Screaming reds! Blazing oranges!

Not as surreal as Velvia, but can be used for stunning effect.

Superb grain & sharpness. Wow!

Screaming cheeks! Blazing pimples! Do not even think of using this film to shoot people you care about.

I see possibilities for this film as a fine art film. It's a very graphic film, and seems to reward thoughtfully designed compositions. If you don't control what's in the frame and how it is presented, the color WILL dominate.

Customer Service

Kodak has a lot of good technical information on their website, but you have to dig for it.

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What's similar? Velvia, maybe, but I think this film pops the reds a lot more - and a lot more-naturally.

see Bottom Line

see Bottom Line

I'll describe my experience with this film over 18 months and let you decide if its various attributes are strengths or weaknesses. For the record, my main color film has been Velvia ever since it was introduced, but I'm always exploring other emulsions because Velvia has its own shortcomings (see separate review). I've shot E100VS and Velvia with both Nikon and Zeiss lenses, always fast single focal lengths.

I agree with almost everything in the reviews below except for those that claim fine grain or more realistic red renditions. More on those later. It is 1-and-a-third stops faster than Velvia, but whether it's 100 or 125 or 160 will depend on your camera's/meter's biases.

The quicky evaluation of E100vs is that I think it's Kodak's best E-6 film except for the sadly discontinued Elite 50. It's my second favorite color slide film after Velvia, but has some quirks that make it unsuitable for most of my work (think National Geographic wannabe - rich color, finest possible grain).

* Tonality. E100VS has very rough tonalities. It is like a color chalk drawing compared to Velvia's creamy oil-painting tones. It is more noticeable in faces/skin tones, but also shows up in landscapes and architecture. Shadows have a very steep drop-off to pure black. Scanned as B&W (so that we're just talking tonality unaffected by color) E100VS looks like 35mm Recording Film, while Velvia looks like medium-format Pan F.

* Grain. I scanned skies shot with both Velvia and E100VS at 2700 dpi and zoomed in on the scans. In the Velvia scan all the neighboring pixels were the same color - in the E100VS scan the pixels broke up into different shades of blue, cyan and magenta - clearly speckled. Velvia may not have FINER grain but it sure has SMOOTHER grain. The effect is not limited to skies but shows up in any smooth area of color.

I've tried 1/2 and 1 stop pull processing, which smooths the tonalities and the grain somewhat, but costs extra and removes all the extra saturation I bought the film for in the first place.

* Color rendition. E100VS is ultra-saturated, but is faithful to Kodak's usual E-6 palette - purply-brown shadows (compared to Velvia's cyan-green), very good rendition of dark reds, weak rendition of dark greens like pine trees (although VS does a visibly better job with greens than the other E100 films). E100VS also does better than other Kodak E-6 films with pale straw/yellow colors. Clouds are a lot less magenta than with Velvia, and darker neutrals are either neutral or slightly red. Sunlit summer grass looks better on 100VS; Velvia runs blue/cyan by comparison.

Skin tones. Ahhh, skin tones. I'm not as hung up on skin tones as some people: I like Velvia's just fine if bracketed for the best exposure. I have yet to see a skin rendition I like from E100VS. The film seems to add a mustard-colored overlay to all light skin tones (Asian/hispanic/caucasian, and Grey Poupon, not French's, mustard). Dark skins go purple-brown like other shadow areas. Light skins under overcast tend to pick up a lot of purple-brown, too, and get muddy and grainy.

My experience has been that E100VS is NOT especially good at separating reds; others disagree. I shot a fire-engine-red station sign against a wall painted matte Chinese red: on Velvia the sign and the wall were distinctly different colors; on E100VS they came out the same intense color (the "fingernail-polish" someone mentions below)

E100VS works better with my Nikon lenses than with my Zeiss lenses - less contrast and the color biases "fit" better together. I suspect that the flatter and slower your lenses are, the better E100VS will perform - you really need the extra contrast and true 100 speed.

My bottom line is that I could live with E100VS's grain as a trade-off for speed, and I could live with the Kodak color palette vs. Velvia - but I really don't want to live with E100VS's rocky tonalities as long as Velvia is available.

Customer Service

Kodak reps very eager to provide film sample when first issued. Overnight email response to question posted to Kodak website.

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Kodak E100S/SW, Fuji Velvia, Provia 100F, Sensia 100

Excellent color saturation and fine grain.

Price is high.

Excellent alternative to Fuji Velvia and Provia. Great for nature photography! If color saturation is what is needed for your photography, this is a very fine film. If you are looking for truly realistic versus saturated color, you may want to choose Fuji Sensia 100. It is also less expensive.

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Fuji Provia 100
Fuji Sensia 100
Fuji Velvia 50
Kodak Royal Gold 100

Beautiful reds and oranges, great blue skies! Reds really pop out

Colors are exaggerated, and this is not recommended for people photography. This film can be too high contrast for some situations.

