Kodak UltraMax 400 Film Review

Kodak UltraMax 400 is a medium-speed, fine-grained colour-negative film. It renders natural tones cheaper than Portra and much more accurately than the new ORWO and Lomography films.

UltraMax may be your most affordable ISO 400 colour film option. In this review, I will compare it to its former (Fujifilm Superia X-Tra) and current alternatives (Portra 400, ORWO Wolfen NC 500) and cover its advanced properties, such as measured granularity and dynamic range.

In this review: Is Kodak UltraMax the best general-purpose ISO 400 colour-negative film? Grain structure, resolution, and sharpness. Dynamic range. Kodak UltraMax exposure guide. How much does Kodak UltraMax 400 cost, and where to buy it. Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!

Is Kodak UltraMax the best general-purpose ISO 400 colour-negative film?

I’m inclined to say yes to all of that. There are a few options available today when it comes to ISO 400 film:

Fujifilm Superia X-Tra 400 used to be the direct competitor to UltraMax. A medium-speed colour-negative film that doesn’t break the bank. It featured fine grain and natural renderings (with some tendency towards purple shadows in some scans). Unfortunately, Fujifilm had recently discontinued the film.

But you’ll most likely see another film Fujifilm now sells that some photographers suspect to be rolls of rebranded Kodak UltraMax. The new packaging will say that it’s made in the USA. Kodak is the only colour film producer in that country that anyone I know is aware of.

There’s also a new ISO 400 colour-negative film made in Germany by ORWO that I’ve recently reviewed: Wolfen NC 500. Unfortunately, it’s neither particularly cheap nor capable of rendering colours as accurately as UltraMax. It has charm and applications, but you can’t use it the same way as consumer colour films. Additionally, the rolls I got did not have DX coding, rendering NC 500 unusable on most point-and-shoot cameras. The same can be said about the new Lomography Lomochrome Color’92 and Lomochrome Metropolis. Whereas the Ilfocolor 400 looks identical to ORWO NC 500.

CineStill 400D can be a good alternative. But it’s based on Kodak Motion Picture film and isn’t as cheap or wide-spread as Ultramax. Additionally, it produces halation, which may takeaway from the realism of your images, if that’s what your going for.

This leaves us with Kodak Portra 400, the only* remaining fresh, non-rebranded colour-negative film that isn’t UltraMax or NC 500/Lomo. However, Portras aren’t “general-purpose” since Kodak markets and prices them as “professional” films.

My main reason for shooting Portra films is their impressive dynamic range (12+ stops for ISO 400 & 800, 7 stops for 160) and impeccable colour accuracy. Can UltraMax match or at least come close to those results at a lower price and greater availability?

UltraMax is an excellent, maybe even the best general-purpose film in ISO 400 speed. It renders scenes and skin tones realistically in fine grain and gives way to be manipulated digitally after the fact without losing too much fidelity. But it’s not as versatile as Portra 400. You won’t get away with over-exposing it by three stops. To get the best colours out of UltraMax, you may need to spend a little extra time adjusting the balance sliders or avoid rainy or dusky weather altogether.

There’s also delicate colour nuance that consumer films can’t replicate; Portra and certain slide films have no rivals in rendering even the slightest skin pigmentation detail in a soft, flattering manner that other emulsions would gloss over. Not that everyone needs that level of precision at all times — which is why UltraMax is such a great choice for ISO 400 colour film.

Grain structure, resolution, and sharpness.

Kodak has long moved on from rating the granularity of its films with RMS values. Instead, they recruit groups of people to pass judgements based on various samples and quantify those surveys for various magnification factors. This new system is called Print Grain Index or PGI. UltraMax’ PGI is 46 when a 35mm negative is printed on 4x6” paper.

This means that UltraMax is about as grainy as Kodak Gold (PGI 44). It’s a little grainier than Portra 400 (PGI 37) and a lot grainier than Ektar, which is less than PGI 25 — a threshold Kodak uses to describe grain no longer visible to the naked eye in 4x6 prints.

Though UltraMax’ grain is chunkier than Portra 400’s, it appears smoother as the individual granules aren’t as sharp. In practice, this means fewer fine details but a less gritty look.

Dynamic range.

Your film’s dynamic range measures how well it can render shadows and highlights in the same shot and how contrasty the results will look.

Generally speaking, photographers like films (and digital camera sensors) with a wide dynamic range to get as close as possible to our eyes’ incredible ability to see into shadows and discern bright details simultaneously. But as film shooters, we get to choose each time we load film; plus, there’s some value in narrow DR/high-contrast films for the look you can get with them.

From Kodak’s datasheet, we can see that the delta lux-seconds is about 2.5, which converts to 8 stops of dynamic range. This is noticeably less than the Kodak Portra 400’s 12 stops and somewhat less than the original/Japanese Fujifilm Superia X-Tra’s 13 stops. (For complete instructions on how to read film characteristic curves and derive dynamic range from lux-seconds, read this.)

In practice, eight stops of dynamic range are sufficient and reasonably easy to work with. This is close to what you’d expect from most films and not far off the modern digital sensors’ specs. However, I would not expect good results from UltraMax if it’s over- or under-exposed. Metering mistakes may ruin your shot, so a light meter is advised for all manual cameras.

Kodak UltraMax exposure guide.

Even with a perfect metering technique, UltraMax will exhibit different looks depending on the colour, intensity, and complexity of ambient light. In this sense, it’s a bit more finicky than Portra 400, which tends to look true to life, no matter what you shine on it.

For best results with UltraMax, you may want to avoid cool colours in your scenes, such as rainy or cloudy days. Whereas strong or warm-toned shades work well with UltraMax, blue or grey weather often throws it off-balance, leaving you with colour casts in the shadows that are difficult to correct.

You can do a lot in Adobe Photoshop with the Colour Balance adjustment layer if you aren’t happy with the results from the scanner. Still, fixing UltraMax’ blue hour colour casts isn’t straightforward. The shadows will usually need to be shifted toward yellows, whereas the highlights will need to be shifted toward the blues.

✪​ 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.

Tip for those looking to shoot in overcast weather: consider Kodak Gold. Gold is one stop slower than UltraMax but is known to perform well in cool light/overcast days (as long as you don’t under-expose it). It’s just as affordable and can often be found on the same shelf that sells UltraMax.

How much does Kodak UltraMax 400 cost, and where to buy it.

As of this writing (updated Sept. 2024), a single 35mm roll of Kodak UltraMax 400 costs around $12, which is cheaper than most other ISO 400 colour films. This film can be found at most places that sell analogue photography gear, including places linked below.

❤ By the way: Please consider making your Kodak UltraMax 400 film purchase using this link so that this website may get a small percentage of that sale — at no extra charge for you — thanks!