Many film photographers were crestfallen when — after declining sales resulting from the rise of digital — Kodak discontinued the last remaining variety of its Ektachrome color reversal film back in 2013, leaving Fujifilm as the only major producer of color reversal films. (I have always preferred the term “reversal film,” but many call it transparency film or slide film.) Some predicted that reversal films would eventually go away, labs that process E-6 (a chemical process identifier for Ektachrome and all other modern reversal films) would stop doing so, the very few remaining labs that specialize in E-6 would close, and that would be that.
Alas, that wasn’t the case, at least not for now. Film slowly began to rebound to a seemingly sustainable level; enough so, apparently, that Kodak made waves when it announced in late 2017 that the Ektachrome production line was to be restarted. Ektachrome E100 finally began reaching store shelves in 135 format in October 2018, followed by 120 and sheet formats, which began to trickle to stores just a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
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