Lucky Color 200 Pushed to 400 in 120: Full Impressions And How It Holds Up
Preface
This article is a follow up to our Lucky 200 @ 400 (135) article.
With Lucky Color 400 seemingly not releasing in 120 any time soon, I've decided to try pushing Lucky Color 200 to 400.
120 has less than half of the shots of 135 film so we'll have less sample shots. I did try to vary the subjects to give us a good range of samples to look at.
Shooting assumptions
For this roll we'll be operating with the following information about how it was handled:
Shooting Information:
Camera & Lens Used: Bronica ETRSi + 75mm f2.8
ISO Shot At: 400, pushed +1 in development
Lab: Gorae Film Studio
Editing Level: Crops, exposure +/- up to 0.66, minor contrast tweaks
Comparisons will be made to Lucky Color 200 pushed to 400 in 135 whenever it's appropriate
tl;dr
Lucky Color 200 performed exceptionally well pushed to 400 in 135 but I didn't find the same behavior in 120 which is surprising. The grain, colors and contrast look great when the film behaves as expected... the problem is that around a third of the images had inexcusable color casts that were difficult to predict and work around.
With enough work in post you can fix them but this level of difficulty wasn't present in 135 and Kodak's offerings are just easier to work with while being more consistent. For now we'll just have to keep waiting for Lucky to drop Lucky Color 400 in 120 as I don't think pushing Color 200 is worth it.
Pros / Cons
This a quick pros and cons list based on impressions and is not definitive. Things may be added or moved around to either list if more discoveries are made in the future.
Pros:
Shadow detail seems preserved nicely in contrasty situations suggesting dynamic range is maintained
Scenes without harsh lighting or shadows have a neutral look that is true to life
Skin tones have a nice warm tone to them and don't experience severe issues with color accuracy while maintaining their "Lucky" look
The contrast and saturation increase is nice without being overwhelming in well lit or moderately contrasty situations
Cons:
Color shifts feel unpredictable and they seem to happen more aggressively than Lucky Color 200 in 135 did
Some photos end up taking a purple or magenta tone both in the highlights and shadows
The tape to seal the film when you're done still has the same issue as it had during our prior look at Lucky Color 200 in 120... not exclusive to pushing this film or anything but it's very frustrating and detracts from the experience.
Results
Since a 120 roll of 645 film only yields 15 images, we'll just review the images that haven't been distributed throughout the rest of the article.
Looking here at this contrast-y picture of the sky we can note 3 things.
The dynamic range is actually quite good! This was taken around 8am on a partially cloudy morning and you can see the detail and texture of the cloud while also seeing details on the buildings and power line.
Color casting is shockingly bad. The sky has an unnatural color, the clouds are magenta, the dark silhouetted buildings are green. This is basically experimental film behavior and not at all what I would have expected.
Grain is noticeable. It's rough. It's gritty. I don't think this is a bad thing though as I don't think it's out of control and with the increased negative size and resolution of 120, I don't think it's a problem. It just doesn't have the fineness that grain in 120 typically does.
This is a picture I took of a little flower during an overcast part of the morning so the light was pretty soft and even, creating a diffused light. We can see color casts again. The petals have a magenta hue while the greenery is... less green and more purple-y. It's not bad per-se but again, more akin to an experimental film.
More foliage photography. This image is a bit closer to realistic color reproduction and has similar lighting to the prior shot due to being about ~3 minutes apart from when they were taken. We can see here that this image also has the magenta color cast on the highlights but the shadows are cleaner. They maintain the cool Lucky tones in the shadows as you'd expect while having a bit of warmth in the mid-tones. I'm happier with this image.
The out of focus area past the patch of flowers has a purple tone that I'm nearly certain was not like that in real life though. I find it a little distracting but I'm not sure if that's because I'm aware the color has shifted so much. Maybe to someone who doesn't know better it wouldn't be an issue...
I would consider this to be one of the outstanding images from the roll. The woman's skin tones are lovely and contrast-y with a nice warmth. The out of focus area outside of the cafe has a nice glow-y softness. The colors are vivid while still having a warm creamy tone that I like and contrast is very strong but not to the point where I feel like it's detracting from the image or causing loss of information in the highlights or shadows.
Based on the performance of pushing Lucky Color 200 in 135, this is what I was expecting when trying the same with 120.
This image is another example of the film performing well, and quite honestly, better than I expected. If I recall correctly, this was an extremely dark tent that had having light coming in and reflecting on the furnace(?). I expected this to be dark and too contrasty to provide a workable image but as you can see, we have good shadow detail, tones fall off nicely, the red chair has a beautiful saturated color, the cardboard boxes have a pleasing orange tone, as does the oven. Shadows do have a greenish cool tone but this is in line with what I expect of Lucky's film. Additionally, there's no distracting blooming or halation either which is a good performance.
