Kodak introduced a new color negative film recently, Ektar 100. It is finer grained and more saturated than Portra 160. These images are from the first roll I shot, walking around town on an overcast day with my xPan. When we get those heavy grey days I tend to think B&W or a subtle color film, like Portra NC. This Ektar seems to have done quite well. There is more than enough saturation. The film also converts well to B&W. I tend to prefer B&W film over color film converted to B&W but I am really liking the way this film converts.
2 comments:
I love the B&W convenrsion, the clarity is outstanding. What program do you use to make the conversions?
Do:
Thanks. Actually I used the Monochrome Mixer panel in Aperture. Conversion to B&W is a task i am always experimenting with but so far I tend to like Aperture quite a bit.
If you spend some time using the tools in Aperture they seem to be quite powerful. For B&W work you will also need to play with contrast a bit and also the Highlights and Shadows panel. There's real magic in this panel. After you adjust the highlights, shadows open the Advanced part of this panel...start with mid contrast.
We've each seen some special work done with programs like NIK's Silver Efx. John Barclay uses and recommends this. So far though I'm thinking that the NIK software is better suited for special effects type work or for manipulating just part of an image. I think it's probably easier to use that Photoshop's masking but I'm still not sure it does anything Photoshop doesn't or anything I need. That may change though.
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