Ektachrome E100
- E100
- Kodak Ektachrome
Clean slide colour that runs slightly cool, with moderate saturation and very fine grain.
Opens an image model with the prompt in it. The price is on the page before you sign in.
What it is for
Kodak announced the return of Ektachrome in January 2017 and shipped E100 in 135 in 2018. It is the only Kodak reversal film in production, and it runs on standard E-6 chemistry, so an ordinary colour lab can process it.
The look is clean rather than characterful. E100 is neutral to slightly cool, with moderate saturation and extremely fine grain. Beside Kodachrome it is colder and lighter in the red. Beside Velvia it is quiet.
How it works
Name the film and say neutral colour running slightly cool. That one word does most of the work, because it separates E100 from every warm film look in the training data.
Ask for moderate saturation and very fine grain. E100 is a modern emulsion and it is smooth, so grain is the wrong thing to request on this stock.
Skin comes out clean and slightly cool, and it needs warm light in the scene to look healthy. Sky goes a clear, accurate blue with none of the Fujifilm push. Shadow detail closes as it does on any slide, and the closed shadow carries a blue cast rather than a neutral black.
When to use it
Use it for a modern transparency look: editorial, travel, product, or any picture that has to say film without saying old.
Leave it alone when you want warmth or age. E100 is a new clean stock, so warmth has to come from the light in the scene rather than from the film.
Told apart from its neighbours
Kodachrome 64 is the comparison everybody makes. Kodachrome is warmer, denser in the red and impossible to process. E100 is cooler, cleaner, lower in saturation and on sale today.
Cinema publishes Film Grain at /techniques/cinema/ as its own entry, and it is the wrong tool for this stock. E100 has extremely fine grain, so a grain entry on top gives you a texture the film does not have.
Where it is used
The Ektachrome name goes back to the 1940s, and NASA flew earlier Ektachrome emulsions on the Apollo missions. Kodak stopped making the family in 2012, announced the return at CES in January 2017, and shipped E100 in 135 in 2018, with 120 and 4x5 following in 2019. It is now one of the last colour reversal films in production, beside Velvia 50 and Provia 100F.
- NASA photographs from the Apollo programme
- 1970s magazine reportage
- current E-6 transparency work
The prompt
Replace the blanks with your own subject, keep the rest. Then run it on an image model.
<subject> shot on Kodak Ektachrome E100 slide film, clean neutral colour running slightly cool, moderate saturation, very fine grain, crisp white highlights that clip at the top of the range, dark shadows carrying a blue cast, daylight balanced E-6 transparency
What goes wrong
The answer comes back warm and amber, because most film wording lands on a nostalgic look. Say neutral running slightly cool, and ban the warm cast by name.
The second failure is grain, which a model adds to prove the picture is film. Say very fine grain, and keep any grain entry out of the same prompt.
Leave out
warm amber cast, heavy saturation, faded vintage colour, coarse grain, lifted shadows
Watch for
E100 is the cool Kodak slide. If the answer comes back warm and dense, the model has given you Kodachrome instead.
Questions
Shoot it
Pay for the one run. No subscription, and the price is on the model page before you sign in.
Next to it in reversal film
