Kodak Gold in 120, WOW

[George Mann]

Let me tell you a little story. Back when the Dinosaurs still walk the earth, I was shooting Kodachrome like it was going out of style, and it was costing me a mint.

Then I picked up a Pentax point and shoot with a fixed 35mm lens, and I decided to find a cheaper film to shoot in it.

So I went to my local drug dealer (photo salesman) to see what he had for me. He immediately grabbed a rather colorful box that said Kodacolor VR-G on it, and said that I was going to love it.

Boy was he right! I couldn't get enough of this stuff. I nearly wore that camera out with it.

Then one day I returned to this shop to buy some more. Low and behold they had replaced it with something called Gold. The salesman told me that it was mostly the same, and that I would still love it.

Well I didn't. This new film was markedly inferior, with what I would call a muddier rendition and wierd color shifts. I was pissed!

I was dead set against using this film until I heard that they had re-released it in 120, and I finally went and took a look.

I sat there looking at it in amazement thinking that this couldn't be the same film stock. Not only did it look a lot like VR-G, it too was vibing with my photograpic vision.

Now, I'm not going to claim that it's perfect. I find it a touch too saturated, and this is coming from a guy that shoots Ektar @ 80iso to tame it. It's no Ektachrome, but it is a long needed improvement on an emulsion I use to hate.

 

[rcphoto]

You may stock up on it. Its on a pretty good sale at B&H so may not be around for much longer.

 

[BrianShaw]

It’s good to see you confess and repent. Kodak Gold is a really decent film at a really decent price.

 

[George Mann]

It’s good to see you confess and repent. Kodak Gold is a really decent film at a really decent price.

Not repentance, but acknowledgement of the superior 120 emulsion.

 

[brbo]

Not repentance, but acknowledgement of the superior 120 emulsion.

I'm sure you will tell us about it...

 

[George Mann]

I'm sure you will tell us about it...

I could write volumes on the beauty of Ektar, and how easy it is to vary its saturation to fit your subject matter.

 

[brbo]

Can you do Ektar after you've discussed the differences between current 135 and 120 Gold emulsions?

 

[George Mann]

Can you do Ektar after you've discussed the differences between current 135 and 120 Gold emulsions?

I have shot Ektar in 35mm for as long as it has been available. I am just beginning to shoot it in 120.

But so far, it pretty much seems the same.

 

[brbo]

But 120 Gold emulsion is so different from 135 that it makes you go WOW?

 

[George Mann]

But 120 Gold emulsion is so different from 135 that it makes you go WOW?

It's a reformulation on a clear Ester base.

 

[brbo]

That would probably be Estar. So 120 looks totally different from 135 version (which is also on Estar)?

 

[Agulliver]

I agree, when Kodak brought out Gold I was crestfallen. It makes red look like mud. It gives a muddy hue to everything regardless of how it's printed or scanned. I understand it's supposed to make more dull days look bright.

But in 120, the current Kodak Gold looks great. I don't know why that would be the case. But it's good stuff. Whereas from what I see online, Gold in 135 is still that muddy mess.

Hence my preference for Color Plus or Ultramax.

 

[koraks]

Out of curiosity, I checked the Kodak Gold 200 datasheet. It suggests the film is available in 135 and 120 formats, and the March 2022 version of the datasheet gives an acetate base for the former and Estar for the latter. Other than that, I see no different versions of e.g. the spectral sensitivity or the spectral dye density plots. As such, it surprises me that the film supposedly looks differently in both formats. It either means that there are two distinctly different versions, but Kodak doesn't bother with publishing a datasheet on either one and specifying the actual product for the other one. Or the alleged difference is due to other factors instead and is not really due to the film itself.

I'd almost be tempted to get a roll of the 135 and the 120 stuff, shoot them side by side and then scan and/or print them side by side, too. What stops me mostly is that I assume someone has done this. Right?

 

[blee1996]

Incidentally, I also recently found that the 200 ISO "consumer" color negatives (Fuji C200 in 135, Kodak Gold 200 in 120) are more than decent. I actually think the Fuji C200 stock is better than the Gold 200, but then again C200 is not available in 120. Ektar 100 has been my go-to emulsion in 120, but I will start to add Gold 200 to the mix for its price and slightly different palette.

In my youth, I kinda look down on the 200 ISO negative films as mediocre consumer stuff, with lousy grain, high contrast and garish color. But I guess my lackluster reaction then was because of the lackluster quality from corner 2-hour mini-labs. Now that I develop my own C41 film and scan with good scanner (Nikon Coolscan), I feel the ISO 200 film stocks of modern days have a very nice quality and color palette. Maybe Kodak and Fuji have improved their formula, or maybe just because I have a better quality chain.

 

[brbo]

Gold 200 in 135 is now definitely on Estar.

Currently I don't shoot 120, but I've done Gold 200 135 vs Lomo Tiger 200 110 side-by-side comparison. At one moment I thought Tiger 200 must be Gold because I was getting better results that I expected from some older Kodak emulsion Lomography usually gets from Kodak. This comparison showed me that Tiger 200 is not current Gold 200. It must be some older emulsion, closer to what I would get from Lomography CN 100 or ColorPlus 200. I was also surprised by how good the grain was compared to Gold 200 (well, 5400dpi would probably show a bigger difference, but since I can't scan 110 on Minolta 5400 I was limited to 4000dpi scanner with a glass holder).

