KODAK EKTAR 25 King Kodachrome, Make Way for the Queen by Jack and Sue Drafahl In the Kodak king- rior color saturation, and all while such an improvement in quality that dom of film, Koda- maintaining the quality of larger for- we saw no end to the other fields of chrome has always mat films. photography that could be improved been King. No other Copywork in the studio usually in- by this new film. film has been able to match its sharp- volves larger format films because the In the photo lab, Ektar 25 is a ness, color, and grain structure. Pro- smaller formats cannot hold the reso- dream. No need to figure a new color fessionals flocked from miles around lution, and tend to fall apart in flat to get it. But wait, Kodak is pleased to lighting. Our first copy tests using the announce Ektar, the Queen of color Ektar 25 proved that small format can negative film, and a viable companion now do the work of at least the 2'/i sys- Ektar 25 has an in image quality to King Kodachrome. tems, and sometimes even the 4X5 unusually wide range Instead of improving a well estab- camera. lished film and making it even better, Extreme enlargements of landscapes of professional applications Kodak introduced a brand-new film. have traditionally been reserved for where image The last time Kodak had an ISO 25 color negative film was in 1942—Ko- quality is critical. dak's first introduction to the color negative world. Kodak looked at two of the critical elements in making a balance when printing Ektar, as it has color negative film, speed and expo- the same balance as the Kodacolor sure latitude, and threw them out the Gold films. If you need large transpar- window. This daring step allowed Ko- encies, Ektar 25 can be enlarged onto dak to create a film so incredible that print film, and the result is beautiful even Kodachrome 25 slide film users 4X5, 5X7, or 8X10 transparencies. are going sit up and take notice. This revolutionary new film was EXPOSURE AND OTHER made possible when Kodak created a LATITUDES whole new color negative technology. With all good things come some They removed several film layers, al- trade-offs. First, the latitude of Ektar lowing for less light scatter and better is narrow, somewhat like that of Ekta- image sharpness. Each remaining layer chrome 100. We found acceptable re- was specially designed to maximize sults from +2 stops to -1 stop of expo- sensitivity and sharpness. The magenta sure. Another drawback is the grain. It (green-sensitive) layer is composed to- PHOTO BY BILL HURTER is so fine that it is almost impossible to tally of T-grain, while the yellow the larger formats, with the exception, focus on when making small and medi- (blue-sensitive) layer uses a combina- of course, of Kodachrome 25. Now a um-size enlargements. (What a thing tion of T-grain and cubic silver grains. second small format enters the field of to have to complain about!) The low The remaining cyan (red-sensitive) landscape photography. This allows ISO of 25 may cause some problems layer is totally made of cubic grain. the landscape photographer to carry for those photographers who don't like Kodak then improved the DIAR less weight, while taking more lenses, tripods, but do enjoy shooting in low (Developer Inhibitor Anchimeric Re- and again getting more shots of each light. leasing) couplers in the film so that the subject. This film was designed for advanced edges of solid colors become even The advantage of the Ektar 25 over amateurs. Ektar is not for point-and- sharper, allowing little diffusion of one its mate, Kodachrome 25, is in the fi- shoot photographers who are looking color into another. What all this high nal product. Ektar 25 can be directly for a film to correct their shooting mis- film technology means is that the more printed up to very large prints in one takes. Ektar does not have that type of advanced photographer can now step (second generation) while Koda- exposure latitude. Besides, many of the achieve large-format quality using a chrome 25 is usually made into an ex- point-and-shoot cameras do not even small-format film. pensive internegative, and then en- have DX coding down to ISO 25. larged into a large print (third genera- Keep in mind that this film was de- APPLICATIONS tion), or printed directly through cost- signed for what Kodak calls "the dis- Ektar 25 was found to have a variety ly Cibachromes. criminating photographer." If you are of professional applications where Special applications such as photo- looking for quality, and the finest quality is critical. In the studio we dis- microscopy, medical photography, grain of any color print film, then covered using small-format film computer graphics, and super macro- sound the trumpets for Queen Ektar allowed us the possibility of using photography can now be raised to new 25! King Kodachrome and Queen Ek- more lenses with greater depth of field, standards through the use of Ektar 25. tar, may they reign forever in the Ko- more shots per shooting session, supe- Tests in these specific areas resulted in dak film kingdom. ffl 48 PMOtographic/March 1989 Instead of improving existing films, Kodak has introduced brand-new films with characteristics so impressive, you 77 swear you 're shooting with large format. Above left: We set up an 18% gray back- ground to photograph the Ektar 25 film ! REPUBLIQt/x, and box. The paints used to illustrate Ek- tar's brilliant colors are children's water- base fluorescents. The image was made with a Nikon N8008, AF Macro-Nikkor lens, and White Lightning 1200 strobes on Ektar 25 film. Above: Madame Xiao An Yang of the Pe- king Opera was photographed on stage in Portland, Oregon using the N8008, SB-24 flash, and Ektar 25 film. In printing this im- age, it was impossible to find any grain to focus on. We ended up using specular highlights. (Peking Opera; produced by In- ternational Attractions, Inc., Don Hughes producer.) Left: High-magnifcation macro work is usually not the province of 35mm films, particularly color negative films. Ektar 25 holds both sharpness and color crispness under soft light, making the images look as if they were made on large-format film. The stamps are collector's editions from the African country, Burundi. PHOTOS BY AUTHORS PHOiographic/March 1989 49.