For this Film Friday review we are featuring one of the sneakiest best and less expensive color films available to 35mm photographers: Kodak Ultramax 400.

Perhaps the first thing to have in your mind when it comes to Ultramax 400 is that it is a product of its branding. What we mean by this is that Ultramax is really a part of the Kodak Gold family, but since it no longer shares the Gold name, it has not enjoyed the same cult following that the other Kodak Gold films have. Also because it is considered a “consumer” film we automatically think that it is going to be of lower quality as well as being cheaper. Then there is the fact that Kodak Ultramax 400 comes in a rather unimpressive box and can (2023 update: Kodak has redesigned the Ultramax box and it now sports a very elegant and understated box design, even if the film can could still benefit from a modern makeover). We may like to say that we don’t judge books by their covers, but in reality first impressions matter a lot and if you hold a can of Kodak Ektar and a can of Kodak Ultramax 400 in each hand, you’ll agree that one of them just looks more professional. Design can matter in this way. Having said all that now, let us tell you that there is definitely wisdom in not judging this book by its cover, as there is a lot to love about Kodak Ultramax 400.

But first a bit of its history and a sample image.

Be prepared to like Kodak Ultramax 400 a lot more than you expect. It has surprisingly vibrant colors and is a great bang for the buck given its lower cost.

The film now known as Ultramax 400 wasn’t always called such. It has gone by many names over the decades: Kodak Ultra Gold, Gold Max, Max, and Max Versatility to name just a few. It’s simplest name is probably just Kodak GC. The “G” signifies that it is part of the Gold family, with the “C” being a reference to its speed. Kodak Gold 100 was “GA”, Gold 200 is “GB” and Gold 400 aka Ultramax 400 is “GC”. Kodak GC first came to the world in the late 1980s along with the other Gold films. At that time it was known as Kodacolor Gold 400. Revisions to both the emulsion and its branding relabeled the film as Kodak Gold 400 in 1997. It adopted the moniker Kodak Ultramax 400 in 2007. Since its inception, there have been at least nine revisions to the emulsion that we could confirm, and possibly more than that.

There are a couple of conclusions to draw from this history. The first is that Kodak Ultramax 400 is a long running film that has been tweaked multiple times over the years and despite its name, still has strong ties to the Gold family. Second, because of its long history and continued evolution the Kodak Ultramax of today is not the same as the Gold 400 of yesterday. There are similarities, but if you grew up with Kodacolor Gold 400 expect that there will be differences between that film and today’s Ultramax 400. Meanwhile, why Kodak chose to rebrand the film and not continue to overtly associate it with the Kodak Gold films is unknown to us.

What is known though is how wonderfully this film performs. The best thing about Ultramax 400 is its colors. This film has bright, clean, poppy colors across the spectrum. Blue skies are rich and bold. Reds and oranges jump out. Greens are lush. It handles all vibrant colors seemingly equally well. No biases here that we see. But Ultramax 400 handles subtle colors nicely too. It actually does a pretty decent job with skin tones - unless you overexpose the film in which case skin tones pick up a bit of a yellow tint. Neutral colors likewise come across quite well with little to no color cast. Given that it is a consumer film, we’d be happy if it did an average job reproducing colors, but Ultramax 400 goes significantly farther than that with its colors.

A taste of how Kodak Ultramax 400 handles reds and oranges.

Meanwhile, more blue skies Ultramax style.

Ultramax’s greens are equally impressive. Image made with a Horizon 202 camera.

Perhaps we have piqued your interest with our praise for Ultramax’s colors but the savvy photographer in you probably next wants to know about this film’s grain. Ultramax’s grain is where the film is fairly pedestrian. Yes, it is grainy. There is no getting around that. It is not overly grainy and we certainly wouldn’t list its graininess as a weakness, but neither is it a strength. This is not Kodak Portra 400. That film has a Print Grain Index of 37 compared to Ultramax’s 44. Heck, that is almost on par with Portra 800 which has a Print Grain Index of 46. So yeah, this film is almost as grainy as shooting Portra 800. Then again, Portra 800 is considered “fine grained” for its speed. Ultimately film grain is an aesthetic and some photographers love it. Other photographers love to avoid it. We would say that Ultramax’s grain has never stood out to us in a bad way. We notice it when we make prints and scans from the film, but have never been turned off by it either. Maybe we are just used to seeing film grain. We will add that grain in finished images is impacted by several factors starting with exposure. If you underexpose this film, you will definitely see noticeable grain in your shadows that can take on a green cast and not look so great. So try not to underexpose. Likewise, overexposing by too much will also start to exaggerate grain. Then there is developing and printing/scanning. Many modern photo lab film scanners work to repress the grain of film images and often replace it with digital noise, so be aware of that factor too.

To round out Ultramax’s other visual qualities let us mention that its contrast is also pleasantly punchy. This film has more contrast than Portra does, which helps give it those nicely vivacious colors. It is not as contrasty, nor saturated, though as Kodak Ektar. It sits somewhere nicely between those films. As you might expect, it looks pretty similar to Kodak Gold 200 in this department. Also as you might expect, it has a lot of latitude and tolerance for exposure. Kodak suggests it will forgive up to two stops of overexposure but we bet you could go as far as three before you see noticeable effects on image quality. As with most color negative films, the recommended limit on underexposure is one stop. But let us share a couple images one of our staff shot while pushing the film to ISO 1600.

As if ISO 400 wasn’t a versatile enough film speed, right? Shoot this stuff anywhere between ISO 100 to ISO 800 without having to worry about compensating development and even go as high as ISO 1600 with the appropriate pushing done by your lab.

Despite its rather nondescript packaging and consumer, rather than professional, label Kodak Ultramax 400 has quite a bit going for it. And this brings us to its last perk: it’s price. Kodak Ultramax 400 is cheaper. It is not ColorPlus cheap but it is a far cry less expensive than Portra or Ektar or Fuji 400H. And this is welcome news to pretty much every film photographer as film prices have been steadily inching up over the years. Ultramax is inexpensive enough to be a guilt-free film to throw in that cheap point and shoot you just bought at Goodwill. Or it is a great budget film for that European trip where you want to be able to take several rolls without spending tons of money buying film but also don’t want to compromise the quality of those images. It is a great beginner’s film, but it is also a great film for the experienced photographer as well.

Now the litmus test: would we shoot a wedding with Kodak Ultramax 400? That’s a tough one. The short answer is probably not, especially since we know we could buy some Portra instead. But the longer, more nuanced answer is that if we had to, if we somehow ended up in the middle of shooting a wedding with no other film in our bags, we bet that the Ultramax would do just fine. It would produce a bit more punch and with a bit more grit than the smoothness and softness of Portra, but we could see it working just fine even so. And for everything else, we would have no problems burning through a roll of Ultramax 400.

Care to try a roll for yourself? We’ll give you the link just below and you can sample it and let us know how well you like it!
Kodak Ultramax (both 24 and 36 exposure rolls) can be found on our website right here.

And now to close it out with a few more sample images.

Staff member Tracy Pitts modeling some extension tubes for us.

Look closely and you can see the Ultramax grain in this sample image.

If you want to go crazy photographing all the spring flowers, this film won’t break the bank while allowing you to make hundreds of images and will return very nice colors in the process.

Another example of Ultramax 400 pushed to ISO 1600.

Film Friday - February 2nd, 2024. Kodak Ultramax 400