Kodak Kodacolor 100 - 35mm Colour Negative Film

Eastman Kodak selling film under its own name again, for the first time in over a decade.

A brand name from 1942, a box that looks it.

Kodak Kodacolor 100 35mm Film is an ISO 100 daylight balanced colour negative film from Eastman Kodak. Kodak describe fine grain, high sharpness, saturated colour and wide exposure latitude, with good shadow detail held in bright, high contrast scenes. Standard C-41 process. DX coded, 36 exposures, metal cartridge, made in the USA.

What Makes Kodak Kodacolor 100 Habit-Forming

Eastman Kodak, Not Kodak Alaris

Since the 2013 bankruptcy settlement, Eastman Kodak has manufactured still film while Kodak Alaris handled distribution of the Kodak branded consumer stocks. Kodacolor 100 and 200, announced in October 2025, are the first films Eastman Kodak has sold directly to distributors in over ten years. Kodak said the move was intended to increase supply and bring some stability to a market where prices have swung about.

Nobody Will Say Which Emulsion It Is

Kodak's statement described the Kodacolor films as sub-brands of existing Kodak films offering the same quality, which is a sentence doing a great deal of work. Community consensus points at Pro Image 100, and Kodak has declined to confirm or deny it. Side by side tests have produced argument rather than a verdict. Treat it as a Kodak consumer 100 stock and judge the negatives.

The Kodacolor Name

Kodacolor first appeared in 1942 on Kodak's first colour negative film, and the name carried through Kodacolor VR, VR-G and Gold over the following decades before being retired. Reviving it for a consumer line is sensible brand housekeeping, and the retro yellow packaging is a good deal more appealing than the current Kodak Professional boxes.

Colour and Contrast

Saturated rather than neutral, with the warm bias that runs through most Kodak consumer colour. Kodak describe high contrast alongside good shadow detail, which in practice means the highlights are where your attention needs to go. Skin tones come out well.

ISO 100 Wants Real Light

The honest limitation. One hundred speed is a bright daylight film, and British bright daylight is a seasonal privilege. Indoors, in shade, or after about four o'clock in November, you will be at shutter speeds that need a tripod or a steady hand and some optimism. If most of your shooting is opportunistic, ColorPlus 200 or Gold 200 will frustrate you less.

Fine Grain, Built to Enlarge

The upside of the slow speed. Kodak position it for enlargements and scanning, and at ISO 100 the grain stays subtle enough that 35mm negatives hold together at print sizes where a 400 speed stock starts showing its working.

Standard C-41

Nothing unusual. No remjet, no special chemistry, no awkward phone call to the lab. It runs through the same process as every other colour negative in the catalogue, ours included.

DX Coded, 36 Exposures

Metal cartridge, DX coded for ISO 100, so compact and automatic cameras meter it correctly without intervention.

Is Kodacolor 100 the same as Kodak Pro Image 100?

Kodak has not confirmed it. The company describes the Kodacolor films as sub-brands of existing Kodak films, and the widespread assumption among film photographers is that Kodacolor 100 is Pro Image 100 in different packaging, sold in single rolls rather than five packs. Nobody at Kodak has said so on the record, and no datasheet has appeared to settle it.

Should I shoot Kodacolor 100 or Kodacolor 200?

Two hundred, for most British shooting. The extra stop matters more than the marginal difference in grain, and Kodacolor 200 carries a published latitude of two stops under to three stops over. Choose 100 when you have strong, steady light and want the cleanest possible negative for enlargement or high resolution scanning.

Best For Bright daylight work where the light can be relied on: landscape, architecture, summer travel, outdoor group shots, and flash photography where neutral rendering matters. It is the film to load when conditions are good and the negative needs to enlarge cleanly, and the wrong film to load on a grey Tuesday. Once you have shot it, send it our way. We develop, scan and print C-41 in house, and a fine grained 100 speed negative is exactly the sort of thing that rewards a proper scan.

Perfect for: Photographers who like a slow film and plan around it, anyone curious about what Eastman Kodak does with its own distribution, people who collect boxes as much as negatives, shooters who want Kodak colour without the Portra invoice, and anyone whose dependency now extends to buying the same emulsion twice under different names.

Whether or not Kodacolor 100 turns out to be an old emulsion in a new box matters less than what it signals. Eastman Kodak putting its own name back on still film, and selling it directly, is the first structural change in Kodak's consumer film business since the company came out of bankruptcy. The film community spent a decade assuming the next piece of Kodak news would be a discontinuation. This one was not. More Kodak film and colour negative film, posted from North Essex.