Kodak Gold Plus 200

Kodak Gold Plus 100

Kodak Gold Plus 200

by Jack and Sue Drafahl

Consumers may notnotice that Kodak'snew Gold Plus 100and 200 films have

significant changes to their emulsions.They will only notice that their pictureskeep getting better and better. Thesetwo new films do sport significantchanges, yet the only visible change isthe "Plus" added to the box.

TECHNICAL CHANGESBefore we take you through our field

tests, we want to give you a little back-ground on the emulsion improvements.Most incorporate the "T-Grain" tech-nology of the Ektar film family. GoldPlus 100 uses this technology entirely,and 200 Plus utilizes it in all layers ex-cept the improved, fast yellow layer.

42 PHOiographic/August 1992

Kodak Gold Plus 100

Kodak Gold Plus 200

Color100 & 2000Emulsions

Kodak Gold Plus 200

Kodak Gold Plus 100

KODAK FILMSThe speed of both films has been in-

creased 1A stop, so that underexposuresare more easily printed. This will makeamateur photographers think they aredoing better with their exposures, when,in fact, the film is handling underexpo-sures better than before.

There's also a new magenta dye cou-pler, which provides brighter and more-saturated greens, and cleaner-lookingwhites. Improvements to the reciprocityof these films have been made to a pointbeyond most photographers' needs.This change in reciprocity is most visi-ble when using flash, flash-fill, and longexposures.

Both films incorporate all these im-provements, but the ISO 200 film hasmore significant changes than the 100-speed emulsion. Of all the amateur col-or-negative films Kodak has released inrecent years, the Gold Plus 100 and Plus200 have the most accurate and true-to-life colors to date.

LIGHTING CONDITIONSBoth Gold Plus films were designed

to be used under a wide variety of light-ing conditions in which amateur pho-tographers seem to find themselves. Thebasic balance of both films is for day-light and flash exposures, but picturesunder tungsten and fluorescent lightingcan be taken without filtration andprinted with only minor color correc-tion. If you want all the images to printwith similar printing packs, you can usean 80A filter with tungsten and a CC30magenta filter with fluorescent lights.

Exposure under any of these lightsources can range from Y\o,ooo to 10 sec-onds with no filtration needed to com-pensate for reciprocity failure. Kodakdoes not recommend exposures over 10seconds with these films, but we foundthat exposures up to 3-5 minutes werepossible with small adjustments to ourenlarger printing pack.

ENVIRONMENTALCONSIDERATIONS

Because of the increased awarenessof the environmental impact of photog-raphy, Kodak is trying to improve itsstandings with Mother Nature. First,both Gold Plus films no longer needformaldehyde as the last step in the C-41 process. This is due to stabilitychanges in the emulsion and a new, im-proved finishing step in the C-41 pro-cess. Previous versions of this film re-quired this chemical to keep the dyelayers stable over long periods of time.Some other Kodak films still need this

44 PHoiographic/August 1992

final chemical step, but Kodak tells usthat eventually, all films will be formal-dehyde-free. Kodak has also eliminatedthe use of mercury, and has reducedother solvents in the manufacturing ofGold Plus films. There are still morehurdles to cross in protecting the envi-ronment, but these changes are a step inthe right direction.

TEST DRIVETesting the new color-negative films

becomes more and more difficult, be-cause nowadays you can achieve highimage quality from any of Kodak's col-or-negative-film families. So, when wetell you that the grain structure is betterthan before, you may not see any differ-ence until you start making enlarge-

SPECIFICATIONS

FILM: Kodak Gold Plus 100TYPE: Color-negativeBALANCE: Daylight/flashSPEED: ISO 100EXPOSURE-TIME RANGE: 1/W-10secondsPROCESS: C-41LATITUDE: -2 to +4 stopsRESOLVING POWER: 100 Ipm (1000:1target), 50 Ipm (1.6:1 target)

FILM: Kodak Gold Plus 200TYPE: Color-negativeBALANCE: Daylight/flashSPEED: ISO 200EXPOSURE-TIME RANGE: Vooo-10secondsPROCESS: C-41LATITUDE: -2 to +4 stopsRESOLVING POWER: 100 Ipm (1000:1target), 50 Ipm (1.6:1 target)

DISTRIBUTOR: Eastman Kodak Co., 343State St., Rochester, NY 14650; tele-phone 1-800-242-2424

ments over 8x10.Where we did see an improvement

was with the greens and yellows. Theywere much brighter and cleaner than be-fore. On a recent trip to Europe, wefound a bright-green telephone boothagainst a drab, brown church to testthese green improvements. We usedGold Plus 200, and were extremely im-pressed with the resulting negative andprint. Not only did the colors match, butthe contrast level was actually betterthan in the original scene!

Our red-saturation test consisted ofseveral red windows and doors on someof the local buildings. The resulting im-ages held full detail throughout the redareas, and did not bleed as with some ofthe older color-negative films on themarket. One particular red door wasfound in deep shade, with a heavy northlight. In past situations like this, print-ing would have meant large changes inthe filter pack to compensate for the

blue north light. Using the new GoldPlus 200, we only had to make minorcorrections to the filter pack beforeachieving an excellent print.

We then moved inside a church andfound some mixed, dim lighting. Thescenic contrast was extreme, but we feltthat the film's new latitude would beable to hold most scene detail. What wedidn't count on was the film's ability topull all the scene detail. This film actedmore like Kodak's VPS film, with itsextreme latitude; however, the Plus hasfiner grain and more color saturation.

Back outdoors, we found a bright sunagainst a pale blue sky. We loaded a rollof Gold 100 Plus and looked for brightcolors. Our first subjects were an oldstandby—flowers. We started withoverall shots and eventually worked upto the close-ups. We found the satura-tion of all the colors to be excellent,even when photographed in full sun-light. Close-up images taken with flashended up with the same filter pack, indi-cating that the reciprocity problem wasindeed a thing of the past.

Windmills at the water's edge wereour final test. In these tests we usedboth slide and negative film to see howwell subtle tones would be recorded onthe color negatives. We used a Nikonfilm scanner to scan the color negativesand image them on color-slide film witha film recorder. When we compared theoriginal slide film to the image createdwith the scanned negative, we foundboth images to be almost identical.

EVALUATION OF PHOTO LABTESTS

Additional tests in the photo lab indi-cated that both 100 and 200 Plus filmshave a solid -2-stop to +4-stop latitude.When we say "solid," we don't meanmerely acceptable results, but morealong the lines of "excellent." The con-trast and color saturation were excellentin prints made from both ends of the lat-itude range.

Taking a close look at the sensitome-try results of Gold Plus 100, we foundthe overall density slightly higher thanwith the previous Gold 100 film. Thiswould indicate that the speed increaseof 1A stop with this film might actuallybe a little less. The results of the Gold200 Plus had a very noticeable increasein density, and it definitely is !^-stopfaster than before.

CONCLUSIONWe have said it before, and we're go-

ing to say it again. When film manufac-turers improve speed, grain, and colorreproduction, without sacrificing anytrade-offs, photographers gain from thechanges. We think these two new filmsare a definite "Plus" for our side. Q