Kodak Kodacolor 200 - 35mm Colour Negative Film

The everyday Kodak colour film, now sold by the company that makes it.

Two stops under, three stops over. It has always been quite hard to ruin a roll of this.

Kodak Kodacolor 200 35mm Film is an ISO 200 daylight balanced colour negative film from Eastman Kodak. Kodak specify fine grain, high sharpness, saturated colour and an exposure latitude running from two stops underexposure to three stops over. Standard C-41 process. DX coded, 36 exposures, metal cartridge, made in the USA.

What Makes Kodak Kodacolor 200 Habit-Forming

Eastman Kodak Selling Direct

Since the 2013 bankruptcy settlement, Eastman Kodak has made the film while Kodak Alaris sold it. Kodacolor 200 and its 100 speed sibling, announced in October 2025, broke that arrangement: the first Kodak films sold directly to distributors by Eastman Kodak in over ten years. Kodak followed them with its own versions of Gold 200 and UltraMax 400 in the same retro packaging.

The Latitude Is the Point

Two stops under to three stops over is a published Kodak figure, and it is the most useful thing about this film. Guess the exposure on a compact with a tired meter and you will still get a usable frame. Consumer colour negative forgives!

You May Already Own This Film

If ColorPlus 200 is already your default, Kodacolor 200 is very probably the same emulsion in a better box, and nobody has yet found a difference that survives testing. Buy it because you want the Eastman Kodak version or because you like the packaging, not because you are expecting a different negative.

Medium Speed, Which Is the Useful One

ISO 200 is the speed that covers a British day without argument. Fast enough for handheld work in ordinary cloud, slow enough to keep grain in check, and a stop clear of the trouble that 100 speed film runs into every October.

Colour Character

Saturated, warm, and recognisably Kodak consumer colour rather than the restrained palette of the Portra family. Greens and blues read cleanly, skin tones lean warm, and contrast is moderate. Some testers find it marginally more neutral than ColorPlus, though others put that down to scanning rather than the film.

Standard C-41

Ordinary colour chemistry. No remjet, no special handling, no need to warn the lab in advance. Ours or anyone else's.

DX Coded, 36 Exposures

Metal cartridge, DX coded for ISO 200, so point and shoot cameras will meter it correctly on their own.

Is Kodacolor 200 the same as Kodak ColorPlus 200?

Almost certainly, though Kodak will not say so. Kodak describes the Kodacolor films as sub-brands of existing stocks, and side by side comparisons have failed to produce a difference that holds up. Some testers report Kodacolor reading slightly more neutral and ColorPlus slightly warmer. Others attribute that to scanning and processing variation rather than the emulsion itself.

What ISO should I rate Kodacolor 200 at?

Box speed is fine, and the latitude means small metering errors will not cost you much. Kodak publish a tolerance of two stops under to three stops over. If you prefer denser negatives with cleaner shadows, rating it at ISO 100 and developing normally is a well established approach with consumer colour negative film and causes no problems at the lab.

Best For Everyday shooting, travel, street work, holidays, compact cameras with unreliable meters, and anyone who wants Kodak colour without thinking hard about exposure. It is the film to keep in the bag rather than the one you save for something. Once you have shot it, send it our way. We develop, scan and print C-41 in house, and this is the stock our tanks see more of than almost anything else.

Perfect for: Beginners who want a forgiving first colour film, photographers who shoot a lot and want to keep shooting, holidaymakers who will not be metering carefully, anyone interested in what Eastman Kodak does next, and anyone whose dependency is measured in rolls per month rather than per year.

There is something quietly reassuring about a company reviving a name from 1942 and putting it on a film aimed squarely at people who just want to take pictures. Kodacolor 200 is not trying to be interesting. It is trying to be the roll you grab on the way out of the door, which is a harder brief than it sounds, and the reason Kodak has been making a version of this film in one form or another for eighty years. More Kodak film and colour negative film, posted from North Essex.