Ektar 25 Followup - how does it hold up so well?

I love kodak except when I look for some ektar 25 for the grain and find it discontinued. I think kodak at one point said that they make all their money on the max versatility 800 ASA films and essentially screwed everyone else. All the films I want to shoot were gone before my time. I'm looking for some ektar on ebay but those early 90s films are rare at best. Wikipedia cites "poor market segmentation" as kodak's cited reason to discontinue ektar in 94. It would seem to me that there would be a fair market for 25 ASA color print films. Some people don't need speed. But hell, what do I know? For now im on reala 100 because it won't be discontinued next year in favor of 1600 ASA print film.

I'm an Ektar 25 fan as well. I have a few rolls left in the freezer. Even at its peak, Ektar 25 sales were minuscule. The film manufacturing facilities at Kodak were designed to make large quantities of film at low cost.

I loved ektar 25. I got my first 35mm roll as several freebie 12exp rolls at a trade show. It never really sold well. It was hard to find even in its hayday. It was hard to make; the sales were small. It died because sales were to low to support the specialty film. Besides bringing back Ektar 25 the Hudson Hornet could be brought back; cars with fins; space food sticks; betamax and 8 track tapes. The film extar 25 would have been made longer if folks bought more; enough to support an exotic film coating line. They DID NOT; they whussed out; palty sales meant the speciality flm line was axed; like it needed to be. The life of a product depends alot on actual sales; NOT retro dreaming.

At the time they cited poor sales. Probably true except it was never advertised either.

it was really really good color neg film. Thinking back, it would compete well with what I can do today with 4x5 color Portra.

So what if is was ASA 25. So was Kodachrome 25.

I remember the ads for it with some dude holding up a huge enlargement of a butterfly on the back of Pop Photo.

I shot a few rolls but I loved the Ektar 1000 because I took alot of available light pictures in places where a flash was not allowed and I could color balance it in printing if needed.

Larry

Kodak advertised Ektar 25 in stores; they even bundled *free* 12 exposure rolls with other C41 rolls.

They had slick full page adverts in Pro Photography magazines; amateur ones too. Ektar 25 and 125 had adverts in the Rangefinder magazine too. The film was at pro trade shows. It was advertised alot; even when its was rebadged as Royal 25.

The film was often at the fire sale old film area at Ventura camera, the Oaks Mall camera store; at canoga camera; a the camera store in Westwood; or at Franks camera; eevn Free style in the Los Angele area.

Kodak could not even give the stuff away, 12 exposure trial rolls were often leftovers at trade shows. I got much of the Ektar stuff as free samples; or bought it new at local camera stores where it rarely sold; or went on fire sale since it had expired. I even bought the film new in Auckland, Munich, Toyko, Bangkok, and Singapore too.

The film never sold well; even with advertising and many free samples and bundled samples. Its was a flop; folks didnt buy enough to keep the production line going. Its a like watching the original star trek and wondering why they didnt make a 4th season. Just because a cult status erupts years later doent mean a company should make a product that costs alot and with poor sales. The failure of ektar is due to photographers not buying enough; not due to kodak. It was rejected by most photographers; even with free samples; massive advertising; super reviews as being a super fine grain film.

The Ektar film series was abit harder to shoot than amateur stuff; thus the typical wallyworld shooter got better results with amateur kodak products; often faster ones.

Its easy to say that 8 track; beta, the AMC Pacer:) , the original star trek, ektar, the mac tombstone; the timex sinclar:), should have been made longer; or that they should have done more advertising. Its hard to predict "Retro dreaming profits" ten years into the future; when production costs are exceeding sales.

Probably many photographers are not business oriented; thus return on investment, advertising costs, sales figures are easy to ignore. Its easy to think the other chap should work for nothing; or keep on producing marginal products.

Ronald, great point: "it was really really good color neg film. Thinking back, it would compete well with what I can do today with 4x5 color Portra." I have some images made with this (35mm) that enlarge better than anything else I've ever used. Although I love Kodak's UC 100, E100G and GX, Ektar 25 seems to have been special; a great color palette similar to K25 and such fine grain!

Tried to actually show this to a guy by showing him an enlarged print. He had a sappy gallery display of low-end digitally captured images. Said he couldn't even understand Ektar 25's qualities and refused to acknowledge the fine grain (virtually non-existent grain) that I attempted to point out.. Stated that everything could be somehow simulated in Photoshop anyways, and that the type of film mattered little.. Perhaps that just might be indicative of the mentalities that helped to contribute to its demise.

Perhaps Kodak could have done a better job of educating people as to its qualities? I don't know, as unfortunately, I was just getting knowledgeable enough to appreciate the 25 speed films (including K25), when they were pulled. It would be wonderful to have these films back, engineered for optimal scanning, but like Ron and Kelly say, it likely won't happen. I'm happy to at least have available the Kodak 100 speed emulsions, though.

Oops, sorry, Kelly. It looks like you pretty clearly covered the fact that Kodak did its best.

