Kodacolor 200 Field Tested 35mm Review

Kodak Kodacolor 200 is an affordable consumer color negative filmstock that has roots spanning decades. The Kodacolor line of films has been a mainstay for photographers the world over since WWII and one of its predecessors, Kodacolor VR-G 200, even went on to be rebranded as the beloved Kodak Gold 200.

Much like its cousin Gold 200, Kodak Kodacolor delivers punchy colors with a noticeably more grain than professional film stocks like Portra 160 and 400. Even so, both Kodacolor 200 and Gold 200 have benefited from Kodak’s recent improvements to film technology, meaning their grain is much more subtle than what you would have seen from Kodak consumer films in the early-2000s.

Even with these improvements to consumer film stocks like reintroduced Kodakcolor 200, I still like to think of it as the film that our parents used while vacationing at the beach or lake back in the 1980s. I know my parents had some of the old VR-G 200 in their cheap point & shoots.

Fast forwarding nearly four decades, I do still believe that Kodacolor is an ideal vacation film. It’s affordable, daylight balanced for sunny conditions, and is already widely available despite its recent reintroduction.

Kodacolor 200 is a film stock that could easily become one of my 35mm mainstays for years to come, whether it be shooting in my home town or while traveling. For that reason I wanted to put this film to the test as soon as I got my hands on it, so I loaded up two rolls on two recent trips: the first being on the Greek island of Corfu and the second being out in and around Bryce Canyon National Park in Southern Utah.

For the first roll that I shot on Corfu, I brought along my tiny Rollei 35 SE and kept my fingers crossed for decent weather. Unfortunately most of the trip did get rained out, but I at least managed to find a couple sun soaked compositions over the course of a few days. Like I previously mentioned, Kodacolor 200 really works well as a vacation/travel film. Because it is a daylight balanced film, it really thrives under sunny conditions, and due to its grainy nature the film really prefers well lit scenes, as opposed to dim, underexposed scenes.

More than anything, my second test roll of Kodacolor 200 put its color reproduction limits to the test. There’s hardly a place in the world more saturated with other-worldly colors than Bryce Canyon National Park, and honestly I can hardly imagine a better place than there to shoot a consumer film that loves light.

Over the course of one evening and morning, I loaded up my Olympus MJU II with Kodacolor 200 and braved the freezing winter winds. Despite the cold weather, both my camera and the film held up quite well. When I first developed and scanned this roll, I was absolutely blown away with a few of these images. The red, bronze, and yellow earth tones feel like they’re jumping out and grabbing you by the collar. Even in situations where my camera metered heavily for the shadows, thus overexposing the highlights, much of this lovely color held up. There are a lot of color negative film stocks out there that would struggle to maintain these highlights, so it’s great to see how an affordable consumer stock like Kodacolor 200 can hold onto such details.

Going forward, I am going to have a hard time immediately jumping to only Kodak Gold 200 as my go to affordable film, and for that I have Kodak to thank.

PROS:

• Delivers punchy colors.
• Affordable in price.
• Benefits from improved grain technology.

CONS:

• Is still grainier than Kodak’s professional stocks (i.e. Portra and Ektar)
• Not as easy to find as Gold 200
• Skin tone reproduction is not as accurate as Kodak Portra stocks.