As regular readers will know, I’ve been doing #FILMSWAPs for close to six months now and things are going great guns. Since it all started back in July, I’ve been lucky enough to swap over 150 rolls (and reels) of film with around 25 like-minded film photographers from Sweden, Italy, Canada, the US and the UK, to name a just a few.
Together, we’ve traded everything from infrared film and S-L-O-W black and white cine-copy stock, to expired slide films and motion picture wonderfulness.
I’ll generally post a scan or two on Twitter and while I’ve written and plan on continuing to write a FILMSWAP review for each of the more interesting rolls, this takes time to work into with my sadly busy schedule.
Still, I want to share, if only to show the person I swapped with how their roll came out, which brings me to this first FILMSWAP Photoset…
What’s this roll?
Kodak Ektar 100 Professional in 120 format Expired mid-2014.
This was one of a few rolls of 120 and 35mm Ektar I swapped for some 120 Fuji Acros 100 with the incredibly generous Daniel Cuthbert. The timing couldn’t have been better, as I’d recently been discussing Kodak color films and had a hankering to go out and snap off a few frames.
When the film arrived, the weather forecast for the week ahead wasn’t great; a little sunshine but mostly overcast and heavy, heavy cloud cover. In addition, I’ve recently been shooting mostly black and white, so I needed to get into a color frame of mind.
Considering the light would most likely be flat and muted, it seemed that pushing the film would be my best bet; and as I’m a sucker for wonky colors, I decided to shoot at ISO200 and then push process it two stops just because I’d not tried it before.
The results were surprising to say the least:
Kodak Ektar 100 Professional. 120 format, ISO 200, push processed two stops.
Kodak Ektar 100 Professional. 120 format, ISO 200, push processed two stops.
Kodak Ektar 100 Professional. 120 format, ISO 200, push processed two stops.
Kodak Ektar 100 Professional. 120 format, ISO 200, push processed two stops.
Whilst I may be susceptible to the add the occasional superlative into my writing, I can honestly say that the first few frames worth of scans blew my mind. I was not expecting this. It’s normal colour film, so I had prepared myself for a slightly muted color palette and perhaps some color shift. What I didn’t expect was the contrast and wonderful golds, yellows and browns.
Kodak Ektar 100 Professional. 120 format, ISO 200, push processed two stops.
Kodak Ektar 100 Professional. 120 format, ISO 200, push processed two stops.
Kodak Ektar 100 Professional. 120 format, ISO 200, push processed two stops.
And there you have it. A wonderfully wonky color roll that’s inspired my to do the same with Portra 160 and 400, as well as Fuji Pro 400H.
There’s not much else to say apart from my bug for experimentation with color films seems to have been reignited thanks to Daniel, the fellow film photographers I had been speaking to and of course, terrible light.
It just goes to show that trying something despite an expectation of mediocrity occasionally creates results that make you rethink and try again.
Wonderful.
There are a few more of these photosets to come, so stay tuned and keep shooting folks.
~ EMULSIVE
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5 responses to “Photoset #01: Kodak Ektar 100 – +1-stop push with +1 over development”
I know this article is fairly old by now, but I was curious – you say you shot it at ISO 200…but then push processed it two stops…wouldn’t that be rating at at ISO 400?
certainly another look unlocked out of that ektar! I’ve seen it pushed before with poping results but this has an almost etheerial look it!
I mean, muted highlights, richs blacks AND bold colors! it’s a mix to love 🙂
What can I say, Jonas, it continues to surprise me. Hope you find the time to give it a try. The results are more like a cross processed slide film than “the world’s finest color negative” 😉
Great set of shots. Love the feel of the them. I have not been brave enough to experiment with pushing film in development but these shots show the potential for doing so given the right subject and conditions. Love your website only been following for a few months but you are very inspiring. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for the kind words. Experimenting like this helps me keep my mojo. Go-on, give it a shot, you’ve got nothing to lose and perhaps you’ll make something wonderful in the process!