KodakGold 200

Kodak Gold 200 is an ISO 200 consumer color negative film for C-41 processing, sold in 35 mm and 120. Kodak designs it for everyday pictures in daylight or with flash, and reviews know it for its warm, golden tones [1] [10]. Since November 2025, Eastman Kodak sells it directly under the same name, while Kodak Alaris still lists it [2] [3] [4].

Look and color

• Saturated, by Kodak’s account. The datasheet lists “saturated colors” for “bright, colorful prints” [1]. Blue Moon Camera finds “bright colors” with “fairly true renditions” [8].
• Warm, but it depends on the light. Reviews speak of a “warm, natural color palette” [6], an “orangey warm teint” [9] and “much-loved golden tones” [10]. Analog.cafe is more nuanced: Gold adds “a yellow tint to your light greys and whites in cool light” and can turn orange when underexposed, but looks “fairly neutral” on a sunny day at box speed [7].
• Reds and oranges “have a nice level of pop” [8].
• Greens: the sources disagree. For Blue Moon Camera they are “a bit less vibrant and a bit more muted” [8]; for Analog.cafe, Gold “will saturate purples and greens more than other colours” [7].
• Blues too. Blue Moon Camera finds “very clean and crisp blues” [8]; Analog.cafe notes an “occasionally weak sensitivity to dark blues, like the deep navy of a clear sky”, sometimes with “a blue shift in the shadows” [7].
• Less faithful than Portra. “Portras will give you more overall fidelity and colour accuracy” [7]. Next to Portra 160, The Darkroom finds that Gold lacks its “neutral color palette” but “makes up for it with warmth, charm, and a classic film look” [6].
• Exposure shifts the color, and the tests disagree on how. Overexposed, Analog.cafe sees mid-grays and whites move “towards teal” [7], while Dehancer’s test sees “pink-yellow hues”, and “violet hues” when underexposed [10].

Tonality

• Curve. On the datasheet, the toe runs from about 6 to 4 stops below middle gray, the straight part climbs with a slope of about 0.55 to 0.6, and a shoulder starts about 3.5 to 4 stops above middle gray (our reading of the graph) [1]. Highlights compress, unlike Portra 400, whose curve shows no shoulder up to about 6 stops over [16].
• Contrast. The Darkroom lists “medium contrast” [6]. Analog.cafe finds “a neutral overall contrast level during normal exposures” but “strong microcontrast” [7].
• Latitude. Kodak claims latitude “from two stops underexposure to three stops overexposure” [1]; Analog.cafe estimates “about 8 stops of dynamic range” [7].
  • Dehancer shot a fresh roll from −6 to +10 EV. It found the best color between −1 and +1 EV and acceptable results from −2 to +3 EV, the manufacturer’s range. The film “withstands underexposure quite well (slightly better than professional films)” but “does not tolerate overexposure very well” [10].
• Long exposures: no correction from 1/10,000 s to 1 s [1].

Grain and sharpness

Kodak rates grain with the Print Grain Index (PGI), a perceptual scale for prints viewed at 14 inches. 25 is the approximate visibility threshold, and 4 units make one just-noticeable difference [1].

• From 35 mm, an 8×10 print scores 64. From 120, a 4×6 scores 33 and an 8×10 44 [1]. The datasheet prints the 8×10 magnification from 35 mm as “4.4X”, the same as for 4×6, which looks like a typo.
• Reviews: grain “more noticeable, especially in 35mm, but it’s part of what gives Gold 200 its personality” [6]; “the amount of grain I consider average” [9].
• Sharpness: Kodak claims “high sharpness”, but publishes neither a modulation transfer curve nor a resolving power figure [1].

Spectral sensitivity

The blue-sensitive layer sits around 2.1 (log) from 405 to 460 nm and peaks near 469 nm, the green-sensitive layer peaks near 549 nm and the red-sensitive layer near 653 nm. The blue and green curves cross near 486 nm, green and red near 584 nm [1]. The graph also shows an unlabeled low lobe in the blue, around 400 nm; we attribute it to the red-sensitive layer by elimination, which is a hypothesis. The Grain Archive color style is tuned from the datasheet and the reviews above; it is not computed from these curves.

Names, status and history

• 1986 or 1988. Kodacolor VR-G 200 was introduced in 1986, later sold as Kodacolor Gold 200, and is “currently sold as Kodak Gold 200” [11]; Analog.cafe also counts from 1986 [7]. Blue Moon Camera and Wikipedia’s list of films date the Gold name to 1988, with the current, seventh generation from 2007 [8] [12].
• Back in 120 (2022). Gold 200 returned in 120 in 2022: in April according to The Darkroom [6], in March according to Wikipedia’s list, which also dates the move to an Estar base to 2023 [12]. The June 2023 datasheet lists 135 and 120, both on a 0.10 mm Estar base [1].
• Eastman Kodak distribution (November 2025). Gold 200 and UltraMax 400 joined Eastman Kodak’s own range on November 3, 2025, in retro-style yellow boxes, and stayed listed by Kodak Alaris [4]. Unlike Portra, Gold kept its name [5]. On September 29, 2026, Kodak listed it in 135-24, 135-36 and 120 [2], and Kodak Alaris in 135 and 120 [3].
• Fujifilm 200: reportedly the same film, not confirmed. In January 2022, photographers noticed that parts of the new Fujicolor 200 datasheet “are the same as that of Gold 200” [13], including spectral curves that are “remarkably similar” [14]. Fujifilm only said it “works with a pool of valued partners” [14]. Analog.cafe later found the two “remarkably close”, but added that they “may not be the exact same film” [15].