Kodak Ektachrome E100

Kodak killed the entire Ektachrome line in 2012. Fujifilm was still making slide films; Kodak had the manufacturing cost problem. Six years later, in 2018, Kodak brought back a single emulsion under the E100 name, reportedly because enough photographers had made noise and the company had capacity to run a limited line. The reintroduced E100 is not identical to any specific predecessor; it draws from the Ektachrome 100VS and 100G lineage but was re-engineered for current E-6 chemistry.

The color signature is cooler and more neutral than Fujifilm's slide films. Velvia pushes color toward saturation; Provia is balanced but still slightly warmer; E100 sits on the cooler end with a palette that some photographers describe as closer to what they actually saw. Blues read true. Greens do not shift toward emerald. Skin tones are accurate rather than flattering. This makes it a documentary and architectural slide film more than a landscape or fashion stock.

Process it in standard E-6. The stock is sensitive to process temperature variation, so home processors should calibrate carefully; commercial labs running fresh chemistry are the safer choice for work that matters. You can push E100 one stop to EI 200 with acceptable results. Two stops is possible but shadow detail gets thin and the neutrality of the color shifts.

Available in 35mm since the 2018 relaunch. Kodak added 120 and 4x5 sheet film in December 2019, and 5x7 and 8x10 sheets followed for large-format work.

The reciprocity exponent is 1.0, which means Zone Light Meter applies no correction past one second for this stock. Long exposures with slide film still risk color crossover, but E100 performs better than Velvia in this regard. Past about four seconds, run a test before trusting a critical exposure.