Kodak Gold 200 Film Review

Kodak Gold 200 is a popular colour-negative film that has been in production since 1986. Throughout its 36-year history, it was marketed as a cheaper alternative to Kodak’s Professional portfolio films: Portra, Ektar, and Ektachrome. Recently, however, it has also become available for medium format cameras.

While Gold isn’t as colour-accurate or high-resolving as the premium Kodak colour emulsions, this film enjoys wide admiration today for its affordable price point and excellent compatibility with labs and scanner software, which yields pleasing results in a convenient ISO 200 daylight sensitivity.

In this review: A brief history of Kodak Gold films. Grain structure, resolution, sharpness. Dynamic range. Colour reproduction. Scanning. Best uses for Kodak Gold 200. Kodak Gold alternatives. How much does Kodak Gold cost, and where to buy it. Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!

✪​ Note: Wondering what’s the difference between Kodak Gold and Kodak ColorPlus — the two Kodak emulsions prices and marketed nearly identical to each other? I wrote a comparison guide based on meticulous experiments; the answer may surprise you!

A brief history of Kodak Gold films.

Before the familiar Gold 200 brand debuted in 1986 with Kodak Gold 100, Kodak sold its colour-negative films under the Kodacolor brand.

Kodacolor VR-G 200, later renamed to Gold 200, was the successor to Kodacolor VR 200 — the first Kodak colour-negative film to use the T-Grain technology. Launched in 1982, this film produced much finer grain than its predecessors thanks to the flat molecular structures that could pack tighter together, thus retaining finer detail in an image.

However, the origins of Gold and Kodacolor brand lines go back even further, to 1942 when Kodak released its first colour-negative film, “Kodacolor,” with an ISO 32. This film used a proprietary C-22 process for development that was later opened up for general use following a lawsuit. Kodacolor II switched to the more still-used C-41 process in 1975.

Fast-forward past the digital revolution of the early 2010s, when film usage plummeted into the analogue renaissance of the early 2020s, Kodak expanded the format availability of the historic Gold film line into the medium format in 2022 — around the time the Kodacolor film line turned eighty years old.

Grain structure, resolution, sharpness.

Kodak quantifies its films’ grain size using the Print Grain Index. It is a successor to the RMS granularity measurements, which rely on perceptual reports from a group of observers.

Kodak Gold 200’s Print Grain Index of 44 when it’s printed on 4”×6”-sized paper. The grain off the 35mm negatives will be definitively evident if you print larger (or even while reading this article on a big screen with GOLD membership) — but not noticeable on your mobile device.

For comparison, Ektar 100, a film that Kodak advertises as having “World’s Finest Grain,” has a PGI of less than 25 on 4”×6” prints and 38 when printed on 8”×10” paper. You could say that Kodak Gold 200’s grain is about 19% larger than that of Ektar.

Of course, film grain isn’t shunned today as it was at the time of this film’s debut in the ‘80s. Many apps simulate grain for those who wish to add it to their digital photographs. Gold does that for free. And in 120, there’s even less of it to worry about if you still prefer smooth textures.

Note that while the grain size may dictate the amount of detail you may be able to extract from film, it is not the same as sharpness. Kodak Gold is a very sharp film; there’s no need to apply any sharpening in your digital workflow to the scans as long as you use a good method and tools to digitize your images.

Dynamic range.

Kodak gold has about 8 stops of dynamic range with some additional latitude in the highlights and just a spot of give in the shadows. This can be seen from the film characteristic curves (below) found on Kodak Alaris’ website.

The numbers on the graph show roughly 2.25 lux-seconds of dynamic range from toe to shoulder, which you can convert using this app to the more familiar stops of light.

Gold 200 is fairly easy to expose, given its dynamic range and latitude, even if they aren’t as wide as those of Ektar or Portra 800.

In general, Gold has no trouble capturing both the shadows and the highlights in daylight, though, unlike Ektar, it will begin shifting middle-greys towards teal when overexposed:

Colour reproduction.

Kodak Gold is considered a less precise stock for colour reproduction than the more expensive negative films like Ektar or slide films like Ektachrome. However, it can be “fixed” to a certain degree if you work with a digital scan.

Gold will saturate purples and greens more than other colours, even if you nail your exposure. Whatever the scanner and the software you use, you’ll notice a look some refer to as “vintage,” which is made possible by these slight colour shifts.

This film will also shift your mid-greys and even whites towards teal if you overexpose it.

