The First Real Look at Lucky’s Hyped New Color 200 Film
Lucky’s hyped new film finally launched last month, although it sold out almost immediately, leaving many photographers entirely out of luck. However, they can still see how the new film works thanks to Reflx Lab.
After a lengthy development period, which itself has caused some pretty wild in-fighting among global distributors, the Lucky Color 200 film finally debuted at last month’s Shanghai Image & Vision Expo. As Kosmo Foto saw, Reflx Lab got its hands on the new film for a review.
Show attendees queued to buy the film, although Reflx Lab notes that “most attendees left empty-handed.” That same day, July 17, Lucky opened up online orders for its new film, but the roughly 100 rolls sold out “within seconds.” To say that analog photographers are excited about Lucky’s new color film is an understatement.
The film is relatively affordable, especially by modern analog photography standards. A 36-shot roll, which includes shipping, development, and scanning services, is just 59 yuan, or $8.22 at current exchange rates. Reflx Lab notes that in China, a classically affordable color film like Kodak ColorPlus is $9. Even though Lucky is still a “cheap” film option, its fans hoped for an even more aggressive price point. Significantly cheaper film has been Lucky’s modus operandi for decades.
That said, Lucky notes that its emulsion is still being refined and the company is still tinkering on the formula, aiming to improve it before entering full-scale mass production. Lucky says its initial production run is limited to 10,000 rolls, Reflx Lab reports. As part of this initial run, rolls of the new film have been manually coated, and there are some defects that Lucky says will be sorted out once the company moves to a typical production approach.
Reflx Lab, although a distributor of Lucky’s black-and-white film, still had to buy a roll online like everyone else, and the analog photo retailer paired it with the Pentax 17, which could potentially explain why some of the samples look a bit soft.
The film has “very strong rendering of red tones,” and Reflx Lab notes that the film’s cyan and blue performance is “relatively less vibrant,” although still okay. This is in stark contrast to Fujifilm’s color film, which is strong with cyan, and Kodak’s more yellow color films. Color film enthusiasts have a “rosy-red” option now, or at least will once Lucky’s new film is readily available.
“The red it presents feels much cleaner and more transparent—among all the films I’ve used, this one renders red the best,” Reflx Lab writes.
“Lucky 200 emphasizes red tones and tends to shift slightly toward red overall. However, in scenes without red, it still performs well across other colors. This aligns with the old saying from decades ago: ‘Kodak is yellow, Fuji green, Lucky red,'” Reflx Lab explains.
Reflx Lab concludes that, “all things considered, the newly re-released Lucky 200 is a solid film option.” Reflx Lab has many more samples available on its blog post.
PetaPixel’s Take
As for PetaPixel‘s take, editor-in-chief Jaron Schneider describes the Lucky Color 200 film as lacking punch.
“I’m immediately struck by how dull and washed out the colors are. Sure, red looks pretty nice, but the tones overall appear more blue and green-leaning and those tones are not vibrant. The overall look is a blast from the past, though, and the photos look just like the ones my mom would pick up from Costco when I was a kid,” Schneider says.
“There are a lot of affordable films out there and with Kodak Gold being only slightly more expensive than what Lucky will likely retail for, I am not sure the tradeoff for worse color is going to be worth it. But that said, Lucky has created a film with a spot-on ‘early 90s’ aesthetic that I’m sure will find an audience.”
Image credits: Reflx Lab