This was another slow shutter speed shot at about 1/8 f2.8 or f4. This image didn't fare as well but the contrast in this shot was more dramatic with the bird being lit by the sun pouring in between buildings while the shadows were stark and nearly pitch black. I metered on the line between the light and dark and then gave the shot a bit of extra light to ensure we'd have some shadow detail.
What we see is that there are hot spots on the bird that aren't fully blown out but they have a glow to them and look like they're pretty close to blowing. It didn't look quite this dramatic in person but the human eye is a pretty incredible thing with how it handles dynamic range.
I think this shot is pretty close to pushing the limits of what Lucky 200 pushed to 400 could handle and I don't think that it would have fared much better without a push or in 135.
This scene was a pretty easy shot to see how an overcast day would do. The blues of the poster have a nice soft color to them despite the push while the woman's red shirt (or maybe it was pink) is vivid and bright. The yellow sign does also have some vividness to it but the reds throughout the frame definitely stand out the most.
When shooting Lucky Color 200 in general you need to be careful with the reds you let into your frame as they can quickly take over and be distracting. With Lucky 200 pushed to 400, this becomes even more necessary as the saturation of the reds increase much more than the saturation of other colors with the push.
While this image is shot wide open, the grain is large enough that it starts to introduce illegibility on text that is within or close to the plane of focus. Other than that, this area did have even lighting which I think lends itself to allowing Lucky Color 200 to do its best at 400. This is true of all film, lol, but I quite like how it captures these softly lit scenes with a bit of punch and saturation while still having a filmic softness.
In this image we can see that detail resolves even at infinity if you zoom in and start looking through the rooms of the building. I want to say this shot was stopped down to around f8 maybe and while the grain does muddy some fine details when trying to see what's exactly in a room, you can still make it out for the most part.
Clouds also retained details and texture but in the brightest part the texture of the clouds wash out a little. I can't say for certain if it was like this in person as I don't remember the exact details of the clouds during this time of overcast but there are patches in the clouds that are basically flat which isn't my favorite.
Compared to 135:
For those who haven't read the Lucky 200 pushed to 400 in 135 article, the tldr is that it performs very well. Shockingly well, in fact. Results had good dynamic range, colors were in line with what I would expect and images were consistent. It set my expectations pretty high for the results that we'd get from Lucky Color 200 in 120.
The fact of the matter is that the 120 roll didn't live up to the expectations that the 135 roll had set up for it.
Lucky Color 200 in 120 saw more color shifting and inconsistencies in development. It's possible this is a temporary situation as I've heard that Lucky has been refining their emulsion over time. Based on this behavior in 120 maybe this is why they haven't released Lucky Color 400... but either way, it's disappointing.
The grain performed well, dynamic range held up as you'd expect but as it is now, the inconsistency and color shifts aren't something I would want to deal with. Lucky Color 200 in 135 didn't have issues to this degree. Sure, there were times where shooting high contrast or difficult scenes were challenging for the film but overall I would say it was a strong and consistent performer. Lucky Color 200 in 120 didn’t deliver that same behavior.
Alternatives:
Kodak Gold 200 @ 400:
Normally, I try not to flat out dismiss a product but in this case I think you should just use Kodak’s Gold 200 if you want to push to 400 in order to avoid the Portra / Ektacolor tax. I've found Gold 200 to be superior in every way imaginable but most importantly, Gold 200 doesn't have such a wildly unpredictable color shift. If the color shifts for Lucky Color 200 were at least predictable, we could make an argument for Lucky.
As it stands, Gold 200 is just better unless you want to develop your roll of film having no idea what you're going to get for a more experimental experience.
Ektacolor 400 / Portra 400:
This film exists in an entirely different price bracket than Lucky 200 even after the cost of pushing. If you have the budget and want the best performance you can get at 400 speed film, this is the film to get. Colors will be more consistent, you'll get better dynamic range, editing is much simpler and flexible, grain is much finer, everything will be better with that film.
The only thing I'd argue is that for street photography I find the saturated and contrasty look you get from Lucky Color 200 to be nice for posting straight away without needing to fiddle. You can obviously do that with Portra too but the gritty look of Lucky lends well to street photography in my opinion.
But this is an apples to oranges comparison. Anyone considering this film for 400 speed shooting was probably never considering using Lucky Color 200 in place of it unless its out of necessity.
Thoughts:
Lucky Color 200 pushed to 400 in 120 is more of an experimental film than an everyday film. With the inconsistent results all within the same roll, I found myself puzzled at how this film provided such great results with 135 but failed to have similar results in 120.
The dynamic range was actually pretty good, colors were punchy and vibrant like how you'd expect from Lucky and portraits have great potential. But when decently exposed images show issues with color accuracy, I fear how this film would perform in situations where you're hurting for light.
As a weekend project, pushing Lucky Color 200 to 400 could be fun but I really hope that Lucky Color 400 in 120 comes out soon. And I hope that it does better than what we saw this time.
Additional Reading:
Bronica ETRSi Long Term Impressions - Thoughts After 1 Year Together
Mamiya 6 150mm Lens Review - The Internet’s Only Review Of This Infamous Lens