scanning stage, one in the printing stage. Some places might not do the first or might not do the second. So one lab's 'no adjustments' is different from another's. To me it becomes a semi meaningless request unless you *know* what it means and how it stacks up with some known baseline. So I just get corrections done. :D</p>

<p>As far as assuming that the dev stage was alright, sure do it, but who knows. I don't know enough about C41 processing to be able to look at a neg and see if there were problems there. And I'm guessing the Costco people don't either :D So hopefully they run their test strips and do everything by the book. But yes, they probably are reasonably in spec. </p>

<p>Try using an incident meter next time for a test, or just use Sunny 16 on a day with good sun. Say f/16 with 1/100 s. If you want to ensure that you have good exposure, just go to f/8. Ektar can handle that fine.</p>

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<p>This film requires color correction. It's designed to be scanned and processed digitally. Whenever I scan the stuff I get a strong blue-purple bias before corrections. There's a shop near me with a minilab that handles Ektar well, but my preference it to scan in Vuescan using the lock exposure, lock film base method and Auto Levels mode, then a tweak here or there as needed. When done correctly I freakin' love the color this film gets me.</p>

<p>I recently posted some shots - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21616771@N04/sets/72157623863659592/"><click></a> - the color shots are Ektar except for the shot of the camera, all done with automatic color correction.</p>

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<p>@Larry--<br>

In a couple recent threads in the Manual Camera forum, it was said by many people that 6V is not an issue on the GSN. I asked specifically, and there was no one who thought the 6V vs. 5.6V was an issue. So, I am now back to square one on that issue.....</p>

<p>@Tim--<br>

Very good info there. I now understand the problem in suggesting no correction. I think I will just take negs in and have them printed again just to see what happens. Maybe everything is fine! Ha ha.</p>

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<p>Sorry to hear about your troubles with Ektar.</p>

<p>I shot a roll recently and was quite nervous, having heard that it had the latitude of slide film. Mine all turned out fine (but I didn't ask the lab not to apply corrections) even though I shoot full manual and don't use a meter. I guess I might've gotten lucky, or you were unlucky.</p>

<p>I'd suggest trying another roll and taking it to a true photo lab for developing & scanning. Do a few prints as well.<br>

I think Roger Hicks found that there was a very strong purple cast with overexposure, but I haven't had that problem (or I've been underexposing it since it's the 1st 100 film I've shot in at least a year)</p>

<p>Shadows look blue without correction, so that might be your problem with the colour change in the greens.</p>

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If I'm trying to evaluate a camera I use a good neutral transparency film like Kodak Elite Chrome 100 and send it to a good processing firm, like Dwayn's. I'm not confident enough to judge color negatives and the printing process gives Costco or any local processor a second chance to screw up. Dwayne's takes about two weeks but it's well worth the wait if you want to know what a camera will do.
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<p>Tom Aellis: Ektar 100 is available in 35mm, 120 and 4X5 sheets. No 220, and I doubt that Costco does anything but 35mm.</p>

<p>Hugo Poon: Ektar 100, like almost all color negative film, has a much greater exposure latitude than most transparency films. (At least two stops.) Because it has less density it's also easier to scan. But, it's also easier for a machine to make all kinds of stupid errors when making prints, so if a machine happens to turn out a good print, it's just dumb luck. </p>

<p>Have scans made, adjust them as needed in any editing program, and print them yourself. Even when you're just learning how to use the editor, and even if you use an inexpensive printer, I'll bet you get much better results than you could<strong> ever </strong>get from Costco.</p>

<p>You needn't spend a lot of money on editing software. If you use a PC you should take a look at Paint.NET. It's free from Microsoft and you can download it here: <a href="http://www.getpaint.net/download.html">http://www.getpaint.net/download.html</a><br>

I'm sure that you can find good, free editors for the Mac as well.</p>

 

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