That touches on an idea that has occurred to me before, though: maybe an unfortunate aspect of demographics helped to kill these films. What I mean is, people now in mid- life, and there are a lot of us, had just started to reach the experience levels where we began to appreciate the somewhat subtle qualities of these 25 speed films; this, just before Kodak gave up on them.. Perhaps this might explain the continuing interest in threads on this topic, and the huge prices these films now fetch.

On the other hand, the rise in popularity of zoom lenses, with their often slow apertures, probably also had something to do with the rise in faster films.. But still, I can't help but feel that had production continued for another year or two, that there might have been enough people like us that appreciated fast primes, and/or were willing to use tripods, to have constituted a viable market.

I had some rolls of RG 25 that did not hold up so well. The grain was so large it looked like a high speed film. This was a batch around 1999 or 2000. They had problems with the later batches as well. I won't add to that.

Fuji Velveda gave the masses what they wanted; boosted saturation. There was no fancy lighing; no polarizers. It gave folks boosted saturation in the pre photoshop era. Since the average Joe doesnt enlarge much the fine grain of color print film Ektar didnt matter. the film cost more; was more difficult to shoot. The early 1990's Velveda craze with slide films probably took some of the steam wind out of Ektars sales since its tweaked look was the new in thing.

Jeff; the rapid rise of P&S 35mm with slow poke F5.6 to F8 zooms really boosted the production of asa 800 print films by Kodak and Fuji. Todays 4 layer Fuji Superia iso 800 from Walmart is a fine film; radically better with oddball light mixtures than the finest 1970's and 1980's films.

Hey Kelly, didn't know that about Superia 800; thanks, I'll keep that in mind for oddball light mixtures. I faced that a while back with a brightly lit retail setting; a mixture of flourescent, daylight coming through large windows, and the reflections from off the painted walls. I remember the popularity of those p&shoots, too; had forgotten until you mentioned it.

I'm reading 'Retrospective' about Galen Rowell's life and career. Definitely not to take anything away from him; a great, great guy! My one qualm about his work though, was, as you say, 'Velveda':). That film just almost never quite agreed with me; even back when I read his earlier books and column in OP, couldn't understand his reasoning on it; that's was about the time I'd first begun to appreciate the Kodak 25 speeds. Perhaps it's a simple as extroverts and introverts, as to why some seem to like it so much, and some don't?

Although his compositional sense seemed to improve from an already very high level as the years progressed as would be natural, I think the earlier images, that because of their dates were most probably made on K25, often have a more pleasing palette (I'm aware that at least a few were on the earlier KII Kodachrome, which was different).

This holds true when I look at John Shaw's work, also; I always seem to prefer his K25 images; they're bright and colorful, but the hues are more pleasing somehow. The only exceptions regarding using Velveda, imvho, are those made in settings where colors are very subtle, and the desire to bring them out is strong.. Even then, though, I'm not sure I would choose it.. On second thought, perhaps the famous image of the wild horses running in Patagonia wouldn't be as striking without it? Or, the 'Rainbow Over The Potala Palace'? (Not positive that they were made on Velvia, so someone please correct me if I am wrong.)

And, I know how popular Velvia was.. just never could get used to, imho, the often appearing, "overdone" color.. maybe it's personality, but there seemed to be many like us, too. Also, the majority seem to so often embrace the "latest and greatest", or whatever is being pushed by the advertising of the day. My very limited guess is that much of the marketing for photographic products in general, is driven by what will please Wall Street in the shortest elapsed time, as I know Kodak and Nikon are publicly owned companies. It's hard to believe that so many of the products we loved, were killed strictly on the merits, isn't it?

It was amazing stuff. I have shot one roll of Royal Gold 25 from 98, and it blew away everything I have ever shot, including Velvia 50! Anyways, there is a little known modern day equivelent, found only in Kodaks Motion Picture Film Line. It is a 50 speed print film, designed for National Geographic type scenes, where high resolution is essential. You can get it spooled on 35mm canisters from A and I in LA. It is incredible stuff. Here is a link to a shot with it on Flickr. The 5400dpi scan is unbelievable.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12367040@N00/2183693707/" title="4 copy by pukalo, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2281/2183693707_1b6d41bbf4_b.jpg" width="1024" height="678" alt="4 copy" /></a>

Kodak 50D motion picture negative film shot:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2281/2183693707_1b6d41bbf4_b.jpg

Here is where you can buy the modern day equivelant of Ektar 25 - Kodak 50D Motion Picture Film film http://www.aandi.com/mp_stock.htm

Here is the technical summary for the film, from Koadk. (link)

Interesting some of you say you're in your mid-life. I'm in my late 20's now, but starting to become obsessed with low-speed fine-grained films around 4 years ago. I spent 3 years in Taiwan before beginning my Master's this year at Columbia, and often over there I would be explaining to other older photographers the qualities of various low-speed films and why I used them instead of digital. They're digital-crazy over there, and it's not just young people, but alot of guys in their 40's and 50's.

