Kodak RG 200

Is Kodak RG 200 a lo, med or hi contrast film?

It has been my 200 asa film of choice for several years. I suppose I would say it is a medium contrast film. By comparison RG 25 was high contrast, and RG 100 had very good contrast while the few 800 and 1000 films I have used were very low contrast. Colour rendition of the 100 blew away the colour rendition of the 200, so I used the 200 only when I was desperate, but it is decent for 200 asa. Rg 25 or course was a phenomenal film and I still have 20 or so frozen rolls to baby. Not sure what I will use instead of RG 200, only a few of those left in the freezer. If you are thinking of buying some leftover stock at a reasonable price, I'd say go for it. Good luck!

Don't buy expired RG200, as HD200 is the exact same thing. About the time RG100 was discontinued, RG200 and RG400 were repackaged as the "High Definition" stuff for marketing purposes, and early rolls of HD200 and HD400 were still marked "RB" and "RC", respectively; these were the ID's of these films.

 

And I'd agree about RG/HD200 being a medium contrast film. It's also a very nice film. I have an 11x14 of some flame orange clouds at sunrise hanging on my wall.

how's the contrast of HD400? medium or high? Higher than Reala or NPH for sure, but compared to Superia/UC?

I disagree that RG 200 was medium contrast. It had extreme shadow

contrast, more than RG 100 or RG 400, although highlight contrast

was well controlled. HD 400 seems about the same as RG 400, which

I'd rate medium-high contrast. Excluding Konica, which I can't judge,

the only higher contrast 400 speed C-41 film might be Superia 400.

But I could be persuaded otherwise, not having a lot of experience

with HD 400.

That's strange, Bill. I've had the exact opposite impression of these films. As I said above, my experience (with Kodak processing on Kodak paper, always) is that HD200 is more medium contrast (maybe, as you say, medium-high), but not really high. The cloud picture I mentioned above has quite a dynamic range, yet retains a good deal of detail among the dark, back-lit branches. It's pretty typical of my experience with HD200. HD400, on the other hand, seems to me to be higher in contrast than the 200, though I haven't done any scientific testing. It certainly seems higher than UC400, though that's an entirely different film (or is it? Oh, that's for another thread....). On the other hand, Superia 400 certainly seems higher in contrast than HD400. I haven't used Max 400 in so long that I don't remember, and I've only used Vista 400 once. Never used Optima 400 or any Konica other than Impresa.

Chris, I was talking about old Royal Gold 200 (RB-2). I never saw

RB-3 packaged as Royal Gold 200. I don't have enough experience with

HD 200 to say. Certainly HD 200 seems to have less shadow contrast

than RB-2, so I think we basically agree. According to Ctein, old

Optima 400 was lower contrast but higher saturation than Portra 400NC,

which (depending on what Agfa did with new Optima) is currently the

lowest-contrast 400.