Recently, Kodak announced that it would be introducing a new film, Ektar 100. The new emulsion will be an ultra fine-grained color film aimed at fashion photography and similar end users. Its premiere in the US should occur in October or so.
My breath, as they say, is baited; having lately turned to home development for my black-and-white photography, work with color film has been somewhat left in the dust. I’ve come to rely on digital to carry the day when it comes to color photography, and I suppose this is as good a reason as any to bring film back into the fray. As an aside, I’ve also found a great local lab for color work; the fellow who owns it runs one of the cleanest shops around – and he’s a great guy, besides.
Depending on where you get your news, you might see this as part of a product line shift on Kodak’s part, in that it’s very likely that the new Ektar will replace Kodak’s current 100UC “Ultracolor” film. In addition, this post at RFF asserts what has been said by Kodak, that 400UC will also disappear toward the end of the year. It would seem that Ektar promises to fulfill the needs at the “saturated” end of the NC/VC/UC line; one wonders if an ISO400 version will be forthcoming.
With an eye toward history, it’s easy to see Kodak’s move as a re-introdution. For a long time, Ektar 25 was a standby fine-grain film in Kodak’s stable, and bringing the name back suggests a return, perhaps, to a time when color film photography was still taken seriously, if only for its newness. It’ll be fun to figure out how to shoot the new film.
As an aside, did you happen to notice the name of Kodak’s blog? Cute.
