Old Gold 100 vs new Gold 100 results

[braxus]

I had to do this for myself since Gold 100 is one of my favorite films. It has recently changed to version 7. Kodak says the new film has brighter colors and more saturation. I took out 3 35mm cameras and loaded them up with Gold 100 version 6 (old), Gold 100 version 7 (new), and Portra 160VC (new). I wanted to see how close the VC film was in terms of coloring. Both Gold films were shot on EOS cameras with the exact same lens swapped between them. Both lenses that I used for EOS were the 50mm 1.8 and 17-40L lenses. I shot every shot on all cameras at f8. Shutter speeds were kept the same between the two EOS cameras with the Gold films in them. The FD camera had the VC film in it and I allowed the shutter to go where it wanted on that one. I wasn't too concerned on the VC film for accuracy. I just wanted ballpark results. Most shots were done on a Manfrotto tripod. Please keep in mind these results are hardly definative, as Im no pro in testing this kind of thing. I just wanted ballpark results to see if I could tell a difference between the films. I was looking at contrast, color saturation, and grain size. I scanned all 3 films at work on our Noritsu 3011 machine at 3000x2000 tiffs. Two sets of shots seen below were scanned on my Minolta Scan Dual 4 at 3200 dpi. From what I've seen here it looks like the new Gold 100 has had changes similar of what was seen on the Portra VC films. Saturation has increased while contrast has decreased. Old Gold 100 would be similar to the UC films in terms of color and contrast. Its now closer to the VC films. Some shots I saw not much in changes, but if you look closely on some shots, you'll see the contrast change and sharpness decreased. To me there is really no reason to use the new Gold 100 now, as Portra 160VC gives similar results and has finer grain. I can't say which of the two films has the better MTF in sharpness. Maybe someone can look that up. Someone on here may decide to do a more controlled test and get more definative results. Anywhere I have several scans to show here. Here is the first batch.

This was taken off the Noritsu scan and shown at 100% from the 3000x2000 file. Color is close, but you'll notice the old version has a sharper edge to it. This shot was done with my 50mm.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=35896684




This next set of shots were scanned on my Minolta at 3200 dpi. I was trying to see how the grain looked between the 3 films. But the middle shot of Gold 100-7 the focus seems to be off, so maybe just look at the grain instead of sharpness in this one. In all the shots the Gold 100-7 seemed to have a stronger tint in the color of his sunglasses. This seemed to be consistent.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=35896784




Here's another set of 100% crops as these were also from the Minolta scans at 3200dpi.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=35896884




Some downsized scans of the two films. Not much difference here.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=35896984



On the last two scans above you'll notice the brown of his jacket sweater is lighter in tone on the new Gold 100-7. The old film looks darker, so this is part of Kodak's "brighter colors" statement.

Here below is a scan from the 3 films from the Noritsu scans. Again you can see the color difference in the sweater jacket, but suprisingly the 160VC was muted in that area compared to the new Gold. There seems to be more shadow detail in the 160VC film as well. 100% crops are also shown below. Sorry about the missing sunglasses in the first shot.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=35897084



Another downsized set of pics. Main difference seen is again in the brown sweater.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=35897184



Here in this one you can really see how dark the brown sweater is in the old Gold 100. I haven't come to any real conclusions on the difference in grain size. Sharpness may be a touch better in the old film, of which the MTF seems to prove that. Colors are definately brighter on the new film. Even visually looking at the negatives between the old Gold and new, the old neg looks muddier and darker, while the new one has more color tint in it. Im sure the contrast difference is what is accounting for the sharpness decrease as well. From all this I think I might just stick with 160VC from now on.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=35897284



Again for others here is the MTF charts between the old version 6 and the new version 7.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=35897384



For fun here is a full rez image from the Noritsu 3000x2000 scan. I didn't duplicate this print on the other films, so its stands alone here. This one was from the Gold 100-7.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=35897584

 

[waynecrider]

Thanks for the report. And here's a bump for you! My treat.

 

[braxus]

I'll throw in one last set of pics. All shot on same shoot. I just didn't bother scanning it yesterday. These were all scanned on my Minolta at 3200 dpi. What you see on the second and last tier of pics are the 100% crops. All three films scanned too green, so I had to correct this. I used the pavement for that.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=35904484

 

[pentaxuser]

Nice of you to take the trouble to do this and share. I think the Portra 160VC wins very clearly in comparison and that the new Gold is a little better than the old. However if I am being honest I suspect that seeing each as a print separated by say a week, I would have been less aware of the differences, although it is in skin tone that I think I'd be tempted to say that either of the Golds are not quite as I'd want skin tone to be.

Portra VC does look natural.

Maybe someone can do a comparison with the Fuji equivalent to Portra VC

Thanks again for your effort.

pentaxuser

 

[Photo Engineer]

Good job Scott.

PE

 

[braxus]

Thanks Ron. Here below is the Tech pub from Kodak on the new Gold films.

http://www.kodak.com/global/plugins/acrobat/en/consumer/products/techInfo/e7022/E7022.pdf



Here below is the old Tech pub for Gold 100.

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/products/techInfo/e2328/e2328.shtml



Here below is the tech pub for all the new Portra films including 160VC.

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/e4040/e4040US.pdf



I didn't think the skin tones were too bad off the new film. They may be a little pasty, but neither of us have seen sun for a while here.

For fun I'll post two images here from the same shoot showing skin tones. Both of these were on the Gold 100-7 roll. I resized them down for posting online here. Here's the two shots.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=35907384

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=35907484

 

[nworth]

I agree with your conclusions: higher saturation, lower contrast, somewhat less sharpness. The greens look artificially intense, a criticism I've had with Fuji films for some time. In the flower picture, the soil looked more natural in the version 6 shot, but the brown sweater in the other shots looked muddy with version 6 and better with version 7. You were there, so you are the best judge of which film was more accurate and just how accurate the films were. Browns are extremely difficult to render for many color films, but extremely important to many of us who photograph a lot of dirt. The MTF chart for version 7 (which I couldn't find on the Kodak website) looks a lot like the MTF chart for Kodak Vision 2 - 100T motion picture film. The grain is also similar.

 

[braxus]

Weird. I would have thought Vision 2 100T would have been finer grained the Gold 100. Gold 100 is no benchmark in that area. As for the soil picture, I had issues with yellow soil in both films.

 

[frotog]

Oh no...I was unaware that Kodak changed the gold 100 emulsion. I'd like to stock up on the version 6. How do I know if my supplier still has the old stock vs. the new? Is it possible to id the version 6 from code on the packaging?

 

[braxus]

Just look at the box. It says New on it. I know it says With Brighter Colors.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/uploaded-file?bboard_upload_id=35483484

 

[film_guy]

Awesome test shots, and thanks! I like the colors from Portra 160 the best, but the new Gold looks great too. The greens from the new Gold looks the most natural to my eyes.