Comparing Colour Film + How to Make a Camera in 2026

A Monthly Newsletter for GOLD Members

7 min read by Dmitri.
Published on October 24, 2025. Updated on October 24, 2025.

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October 2025 has been a month of surprises: from the new Kodacolor line to the first autofocus point-and-shoot camera from Lomography.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll show you how I compared several Kodak films and learned the slightest differences between them. Seems like this knowledge can be useful given that we’re getting an influx of new colour films this year!

Plus, in the spirit of Halloween and to celebrate the three new film cameras that surfaced this month, I’ll talk about cameras you can make at home and how I’ve done it with a very scary pumpkin. 🎃

In this newsletter: Free film. Making accurate film comparisons. Making cameras at home. Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!

Left: a homemade gingerbread camera with a sugar lens “self-portrait” on Instax Square through a mirror. Right: a homemade pinhole camera inside a pumpkin “self-portrait” on redscaled Harman Phoenix through a mirror.

Free film.

If you aren’t yet a GOLD subscriber, here’s a little incentive for you: I’ve been giving away 3-packs to random winners every month — and you can be the next to get one!

All you need to do is subscribe and wait for an announcement on the last Tuesday of each month. As of now, you have 3 chances to win! The last draw will be in December 2025.

Details.

Making accurate film comparisons.

I have yet to see film packaging accurately describe its contents. Even marketing materials and samples can be hard to take at face value, as photographers in the know understand that various developing, scanning, and editing tools/techniques can significantly affect the results.

Frankly, many film comparisons in the wild are at least mildly skewed as they lack control over lighting, development, scanning hardware and software, appropriate colour balance adjustments, and several more parameters. Mistakes in these areas led several people to spot and share non-existent differences between identical films.

As a result, some folks end up losing time and money. When Kodak announced Kodacolor 200 film earlier this month, some stores sold it at a considerable markup, and many were out of stock almost immediately. Though the packaging may be worth the price and wait for some, Kodak Kodacolor 200 is identical to Kodak ColorPlus, as shown in my results and the identifying markings on the film itself!

Kodak’s three ISO 200 colour films: ColorPlus, Kodacolor 200, and Gold.

It can be hard to tell films apart on their own. Imperfect comparisons can also be problematic. This is why controlled tests with side-by-side comparisons are the best way to make fine differences between the formulas — plain and functionally¹ identical emulsions — apparent.

Lenses and cameras. Lenses usually render light in unique ways; if the difference between the films being compared is small, it can be easily confused with optical distinctions. But more importantly, the angle of view, lens position, and even how well the cameras’ shutters are calibrated could matter significantly.

When Daren and I tested Kodak Gold vs. Kodak ColorPlus, we used just one camera, a Hasselblad 500 C/M with interchangeable backs, where we used 120 to 135 adapters. This seemed like an ideal solution as we’d be looking through the same camera and lens for both films — except that the film didn’t lie as flat as it would in a dedicated 35mm camera, so some of the photos turned out a little blurry.

Imperfections are to be expected, however. After all, we’re looking for differences between films that can be reasonably discernible. Yet it’s good to be aware of any drawbacks in the comparisons so that they can be considered in the final decision.

Light. Outdoor light is not as reliable as studio light. Even on a perfect sunny afternoon, a light breeze will shift the shadows, making studio-lit comparisons the best way to compare films. However, as I’ll point out later, outdoor-lit tests also have their merits.

You should also keep in mind how the light reflects off everything in your scene. If you move your camera slightly, the colours can change!

A tiny home studio made with a sheet of white cardboard, studio lights, and a few props could be enough to test the film.

Props and subjects. Testing colour film requires some colourful objects in the frame. I like to arrange my props so that they look somewhat interesting; after all, this is not a university lab but a photo blog — but that’s a personal choice. The most essential component should be a clean colour test chart, but it would also be good to include a person in the test shots as modern colour films are fine-tuned for skin tones, which are also the part of a photo most people will pick apart.

Setting up practical scenes. Though outdoor scenes may not be as easy to control, I think it’s important to include at least a couple of shots since nature can provide a wide range of colours and situations not found in a studio.

Bracketing. One of the easier ways to tell how well a film will perform is to bracket it — expose it a few shots over and under the box speed.

Film development. It’s best to develop both films you’re comparing in the same tank and chemicals. If your local lab is known to be consistent, you can ask them to do that for you (if it’s C-41, as it’s a standard process) — but you will need to scan your own film if you want valid comparisons.

Film scanning hardware and drivers. Dedicated film scanners are usually the best task for the tool, as all the components are internal with no chance of stray light affecting the scan. Tools like Nikon COOLSCAN can pull more colours from the emulsion with VueScan set into “slide” mode to take full control over your image (that is, scan your film as a digital negative).

Film inversion. Film inversion software is famously inconsistent and opaque in how it turns negatives into positives. To ensure that the test is comparing films, not hidden scanner settings, I always invert my negatives manually or use film Q (which produces a straight inversion without any corrections added).

White balance and colour-correction. Just because you’ve got two images that look a little different doesn’t mean these are different films. Making minor changes to white balance should not erase the differences between films, but rather highlight how they perform in a typical situation. But those changes should follow the same steps (in this guide, I describe how I use greyscale masking to fix the scan colours).

By this point, films that are sufficiently different won’t look exactly the same even if you try to make them so with image editing software (as it won’t be able to “create” colours that aren’t there). Here’s a little more info on how this works.

Physical properties. One of the best indicators of differences between films is their physical properties. Does one feel thinner than the other? Do they dry flat, or does one of them curl? And, most importantly, do they have the same edge markings?

Edge markings on film are manufacturers’ way to identify and market their emulsions. They can signify the differences between films; however, some manufacturers will print custom markings for clients who whitelabel their film (yet that’s different from the ID numbers Kodak and Fujifilm print on films that come directly from their factories, which I understand are designed to be distinct for each emulsion recipe).

Making cameras at home.

Beyond comparing and choosing the right tools is the act of making them. As film photographers, we can make our own cameras — and it’s not that difficult to start.

In this month’s members’ exclusive post, I’ve described several ways to make a pinhole camera — and even some that involve creating working lenses made of sugar. The easiest one is just a piece of cardboard with a tiny hole and an SLR that you may have lying around (it doesn’t even need to be a film camera!)

Check out the article: “How to Make a Pinhole Camera.”

This month, I decided to try something new: carving a pumpkin. Of course, I’ve turned it into a camera and then went a little nuts by adding a mirror, a few candles, redscaling the film, and exposing it for over an hour to get this one shot (the above link describes all the details):

“Pumpkin Red’s Haunted Selfie.”

That’s it for this month.

Thanks so much for your support!

— Dmitri.

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