First scan is balanced for Gold 200 (late afternoon), second scan for the middle of both films (so Gold is too green, Tiger a bit too magenta):

 

[Henning Serger]

Out of curiosity, I checked the Kodak Gold 200 datasheet. It suggests the film is available in 135 and 120 formats, and the March 2022 version of the datasheet gives an acetate base for the former and Estar for the latter. Other than that, I see no different versions of e.g. the spectral sensitivity or the spectral dye density plots. As such, it surprises me that the film supposedly looks differently in both formats. It either means that there are two distinctly different versions, but Kodak doesn't bother with publishing a datasheet on either one and specifying the actual product for the other one. Or the alleged difference is due to other factors instead and is not really due to the film itself.

It could indeed be caused by factors not related to the film itself.
And there is one very important factor for different colour rendition which is almost always ignored here on photrio:
The colour transmission of different lenses.
These differences can be indeed really huge and clearly visible in a side-by-side comparison.

An eye-opener for me was a test I did many years ago:
I took Provia 100F 135, a colour chart as a refernece subject, and then on the same film I photographed this colour chart with different Nikkor, Zeiss and Sigma lenses.
Result:
First I could not believe that the differences are so significant, but they really are! I had expected a visible difference, but not such a significant and clear difference.
The differences in colour rendition have been so big that in a blind test photographers assessed that the shots were made with different films!

Best regards,
Henning

 

[koraks]

And there is one very important factor for different colour rendition which is almost always ignored here on photrio:
The colour transmission of different lenses.

Yes, that factor can play a role as well. A side by side comparison of the 135 and 120 formats of this film should ideally use the same optics.

 

[Steven Lee]

Maybe it's different with film somehow but when I did a similar test by mounting a bunch of lenses on a digital camera with a manual white balance setting, the difference in color rendition was extremely faint and mostly on a blue-yellow axis. But the lenses I had on hand were all relatively modern though... 90s and newer.

 

[Henning Serger]

Yes, that factor can play a role as well. A side by side comparison of the 135 and 120 formats of this film should ideally use the same optics.

For a reliable test the same lens must indeed be used.
But that isn't a problem as there are lots of adapters for medium format lenses on 35mm cameras. So for example I could use my Mamiya 645 Sekors via adapter on my Nikon SLRs.

Best regards,
Henning

 

[MattKing]

There is a more recent datasheet around that shows that Gold 200 has been moved over to an Estar base.
But I would suggest that the differences observed are more likely due to two factors:
1) scanning protocols for 120 Gold 200 are newer and better; and
2) the 35mm Gold has been incrementally improved over the years, and the scanning protocols for it have also evolved.
I would be interested in seeing how the results compare between the formats from someone who prints optically.

 

[Henning Serger]

Maybe it's different with film somehow but when I did a similar test by mounting a bunch of lenses on a digital camera with a manual white balance setting, the difference in color rendition was extremely faint and mostly on a blue-yellow axis. But the lenses I had on hand were all relatively modern though... 90s and newer.

It depends significantly on the age / era of the lens, the manufacturer and their approach.
Just some examples:
- My Nikkor lenses are mainly very neutral / natural in their colour rendition. Nevertheless there are some visible differences, e.g. the AF-D 1.8/85 has a tendency to a bit cooler tones compared to my 50mm Nikkors. And the AF-S 4/300 ED has a bit warmer colour rendition than my other Nikkors.
- With improvements in coating technology the colour transmission has changed as well a bit over the years with my Nikkors, and especially quite strongly with the Sigma lenses (the newer Sigmas are much better than my older ones).
- My Zeiss Milvus / ZF lenses differ significantly from my Nikkors and Sigmas, offering more saturated colours and a warmer colour rendition (I really like this Zeiss approach). The current Zeiss Milvus lenses have identical colour transmission, so you can change lenses without any problems in a set and keep the colour transmission constant.

Best regards,
Henning

 

[brbo]

Maybe it's different with film somehow but when I did a similar test by mounting a bunch of lenses on a digital camera with a manual white balance setting, the difference in color rendition was extremely faint and mostly on a blue-yellow axis. But the lenses I had on hand were all relatively modern though... 90s and newer.

It's not different on film and you are right about blue-yellow bias. The largest difference I ever saw on multicoated lenses of similar vintage was in the range of about 3 clicks of yellow filter when printing (and that was with a Olympus Zuiko 40/1.4 half format lens with slight yellowing because of thorium element). The difference in contrast will be far more noticeable.

Two different lenses, two different auto exposure systems, same film:

 

[DREW WILEY]

Classic Kodacolor Gold was classified as an amateur film, and rarely had the advantage of proper cool storage, or attention to anything resembling an expiration date, like their pro films. It was designed to give some kind of acceptable skin-tone look nonetheless. And if that drifted with aging, at least is was somewhat salvageable, often at the expense of other hues. And combined with cheap drugstore processing, consistently wasn't its game.

Now you're trying to compare relatively fresh film, no doubt revised, probably shot with a metered camera, and potentially scanned. Why wouldn't things look different? But it probably has nothing to do with the distinction between 35mm and 120 formats.

And with amateur scanners, the sampling size with 35mm is so much less than with 120, that will skew the results. You need to compare the difference between high-quality scans of each for an objective result (i.e., drum scans).

 

[George Mann]

OK, after reviewing all the facts about this film, including reviews posted by the most intellegent reviewers, and noting all of the technical data therein, I am here to tell you that this emulsion isn't likely to be what you have know as Gold, but is in fact mostly identical to Portra 400.

It has the same latitude and reciprocity with similar grain structure and overall charateristics of Portra, but with downrated speed, and greater saturation.

This is also the only Gold which is rated as a professional film.

So in a nutshell, if you took the filmbase of Portra 400, coated it with the Gold color dye pack and downrated it to 200, Gold 200 120 Profession is born.

 

[BrianShaw]

OK, that’s an interesting analysis. How do they downrate the film, though… just print different numbers on the box/datasheet? If so, wouldn’t the ISO rating specified for 120 Gold fail to comply with ISO standards?