Lucky C200 vs Phoenix II

[Skycreeper]

Despite being talked about a lot, there has not been much review about Lucky's new color negative C200 in the western part of the world since its lauch in July in China. I recently got my hands on this film and did a quick test comparing it with Phoenix II, which launched just one day earlier. Current price of Lucky is ￥59 (around US$8.2) inclusive of development/scan and 6inch print out.

Here are the side by side test shots. Camera is Contax G1+G45. I shot both films at EI 100. I developed myself in standard C41, and scanned with my R6, NLP converted using default settings.

Lucky

Phoenix II

Lucky

Phoenix II

Lucky

Phoenix II

Lucky

Phoenix II

Conclusion:

To my eyes, Lucky C200 is better by a margin. Phoenix II is a lot grainier, has less latitude, and highlight halation is bad.
Lucky has quite fine grain structure, color is a bit muted, but nostalgic. It does suffer from quality issues, including lots of blue/grey dots and banding, which is due to hand coating in the first batch. This is supposed to be corrected in the future runs.
If Lucky manages to get rid of these defects, and bring down the price to under ￥50 (US$7), I guess we would have a winner here.
Next I will compare it to Colorplus.

Btw, I encountered some banding issues with the Phoenix II. Has anyone else had this problem?

 

[brbo]

Thanks for showing us your Lucky 200 shots and Phoenix II shots with some reds in them. I don't know whether the latter is even more rare than the former...

The banding in Phoenix II is definitely not a coating problem. I'd definitely check you camera and processing.

Also wondering if scanning could be improved, Lucky particularly shows some really unattractive magenta casts...

 

[koraks]

I encountered some banding issues with the Phoenix II.

This looks like incomplete fixing. Check your processing.

I'm sorry to be 'that guy', but given the problems with the scans, I'd be hard pressed to conclude anything on how these films compare. The only thing we can say anything about would be the halation. The rest is influenced so strongly by factors that do not relate directly to the film used that it's just not sensible to draw any conclusions from.

 

[pentaxuser]

This looks like incomplete fixing. Check your processing.

I'm sorry to be 'that guy', but given the problems with the scans, I'd be hard pressed to conclude anything on how these films compare. The only thing we can say anything about would be the halation. The rest is influenced so strongly by factors that do not relate directly to the film used that it's just not sensible to draw any conclusions from.

Well except to say that purely based on the comparison scans in each case the Lucky colours seem more natural and the grain less coarse

Is this due to the way the scanning was done - I have no idea. If these were 2 sets of prints in my hands then I'd have to say that the Lucky prints win hands down

Just what my eyes tell me of course

pentaxuser

 

[koraks]

If these were 2 sets of prints in my hands

But they're not.

Mind you - there's no doubt the Lucky product is by far more mature and will generally give more true-to-life results.

 

[pentaxuser]

But they're not.

Mind you - there's no doubt the Lucky product is by far more mature and will generally give more true-to-life results.

Yes, it's that plus the apparently lower grain I see in the Lucky scans that wins the day for me

pentaxuser

 

[koraks]

That is one aspect that I suspect is rather strongly influenced by specific parameters not inherent to the film. The overall pattern may still hold.

 

[wang qing song]

这两个卷都挺差，尤其乐凯，根本不能用啊

 

[ChrisGalway]

这两个卷都挺差，尤其乐凯，根本不能用啊

Google translates this as: "Both of these volumes are pretty bad, especially the Lucky, which is totally unusable."

Why do you say that?

It would be good to have a review of the new machine-coated production run of Lucky Color 200.

 

[wang qing song]

Google translates this as: "Both of these volumes are pretty bad, especially the Lucky, which is totally unusable."

Why do you say that?

It would be good to have a review of the new machine-coated production run of Lucky Color 200.

你可以在样片中看到有各种污点，这有点类似5207的碳层没清除干净的感觉

 

[ChrisGalway]

你可以在样片中看到有各种污点，这有点类似5207的碳层没清除干净的感觉

Google translates this as: "You can see various stains in the sample, which is a bit like the feeling that the carbon layer of 5207 is not cleaned cleanly."

My understanding from other reports is that the initial batch of Lucky Color 200 had coating faults and this was acknowledged by Lucky, who said that the full production runs would not have this coating fault.

So I would like to see a review of the new machine-coated film that I understand is now available from Reflx Labs worldwide and doubtless other outlets in the next few months.