Lucky Color Film "First Look"

Minolta93 · Jun 21, 2025

I'm sharing this in case anyone is interested. It looks like Chinese manufacturer Lucky is finally releasing some test photos of the new C-41 film they had made an announcement about some time ago. I remember them talking about a price point of $5.60 before, but the new article (https://petapixel.com/2025/06/20/the-first-look-at-china-luckys-new-color-35mm-film/) says it'll be more like $7.

I don't know about everyone else, but I was excited for something in the five dollar range. At seven, it's pretty much level with the 3-packs of rebranded Kodak film sold as Fujifilm 200 or 400, and I don't know if this film would be worth buying over those at essentially the same price. Based on the test photo, it looks okay, but not at the level of Kodak.

Still, I'll probably try some anyway once it comes out.

xiaruan · Jun 21, 2025

I found some samples of size 120 and 4*5 on Chinese social media platforms. Here is a brief update.

Minolta93 · Jun 22, 2025

I had no idea they were doing this in additional formats. Do you have any scans showing what the negatives will look like after being inverted?

Disconnekt · Jun 22, 2025

The bump in price may be due to the constant flipfloping tarrifs thats been happening the last couple months. Reflx Labs had mentioned a day or so ago that Lucky was planning to release it in mid-July.

koraks · Jun 22, 2025

Minolta93 said:
At seven, it's pretty much level with the 3-packs of rebranded Kodak film sold as Fujifilm 200 or 400

Uhh, yeah, other than that there's no really affordable 4x5" offering and I understand that Lucky is actually offering that.

Disconnekt said:
The bump in price may be due to the constant flipfloping tarrifs thats been happening the last couple months.

My guess is that the initially suggested price point was just a case of baseless optimism to begin with. It often goes that way; the R&D process for a product starts at 100% and then when all's said and done it ends up being 160%. As product development progresses, total cost always goes up - never down.

halfaman · Jun 22, 2025

Minolta93 said:
I'm sharing this in case anyone is interested. It looks like Chinese manufacturer Lucky is finally releasing some test photos of the new C-41 film they had made an announcement about some time ago. I remember them talking about a price point of $5.60 before, but the new article (https://petapixel.com/2025/06/20/the-first-look-at-china-luckys-new-color-35mm-film/) says it'll be more like $7.

The prices are for China only. In another thread was mentioned that for the rest of the world it will be similar to Kodak Color Plus.

koraks · Jun 22, 2025

xiaruan said:
I found some samples of size 120 and 4*5 on Chinese social media platforms.

Thanks for sharing those with us! I played a little with the first two examples:

(Blue & green channels were clipped on the highlights in this one)

Of course, inversions from photos of negatives posted on social media are never going to be top-notch...but still, all this looks like a perfectly normal, mature color negative film to me.

Agulliver · Jun 23, 2025

Here in the UK, Nik & Trick have stated that it'll be priced similarly to Kodak Color Plus...that a *lot* of work has gone into producing this film and that's the lowest price possible.

Color Plus is usually my "go to" colour film but I'll consider giving this a try.

pentaxuser · Jun 23, 2025

koraks said:
Thanks for sharing those with us! I played a little with the first two examples:
View attachment 401304
(Blue & green channels were clipped on the highlights in this one)

View attachment 401305

Of course, inversions from photos of negatives posted on social media are never going to be top-notch...but still, all this looks like a perfectly normal, mature color negative film to me.

I agree but it looks as if the cat is looking at the same picture and is shocked and angered at his out of focus appearance

pentaxuser

koraks · Jun 23, 2025

Cats have a way of being shocked and angered pretty much all of the time. So far the pattern I've been able to identify to it goes something like this:
* Have not received food in past 10 minutes --> be shocked & angry at evident case of starvation.
* Have not received cuddles in past 10 seconds --> be shocked & angry at lack of appreciation for continued provision of purring services.
* Have received food in past 10 minutes, but quantity insufficient (i.e. it was physically possible to finish in one sitting) --> be shocked & angry at life-threatening risk of malnourishment.
* Is in process of receiving cuddles, but strict petting protocol not adhered to with inappropriate order of petting spots, petting in pre-determined no-go areas or attempts of human to engage in other activity as petting proceeds --> be shocked and angry at gross lack of observance of protocol and thus undermining underlying relationship between cat and manservant.
* All other instances --> be shocked and angry as a matter of course.

pentaxuser · Jun 23, 2025

So just the average cat

pentaxuser

Disconnekt · Jul 2, 2025

Some news from Reflx Labs over on IG on Lucky Film

Tldr,
- Lucky Film will be releasing their 200 ISO color film at the Shanghai Vision & Image 2025 exhibition during 7/17-7/19
- Retail price for 36exp. rolls will be ~$7 bucks, will be a bit cheaper in China.
- First batch of film will be 10,000 rolls, then gradually increase production

Samu · Jul 8, 2025

koraks said:
Cats have a way of being shocked and angered pretty much all of the time. So far the pattern I've been able to identify to it goes something like this:
* Have not received food in past 10 minutes --> be shocked & angry at evident case of starvation.
* Have not received cuddles in past 10 seconds --> be shocked & angry at lack of appreciation for continued provision of purring services.
* Have received food in past 10 minutes, but quantity insufficient (i.e. it was physically possible to finish in one sitting) --> be shocked & angry at life-threatening risk of malnourishment.
* Is in process of receiving cuddles, but strict petting protocol not adhered to with inappropriate order of petting spots, petting in pre-determined no-go areas or attempts of human to engage in other activity as petting proceeds --> be shocked and angry at gross lack of observance of protocol and thus undermining underlying relationship between cat and manservant.
* All other instances --> be shocked and angry as a matter of course.

A dog thinks:"Because the human gives me food and takes care of me, he must be God"
A cat thinks_ "Because the human gives me food and takes care of me, I must be God".

This must have an impact when taking photos of pets. A sausage in your pocket will make the dog very interested in looking to the camera. Cats do what they want.

By the way, I am a theologian...

unityofsaints · Jul 11, 2025

They claim to want to go all the way up to 8x10", if that ever happens and quality control is acceptable (Foma or better) I'll be very excited. I only have so much 15+ year old Portra NC and VC left in my freezer.

Prest_400 · Jul 18, 2025

Ran into an update, which by the way probably related with a Shanghai Imaging event where Lucky should have launched their color film (in China)

Original Rednote post from the thread above: http://xhslink.com/m/9K7kd8CSuhD

dcy · Jul 18, 2025

Impressive.

koraks · Jul 19, 2025

Funny, there's a similar tomato-red in those sample images to Harman Phoenix II.

(and for some reason they seem to have mirrored that photo...?)
This can of course be an editing choice.

A quote from the reddit post, which is a translation of the original rednote post:

its mask is notably green, making color correction more challenging than with most other films during dev and scanning.

The samples we've seen so far do not show a green base at all. Weird?

I'd take that rednote post with a grain of salt btw.

a high Ag level that gives it superior saturation and tonal depth compared to all other color negative films currently available

Oh really now...hurrdurr.

Anyway, looks like a reasonable alternative at least for many people for generic Gold/Superia 200. A true substitute for Kodak CN films? I really doubt it if you're after color fidelity. But many people aren't, so they may like this film and perhaps its price tag (although we'll have to say what it'll retail for in the West).

Minolta93 · Jul 19, 2025

This looks far better than the images I saw earlier and better than I expected.

Minolta93 · 2025-08-11T20:52:33-0400

Does anyone have information on when this film is expected to be available in the United States?

Lucky Color Film "First Look"

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Lucky Color Film "First Look"

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