About a year ago I shot my first roll of Kodak Ektar 100 (120) and the results were nothing spectacular. Fast forward to this week and I just got the results from a 35mm roll of Ektar 100 I ran through my Nikon F5 (kindly given to me to help review Meta35). This time I was pleasantly surprised. The colours were vibrant and had that Ektar tone to them. Grain was excellent as was the ability to retain some detail in the highlights that slide film would typically washout. Overall, for half the price of Velvia, it’s a good alternative and when the light is harsh and a little too contrasty for grads to control then it’s a much better choice. So much so that I bought another 120 roll. Anyway, my main use for it lately has been to shoot a bit of street photography. It’s something that I’ve been wanting to try for a while and that can take years to master. It’s also not that easy, I’ve spent hours now walking around Adelaide camera in hand. It’s not like sunset or sunrise where you have a shot framed and all you’re waiting for is the right light. It’s much more fluid where you have to really work for your images, often visualising them before they happen. You need to immerse yourself in the city because walking around and around for a picture to jump out at you will just result in sore feet. It’s challenging, tiring, dynamic and right now I dig it!
