Eastman Kodak has added two more films to its still films line-up, a month after the US film giant brought some of its film back into in-house distribution.
Kodak Gold 200 and Kodak Ultramax 400 joined the range on the Kodak.com website on Monday (3 November), alongside Kodacolor 100 and Kodacolor 200, which were the first films to be added in early October.
Both of the films feature the same retro-style yellow boxes that were unveiled for Kodacolor 100 and 200.
Kodak still films had been distributed by Kodak Alaris since 2013 as part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The listing for Kodak Gold 200 says: “Kodak gold 200 is a versatile, medium-speed, daylight-balanced color negative film designed for everyday photography. It delivers fine grain, vibrant color saturation and sharp detail, with reliable and consistent color reproduction across a range of lighting conditions.
“Its broad exposure latitude tolerates up to two stops of underexposure and three stops of overexposure making it a forgiving choice for both amateur and professional photographers.
“Available in 135 and 120 formats.”
The listing for Ultramax 400 says: “Ultramax 400 is a high-speed, daylight-balanced color negative film designed to perform across a wide range of shooting conditions. With fine grain, vivid color saturation, sharp detail, and consistent color reproduction, it’s ideal for capturing everyday moments with clarity and vibrancy.
It enhances low-light performance, extends flash range, improves action shots, and helps minimize the effects of camera shake making it a reliable choice for dynamic and spontaneous photography.
Both film were, at the time of publishing, still listed on the Kodak Alaris-run Kodak Professional website.
The Kodacolor 100 and 200 films are widely believed to be renamed versions of Pro Image 100 and ColorPlus 200.
This announcements means all of the Kodak consumer colour films are now offered by Eastman Kodak. It remains to be seen whether other films – such as the professional Portra colour films, and black-and-white films like the classic Tri-X – also follow suit.
- * Many thanks to Dmitri from Analog Cafe for the heads-up
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I never did quite follow exactly what Kodak Alaris was all about. As far as I can tell, it was basically an entirely independent company, that got away with having Kodak in its name through an agreement with Eastman Kodak.
So what happened then? Eastman Kodak continued to manufacture film, but just passed it along to Kodak Alaris to get it to market? (Being pretty business-illiterate, I don’t see the rationale for that – but anyway.)
So why now has Eastman Kodak decided that it wants to take back on this responsibility of bringing its own film to market? What has materially changed? Is it a more appealing business prospect now? Or is this being forced upon Eastman Kodak somehow? What’s happening with Kodak Alaris in all this? Will film still be supplied by Kodak Alaris? Does it depend on global regions? Does Kodak Alaris want to exit the film business?
PS. I prefer the new boxes 🙂
Kodak Alaris was formed by the Kodak Pension Plan in the UK, as a way of not bankrupting Eastman Kodak for good while still getting some return for the (former) Kodak employees under that plan.
The KPP bought a couple of imaging divisions from EK in the agreement, so that they could get a return from the exploitation of said businesses. Another part of the agreement was that Alaris would distribute stills film. Alaris has since been sold to a venture capital firm, and potentially due to that, Eastman seems to now be allowed to distribute stills film themselves too.
Eastman has also specifically mentioned that the expansion of their manufacturing capacity being the main reason they are now distributing these films, though, which might mean Alaris’ agreement is based on a certain amount of film, or percentage of Eastman’s manufacturing output, rather than exclusive distribution rights.
The larger output then allowing Eastman to meet Alaris’ agreement, while also making enough to sell themselves. This tracks, as Eastman does have agreements with other companies for stills film distribution (CineStill with their tweaked Vision3 films and re-rolled B&W motion picture films, and Lomography for a couple of color negative stocks).
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