Gold also tends to add a yellow tint to your light greys and whites in cool light. This same shift can also make your scenes appear orange in certain circumstances, particularly when underexposed.

Still, I found that Kodak Gold handles deep shadows a little better than Ektar. Whereas the latter would make the dark areas appear blue, Gold will have a less pronounced shift.

Despite its noticeable sharpness/micro-contrast, Gold has a neutral overall contrast level during normal exposures. However, if you underexpose your film, its overall contrast and saturation will increase.

Like any other film on the market, Kodak Gold can be pushed to produce wild results — many of which may be corrected during a digital workflow. But for the most part, this film tends to create images that are fairly neutral in appearance — especially on a sunny day, shot at box speed.

One more unique property of Kodak Gold is its occasionally weak sensitivity to dark blues, like the deep navy of a clear sky or a storm cloud. While some scans will show a normal amount of blue hue in the skies, this may be accompanied by a blue shift in the shadows, correcting which will desaturate the sky. Still, some images will look perfectly natural on this film — all depending on exposure.

​✪ Note: I use this method to scan all film for my reviews. It creates consistent results that make understanding and comparing the emulsion’s colour/contrast attributes possible.

Scanning.

Kodak Gold 200 is easy to scan. The film is sharp enough to require little or no post-processing if you’re satisfied with your colours.

If your exposures are adequate and the light isn’t overly complex (see below), your software will likely do a good job interpreting the colours automatically.

Well-scanned Kodak Gold is fairly easy to colour-correct using tools like Adobe Photoshop. However, you may have trouble making it look as precise as a modern digital camera’s sensor.

Best uses for Kodak Gold 200.

No film is perfect, and neither is Gold. But that’s not why we love photographic emulsions. In fact, Gold’s warm tones, natural contrast, and strong microcontrast make it a suitable choice for most casual occasions, particularly the following:

Kodak Gold 200 creates well-saturated and well-defined green palettes. The greens are virtually unaffected by colour shifts in other channels. Gold can create dreamy landscape shots, especially when overexposed by half or an entire stop.

Sunny 16 weather is perfect for this film. Given that your image doesn’t have too many dark shadows or strong contrast, Gold will cut a bit of the blue cast that many colour films will produce in cool daylight, giving your photographs a pleasing tone.

Overcast days. Well-exposed scenes with cool light can look good on Kodak Gold 200. If you manage to give it plenty of light, the colours will be warmed slightly, reducing the dullness of the blues.

Kodak Gold alternatives.

Colour accuracy. As you may’ve realized, looking at the samples in this article, Kodak Gold may have trouble with colour accuracy in certain lighting conditions, which may not be easy to correct after the fact. Despite being used by photographers on sets of all kinds, including portraiture, you may have an easier time metering and colour-correcting any of the Kodak Portra films.

While Portras will give you more overall fidelity and colour accuracy, you may be interested in the opposite. If you’re looking for experimental film stocks that create unusual palettes, consider the new Harman Phoenix 200, Lomography Lomochrome Purple, or Lomography Lomochrome Color’92.

You may also be interested in Kodak Aerocolor IV, which is often sold as Santa Color 100, Film Electra 100, and Film Washi X. This film can create colour-accurate renderings, but it comes with a clear base that’s interesting to work with, despite being challenging to scan in some cases.

Kodak Ektar 100 and Kodak Ektachrome E100 have great colour accuracy, with the former making wonderfully saturated images and the latter being remarkably lifelike. Both films have some of the finest grain on film — but you should know that Ektachrome is a slide film stock, which means not every lab will be able to develop it.

Fujifilm Fujichrome Velvia 50 is perhaps the most expensive yet one of the most remarkable films of the bunch. Give that review a read. Provia 100 is another slide stock by Fujifilm that renders extremely fine grain with superb colour accuracy and slightly higher saturation. Both of those films are of the slide type, meaning they must be taken to a specialty lab.

How much does Kodak Gold cost, and where to buy it.

Following the recent announcement signalling Gold 200’s availability in 120, some retailers reacted to the demand by increasing their prices. However, those prices have since come down, particularly following Kodak’s announcement of lowering prices for medium format films and the 2024 Q3 colour film price drops.

As of this writing (fall 2024), a roll of Kodak Gold should retail for about $10-$12 (or about the same as that of Kodak ColorPlus).

❤ By the way: Please consider making your Kodak Gold 200 film purchase using this link so that this website may get a small percentage of that sale — at no extra charge for you — thanks!