My name is Andrew and I am a fine art destination wedding photographer in Italy (Lake Como, Amalfi). However whenever I have free time I spend it creating various projects related to photography or film. One of my projects - testing various 35mm and medium format film and posting my results online. This time we are going to have a look at Kodak GOLD 200...
When I came to Ireland in March I did not expect such an amazing weather. I had a pre-planned photo shoot at the Atlantic ocean but the weather was so beautiful (which is quite rare in Mayo) that I ended up having 4 photo shoots and tested 5 different films. Obviously I came to Ireland unprepared for so many sessions so I visited one of the locale photo stores in Castlebar where I found only two films - Kodak Supercolor and Kodak GOLD. I bought both. What surprised me was the price. Both films were at the range of 8 Euro which is insane for this cheap film. For 8 Euro you can get Kodak Portra which is a professional film and was reviewed by us many times in the past. Anyway, I have got both films and invited my friend's wife Rita for a photo session in town. It was quite fun looking for interesting places and corners in the town where I spent 8 years in the past and had zero photo shoots back then. We had to rediscover Castlebar and I think we did it quite well. So I am presenting to you images from that film. You will find more information about my experience and the whole test on the bottom of this page. Enjoy!
Kodak GOLD 200 35mm
Camera: Olympus OM-2n
Lens: Olympus Zuiko 50mm F1.8
Location: Castlebar, Ireland
Dev + Scan: Photolab (Lithuania)
Challenges:
I think there were two main challenges - finding good locations for photo shoot and battling the harsh sun light. Other than that I was pretty OK when working with this film since weather was amazing and my ISO was just right for it. I still see quite a yellow tint in my images and one of the teachers of photography from US commented that this type of film should be used with the special cooling filters on the lens. Well she is most likely right but the goal of my test was not to arm myself to a pro level and test cheap film but rather try being as simple as possible so that the result would be exactly the same as of the beginner who just got his first film camera. I hope I achieved my goal.
Personal opinion:
I would like to thank the amazing staff from Le Patisseria Di Angelo who allowed us taking few shots inside the cafe where I wanted to try window light instead of taking all pictures outside. Now coming back to film - I think the film in Castlebar is overpriced but other than that - it is a nice low budget film that can be used in well lit situations. ISO 200 is quite low and in Irish cloudy weather I would avoid this film and go for ISO 400 if I had a choice. I was lucky enough to catch enough sun so the film was OK and I am pretty happy with the results.
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