Kodak E100G: The best neutral balance color slide film I've ever used.
Written: Oct 07 '03 (Updated Mar 21 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Almost grainless, realistic color rendition, beautiful skin tone reproduction.
Cons: A little pricey, but not unreasonable considering its quality.
The Bottom Line: Highly recommended for its neutral yet well-saturated colors, extremely fine grain, and beautiful skin tones.
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| jvandegr's Full Review: Kodak Ektachrome Professional E100G 100 135-36 (2... |
For reference, I am primarily a nature photographer shooting with Nikon prime lenses at high elevations. Accordingly, this review is based mostly on photography with these conditions.
Features of E100G and E100GX
Ektachrome 100G, part of Kodak's professional slide film series, is the replacement for E100S. It is available in 35mm, 120, 220, and long roll sizes, as well as sheets. In 35mm, it is only available in 36 exposure rolls. On my manual Nikon, I always get at least 38 or 39 exposures from these rolls.
Both E100G and E100GX (the warmer version of G) feature Kodak's T-GRAIN emulsion crystals. This specific type of emulsion is what makes for the extremely fine grain of these films. Kodak claims an RMS value of 8 for both E100G and GX. This ties Fujifilm's Provia for unsurpassed granularity, save Fujifilm's newer Astia, which the manufacturer claims is RMS 7.
Under ideal conditions (cool, dark, and dry), Kodak claims that E100G and GX will have an archival life of at least 80 years. In other words, we can expect our Ektachrome slides to last as long (or longer) than Kodachrome. As a reviewer, it's considerably difficult to test such a claim - I'd like to say, "we will see," but I guess only my children will see. Unless Kodak develops photographer archival materials :-)
Reciprocity is very good. Based on the manufacturer's specifications, no speed correction or color correction is required except for exposures longer than 10 seconds or shorter than 1/10,000.
Color performance
I've found that E100G has a nice neutral color balance in most shooting situations. However, this does not mean that the colors are flat. There is good saturation across the spectrum in my landscape photographs - fall leaves are vivid, blue sky appears as it was, and greens are well reproduced. Whites are very bright, brighter than I've seen with many other professional slide films, but not blown out. The few people photos I took with this film were captured outside and had amazingly beautiful skin tones, probably the best I've ever captured.
Grain performance
Kodak promotes their latest T-GRAIN emulsion as "almost undetectable." After shooting several rolls of E100G, I have to agree. For most properly made enlargements, I do not see any grain. Even under a 10X loupe, I really have to pay attention to see the grain. On a 16 X 20 inch print, grain is detectable, but is consistent and well-controlled, which makes it usually unnoticeable. Compared to E100VS, also an excellent film, there is noticeably reduced grain in all of the slides I evaluated for this review.
Other characteristics
Tonal range is considerable, and has lower contrast than other Kodak slide films I've used. Shadow detail seems better than E100G's predecessor, E100S. I have not yet tested the push capabilities of E100G or GX, but I hope to for my next review.
Recommended:
Yes
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