Kodak Gold 200 is something special these days. I don’t have the feeling it has ever been a highly praised 35mm film, but it is one of the few color films that is affordable and still widely available in 2022.
Processing and scanning was done at urbanfilmlab in Germany.
Out of the box Kodak Gold 200 has a bit of an orangey warm teint to it – hence “gold” in the name I guess.
Like almost every color film still available today (except for two of the Silbersalz35 films) Kodak Gold 200 is white balanced for daylight use. It is still possible to make adjustments in post and get more balanced results under artifical light though:
Despite its comparably low price Gold 200 is capable of delivering very decent results. Dynamic range is good, saturation and colors are likable and the amount of grain I consider average.
In the next part we will have a look at Kodak Portra 160 and see if it is actually worth 2-3 times the price of Gold 200.
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nice! great images as always (which is even more impressive considering its film).
I still have some KG200 in the fridge, but didnt come around enough to shoot it during the summer.
I always considered it a sunny summer film, but looking at the blue hour shots i wonder if i should try it in at and after golden hour soon.
Looking forward to the Portra images since i never could jusitify spending the money on a professional film.
I’d much rather try Silversalz if i find the time..
I mainly bought the Portra 160 because there was some minimum order amount and it was the only one available 🙂
Very nice results indeed. Like S.B. said, film makes the effort more impressive, but I guess Leica M6 does as well (with the framing).
I’ve noticed you like to give a touch warmer (“retro”) tones in your digital images (and I remember the article about the editing process). Perhaps that makes the Gold film a more interesting choice for you as well, or at least that crossed my mind. I suspect you didn’t like Portra’s rendering as much, at least without some tweaking.
Another interesting article!
Let’s wait for the Portra article then 🙂
Thinking about it, a lot of your editing does seem quite similar to Porta 160! Similar contrast and warmth, with really striking blues. If you can find some, you should really give it a shot! It shoots like a more contrast-y and vibrant Portra 160, with only marginally worse grain. The biggest downside is good limiting a 400 Speed film can be, when you want to get a shallow depth of field when it’s bright out.
Other than that, I’d recommend giving Kodak E100 a try! It has surprisingly good shadow retrieval for film, and there’s nothing quite like holding a piece of slide film in your own hand.
Good evening Bastian. Nice photos as usual :-). I like the look, the colors a lot. I´m on digital way only till now. Seems that Kodak 200 has more limited dynamic range or a non compareable dynamic to sony bodys. Especially the night scenes look dynamic but day scenes don´t.
Greetings from Bonn.
Mario