I discovered my first roll of Ektar in the refrigerator of a photo shop in Taipei. I think the boss had forgotten about she had 3 or 4 rolls in there. Initially, she only sold me one because she said she wanted to shoot the others, but I came back a year and a half later, and they were still there and she sold me the rest. I took them to Beijing and got beautiful shots of the Forbidden City on a pristine morning :) Never have seen such vibrant reds like that in any other film.

Randal too bad they don't make that without the remjet backing because that stuff is a bear to get off properly and I would hate to put it through my local lab..... :(

The advances contained in the new motion picture films are also going into the new Portra and T-MAX films. There are certain things which can only be done with the versatility of a 35mm system and for that reason I wish we still had Ektar 25. Medium format equipment has become so inexpensive that with a 6X4.5 to 6X7 Portra negative you can make even better enlargements than you could with Ektar 25 in 35mm size. Shooting in lower light is still easier with 35mm equipment but 25 speed film was never realy meant for action photography even with fast lenses.

Mat, I'm not sure if anyone completely addressed your question about why this film was never widely used by pro nature folks. Basically, their publishers much preferred transparency films for reproduction purposes. This was just before film scanning technology reached the levels of today. Kodachrome 25 was the gold standard for them when more speed was not required, until Velvia seemed to take root. I think a large number of people, myself definitely included, never really cared for Velvia's palette. Ektar 25 had very similar color and grain to K-25 imho, but I was just beginning to appreciate it (and K-25), when they were pulled.

If you aren't already aware, there is an excellent discussion going on about K-25 right now, and Ron Andrews has generously shared his knowledge: http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00OW0H He directly addresses your question about the films' respective speeds, also.

In my previous post, I was somewhat in doubt about Galen Rowell's 'Rainbow Over The Potala Palace', as far as what film was used. I have a copy of 'Mountain Light', and this image is on p. 211, and it is stated as Kodachrome 64. One of my favorite images.

The film color print film Ektar 25 is slightly older than photoshop. Ektar 25 came out in 1988 to 1989. Photoshop came out in 1989. A typical PC user like me was using ALDUS Photostyler with windows 3.0 on a 386 with a killer few megs of ram as photoshop became mainstream. Then adobe gobbled up Photostyler; and we got out photoshop as an upgrade.

IN the 1991 pro kodak catalog here there is Kodak Ektar 25 Professional Film PHR135-36; and PHR120.

There is the amateur version too; ie Kodak Ektar 25 Film CK135-12; CK135-24; CK135-36;

PLUS Ektar 125 CW135-24' CW135-36; CW 135-24-3 (3pack);

PLUS Kodak Ektar 1000 CJ135-12; CJ 135-24



In discussions about Ektar films folks tend to lump the better controlled pro offering with the amateur stuff. The pro stuff was detailed in the old brochure E-135; teh amateur stuff in E-121, E-122, and E-123.

Kelly, this is very interesting.

I've shot with PHR 135-36 rolls that expired during the first Bush administration, as well as more recently with rolls of 24 that just say "Ektar 25" on the negatives. I've gotten equally outstanding results with both.

In addition, I just procured some Royal Gold 25 that says "RZ 36" This one expired a bit later, near the end of the Clinton Administration :)

Is there any real difference between Royal Gold and Ektar? My understanding was that Royal Gold was not for "professionals" but I've also heard it's nearly the same emulsion as Ektar. Both are the first and last 25 ISO color print films :(

I'd like to make the point that Kodak Portra can't really be compared to Ektar, even in a nice 6 x 6 neg. It will be tack sharp, but will lack the contrast and rich reds of Ektar. VC160 of landscapes look both souped up and flat. Ektar on the other hand is contrasty and intense.

Konica Impresa 50 (also extinct)is the only other color print film I know that can rival Ektar but it's a totally different kind of film. Low contrast and incredible blues. Got a bunch of it in the freezer, but given my tendency toward contrast, I usually opt for the Ektar instead :)

Larry, yes, the Remjet backing means you have to send it back to A and I and pay $15 for the negs processed plus some very good quality slide dupes. Then, scan the ones you want to print. Or, pay $25 and have a hi res scan disk added. For special occasions / vacations/ national parks, etc., it is worth it though.

Ektar 25 / Royal gold 25 is great. It's still out there,and I have had good success using old rolls of this too. I've managed to put together about 5-6 bricks of this (Pro Ektar 25, RG 25, Ektar 25 pro in 120 size, etc) in the last year or so, mainly from Ebay and elsewhere. The only caveats so far are are that some of it seems to have lost a little speed (Maybe shoot it at 20 instead of 25?), and most minilab printers don't have a channel that will handle the color palette/base film stock color well - they need to be custom printed or else the machines' setup tweaked. Ektar 25 had a different base film color than other kodak films, thus the channel balance on modern machines like Frontiers aren't going to print it well with default settings. But if you are doing your own prints, its' fine and easy to balance.

I wish they still made it (and many other films), but at least it seems to keep well.

Enjoy! -Ed