Kodak Gold 200 Revisited

Ever since I wrote the December 20^th (2012) post on this film (Kodak Gold 200) I’ve had a nagging thought in the back of my mind that maybe I was not being fair in my evaluation of it. The truth is I have never really used this film for anything other than quick family snapshots, often taken with an inexpensive point & shoot camera. So how could I really be objective about its suitability for anything else? With that question in mind I decided to do something about it. I put a roll into my “go to” (film) point & shoot, the Canon Snappy LX II, and another roll in my “state of the art” Pentax ZX-30.

From the start I wanted to shoot more than just family snapshots although I did some of those too.  The photo above was taken with the ZX-30 at f8, 1/250 and ISO @ 200 of course. The similar shot below was taken by my son Noah, using the Canon Snappy LX II.

As you can see the color is great in both and since these are high resolution scans the overall quality is better than the low res scans used for my last roll of Kodak Gold 200. This 20^th century film doesn’t seem to scan as well as the 21^st century Kodak Portra films which were specifically designed for scanning. The grain is of course much more noticeable but I think the colors are rendered more accurately (although I personally still prefer the Portra for most things) and would likely produce excellent “wet prints” if they were available anymore. I suppose the only way to get “wet prints” these days is to do them yourself.

In any case I still say Kodak Gold film is best used for snapshots where the accurate and “eye popping” color will “light up” your photo albums sufficiently to overcome any objections to added graininess and the low price (while supplies last) will allow you to take as many photos as you want.