This is an excellent film if you love outdoor photography that does not include people. I used it this past fall for fall foliage photography and was amazed with the results. This is a good film if you want saturated and exaggerated color to enhance your photography. With a polarizing filter I was able to get beautiful deep blue skies. I used this film both in broad daylight and deep down in a gorge and got beautiful foliage in both conditions. I got beautiful, high contrast shots from waterfalls. The waterfalls really stood out from the river bed. DO NOT take pictures of people with this film. Skin tones are very poor and unbecoming. If people are what you take pictures of, use a different film.

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Fuji Velvia, Fuji Provia 100

Beautiful highly saturated colors. Really punches up the colors (especially reds) in overcast situations. Pushes to 200 ASA very well. A very sharp film.

Occasionally a weird electric bluish cast in certain very shaded circumstances. This can be nice, but not when the subject is a living thing.

I like this film very much for certain circumstances. A very sharp and highly saturated film that I prefer to use where I want to punch up colors on overcast days or in the shade, where I need a faster film than Fuji Velvia. This film may punch up the reds more than Velvia, but I have to shoot more of it to be sure. Also, a good 100 or 200 ASA film for shooting colorful images, where I want especially punchy color, even in bright sunlight.

Customer Service

N.A.

Similar Products Used:

Fuji Velvia, Fuji Provia, Kodak E100-S, Kodak E100-SW

hmm colors for some kind of special effects

To much grain (way to much) and to expensive also. I like saturated colors, but here they are more unrealistic... Not consistant.

In comparison to the Velvia, this film has only the speed for him. And if one care about grain, its uncomparable to say Velvia or Provia F which are very fine. I'm sorry to give a bad rating here, but I tried this film a lot because I liked the 100 iso, but the colors, consistancy and grain sucks. I definitively don't like it, but the stange colors can also be useful for some subjects.

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Fuji Velvia

Fine grain
Faster than Velvia

Horrid skin tone rendition
Lacks color gradation

I did a shoot-off trading camera bodies between Kodachrome, E100S and this stuff. Found found color rendition very inaccurate. My shooting showed the reds in particular were way off. If there is any color at all, it punches up so hard it loses gradation. It's a surreal all or nothing. As a result it loses subtleties that reveal detailed texture. Don't even think about having any people prominently placed in the image. Skin tones will end up absolutely horrid.

After shooting a few rolls of this stuff, and its consumer equivalent (Elitechrome 100 Extra Color) I went back to Kodachrome, E100S and NPS. Only thing I would recommend it for is portraiture of your worst enemy . . . or maybe a commercial work selling bright red fingernail polish (just show the nails, and crop out the flesh on the fingers).

Customer Service

N/A

Similar Products Used:

Kodachrome 64
E100S
Kodak NPS 100

extremely saturated colors
fine grain

extremely saturated colors

strength of this film is that it exaggerates all colors; it's a very saturated film so to say. that's what this film is all about and created for. this film allows you to do shootings in shady (cloudy) lighting conditions and still get this beautiful colorful slides.
it's definitely not meant for portraiture and so, people shooting with this film, should know that, so what i really don't understand, is why so many people on this site mention the shortcomings of this film in portraiture!! this is a beautiful film for those who like saturated colors in wildlife photos. for examples, you might want to check this site: http://www.kodak.nl/global/en/professional/products/films/e100vs/gallery2.shtml
enjoy...

Customer Service

poor at a kodakcentre in the netherlands, developed a kodachrome film E6.
that's certainly not recommendable, if you know what i mean :(

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ektachrome, kodachrome, fujichrome

Strong color saturation
Acceptably fine-grained

Strong color saturation

I'm becoming an E100VS convert. Fast enough to hand-hold under good lighting conditions even with variable aperture lenses, but fine-grained enough to make excellent enlargements, with the outrageous color saturation of the now-popular "enhanced color" films. In the wrong situations, like most enhanced color films, this film will result in outlandish, cartoon-like colors. However, for landscapes and wildlife, the extra color can be a godsend, creating stunning outdoor photos, or injecting much-needed color into often drab wildlife shots. It's easy to overdo it with this film...a colorful scene and a polarizer can be just too much! A little pricey for the value-minded photographer...try the consumer branded version Elite Chrome 100 Extra Color (EBX-100) for a taste of the E100VS experience. A film every serious photographer should at least try.

Customer Service

Not used.

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Elite Chrome 100
Fuji Velvia

at this price, can't think of any

a little thin on film density, grainier than comparable 100 films

Shot both this and Sensia II 100 on my Canon A1, same subjects, same day, same time at rated ISO. Developed it myself in the same batch. The Sensia II was decidedly more saturated, but the kodak was more true to color if somewhat bland compared to Sensia II. Not at all what I expected, especially considering the price difference. Very disappointed. Expected something more along the lines of Velvia but at ISO 100.

Similar Products Used:

Provia 100F, Sensia II 100. Velvia, AGFA RSX II 50, Fujichrome MS 100/1000