Flic Film Elektra 100 - 35mm Colour Negative Film
Kodak Aerocolor IV, liberated from the skies and re-spooled for your terrestrial photography needs.
The tidiest way into an emulsion that mostly arrives with rough edges attached.
Flic Film Elektra 100 35mm Film is an ISO 100 colour negative film made from Kodak Aerocolor IV, an emulsion Kodak built for aerial surveillance and mapping. Extremely fine grain, high sharpness, and accurate colour with strong reds. No remjet, so standard C-41. DX coded, 36 exposures.
What Makes Flic Film Elektra 100 Habit-Forming
An Aerial Emulsion, Properly Packaged
Flic Film are a small Canadian outfit with a talent for finding interesting emulsions and putting them somewhere photographers can actually get at them. Aerocolor IV reaches the market under several names, and Elektra is the version that arrives DX coded in a proper cassette rather than hand-wound into whatever was available.
Extremely Fine Grain
Aerial emulsions are engineered for resolution, because the entire job is resolving detail from altitude. That engineering now works in your favour at ground level, and it holds up under enlargement and large scans.
Accurate Colour With Strong Reds
Saturation sits above Portra without reaching Ektar, on a longer contrast curve than Ektar. Reds in particular are noticeably strong, and scans lean warm. Accurate rather than stylised, which is the usual reason people pick this over a consumer stock.
The Base Is Not a Normal Negative Base
Worth knowing before you send it anywhere. Aerocolor IV is not a conventional orange-masked colour negative, a consequence of its aerial origins rather than a defect. It inverts differently, and scans can come back looking wrong if handled as ordinary C-41.
ISO 100 Wants Light
The honest limitation. One hundred is a daylight speed and this film is happiest with plenty to work with. The emulsion has considerable latitude and will take a push, but it is not the roll to load for an evening indoors.
DX Coded
Automatic cameras read ISO 100 without being told, which is not true of every Aerocolor product on the market. If your camera has no manual ISO control, this is the version to buy.
Standard C-41 Processing
No remjet backing, unlike respooled cine stocks. It develops normally at any colour lab, including here at Chemical Dependency Lab.
36 Exposures
A full 36-exposure roll in standard 35mm format.
| Format | 35mm, 36 exposures |
| ISO | 100 |
| Type | Colour negative |
| Process | C-41, no remjet |
| Source emulsion | Kodak Aerocolor IV |
| Base | Not conventionally orange-masked |
| DX coded | Yes |
Is Elektra 100 the same as SantaColor, Aeronega or Maverick?
They all come from Kodak Aerocolor IV. What differs is who spools it, what speed they rate it at, how it is packaged and what it costs. We stock four of them because those differences are real even when the emulsion is not.
SantaColor 100 is hand spooled in Finland. Alien Film Aeronega 100 is respooled with the rough edges left on, sometimes into recycled canisters. Maverick 125 is hand-rolled in the UK, rated 125, with no DX code. Elektra is the DX coded one in a factory-style cassette, which is the practical difference if your camera meters automatically.
Does Elektra 100 need special processing?
No. There is no remjet layer, so it goes through standard C-41 with everything else. Development is ordinary. The unusual base affects how the negatives invert at the scanning stage rather than anything in the tank, so it is worth choosing a lab that has met the emulsion before.
Can you push Elektra 100?
Yes. The Aerocolor emulsion carries unusually wide latitude and takes pulling or pushing well across a broad range. Rate it where the light suits you and tell your lab what you chose, because there is nothing on the cassette to indicate it.
Best For Daylight shooting, portraiture, travel and landscape work, and photographers curious about what an aerial surveillance emulsion does when pointed at something worth looking at. The fine grain and accurate colour suit anything destined for a large print. Once you have shot it, send it our way. We develop, scan and print it too, and we know what the base is before we start inverting.
Perfect for: Photographers who want fine grain and accurate colour with a story attached, anyone shooting an automatic camera who still wants an unusual stock, travel and landscape work in good light, and anyone whose dependency now involves reading about reconnaissance aircraft.
Most of the interesting emulsions currently reaching photographers were designed for something else entirely, and Aerocolor IV is the clearest example. Flic Film's contribution is making it straightforward: a DX coded cassette, a standard process, and none of the handling caveats that come with hand-wound alternatives. The film underneath is the same remarkable thing. This is simply the version that asks least of you.