Kodacolor VR Film | This Old Camera #15

On this episode of This Old Camera we look at pioneer film Kodacolor VR. The first T grain film and the first to adopt DX codes.
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[@tapiopitkaranta7667]

I love it! Finally we can take photos by candle light.

[@AzrielKnight]

:)

[@autisticlife]

Thank you for making this video. I remember Kodak VR film well from back in the 80's. It was a jump in film quality and sensitivity. I remmebr talk of T grain was widespread amoung photographers. This film also sowed up the shortcomings of many of the zoom lenses avaibale back then. It was thought that nearly all zoom lenses were good enough for print film such was thier relatively poor resolving ability. T grain VR film was able to record the shortcomings of mamy zoom lenses. One upshot of this was a rapid improvement in zooms in the 80's. Back then a zoom lens was the favoured choice for many photographers, they were seen as flexible, creative and exotic. Primes became a lot less popular, I remember my Sigma 28-70 UC lens from the late 80's it was my favourite back then, sharp and detailed immages with a lot of barrel distrortion at 28mm. Leica tried to keep it quiet but this lens was the one they marketed as their 28-70 zoom and sold it for a lot more money, the only mount the Sigma branded lens could not be had in was Leica R. Ammateur Photographer cottoned on to this and ran a side by side test of the Leica and SIgma branded lanses and found their performance varied by only as much as production tolerances would give. I am struck how today prime lenses are favoured amoung film photographers. This has lead to me having a new appreciation of prime lenses which I use most now. Back in the 80's second hand prime lenses were cheap as photogrphers traded them in for zooms, and no one wanted a 50mm prime which was seen as the old hat kit lens included by maufacturers too mean to include a zoom.

[@broski499]

“Like polishing a turd” Bravo

[@lindsaymobil22]

Really thoroughly enjoying these new episodes of TOC Azriel, keep it up! :)

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks Reece, appreciate it. I enjoy it quite a bit. I have a few really great cameras coming up, I just need some back issues from the late 70s.

[@stevenlederman3208]

VR was also released in 120 and 127 formats. Although there is an opinion on various forums about reducing sensitivity by 1 stop per decade, if the film was stored frozen it can be shot at box speed - at least for the lower speed versions.

[@AzrielKnight]

Agreed. Properly stored you don't need to pull.

[@ganzonomy]

Azriels videos are epic!!!!

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks :)

[@photoholic6369]

I shot the film very often in the beginning 90's. Never knew the history of the film , and never seen these ads :-)! Thanks for producing this video !!

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks for watching :)

[@blossom.ch4]

Keep up the quality content, Azriel!! If you ever feel discouraged or in a slump, just know that I love your videos.

[@AzrielKnight]

heh, thanks Tom :)

[@Otokichi786]

One of the most interesting outcomes of the T grain wave was...Kodachrome 400! (And all this time I'd been hoping for "Kodachrome 100" to arrive to do battle with Fujichrome 100.) I tried a roll and found it interesting as "Tri-X Pan in color." But by this time, a job change made me put my cameras away until 2003. Oh well, Kodacolor 100 and 400 were fun until Life got in the way.

[@AzrielKnight]

What kind of job interferes with photography? No thanks ;)

[@sergiopcr]

Yes. Great episode. Always a joy to see your videos. Cheers.

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks very much Sérgio

[@alexcheetah79]

1:11 I'm curious to know more about that Sigma SLR

[@PoeInTheDitch]

He’s back.

[@AzrielKnight]

Yes! This is my second vid in the last month, actually :)

[@ganzonomy]

I love these toc videos! Especially on Kodak history.

[@AzrielKnight]

Thank you.

[@Napoleon-Blownapart]

Welcome back dude, miss your content 👍

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks man. Just in case you wern't aware, I released another vid last month on the Minolta Maxxum 7000

[@diegoscopia]

Kodak VR200 is still being manufactured! Although now sold as Colorplus 200, Kodaks cheapest film.

[@AzrielKnight]

Colorplus, is that a european brand?

[@tlhawkins4671]

So glad you are back!

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks very much :)

[@ManuelGuzmanPhotography]

This video was as nice as it was unexpected. Glad to see you're back!

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks Manuel, this is actually my second video in the past month, in case you missed it.

[@billing5426]

So nice to see you back azriel, keep up the good work!!

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks very much :)

[@MichaelZieschang]

I purchased a bunch of Kodakcolor VR400 plus expired in 2010/2011 which has been my main medium for the last months. The grain starts to grow significantly. I also redscaled some rolls but I do like the results of Kodak Gold 200 more. And: Great to see you back.

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks very much Michael!

[@tantan56]

Welcome back buddy, It's always good to see you.

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks very much Mohamed!

[@TorontoBoris]

Finally! The reason you've been teasing this film on IG for a while.

[@AzrielKnight]

LOL, was wondering if anyone caught that.

[@TorontoBoris]

Azriel Knight Well it seems that I did. You had me going. So you're telling me that VR morphed into Kodak Gold? If so it makes sense why I shoot so much of it.

[@AzrielKnight]

Yeah during my research I read VR-G was relabeled Kodak Gold later on.

[@TorontoBoris]

@@AzrielKnight well since i shoot about a dozen eolls of gold 200 per month, Im happy to hear that.

[@janhoogendijk8604]

You can use clear petrol and clear film montage to scanning without and scratches & newton rings I use it in Pro Scanning works perfect. on the glass of your scanner a little petrol and then your negative or diapositive a little petrol and than the montage film. remove air bubbles and you ready for perfect scanning old negatives.

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks for the comment Jan. I've never heard this method before, can I have a link?

[@ianhand5006]

Great review of a film I used to shoot when I was at college.

[@AzrielKnight]

It probably looked a lot better fresh :)

[@ianhand5006]

@@AzrielKnight I liked it at the time. When I was at school I used to shoot ORWO Chrome, which was from East Germany. My go to colour negative film was Kodacolor VR because I thought it looked more natural than Fuji film at that time. I've become a patron again and I hope more people do so, because your content is excellent!

[@vdiniso]

I learned something new, "Newton Rings"... I've had that occur on a couple rolls of film and I couldn't figure out the cause, thank you Azriel

[@AzrielKnight]

Hey, no problem! I have some anti newton glass but it's a pain to use, needs to be taped down and can only scan like 5 frames at a time, instead of 12.

[@MartinLopez-lr9sj]

I had no idea you had to cut the speed for every decade... Learn something every day lol, the balloons are gorgeous too!

[@AzrielKnight]

Glad I could help Martin!

[@andrewreynolds1217]

I remember shooting Kodacolor VR in my Hanimex disc camera as a kid.

[@AzrielKnight]

Man oh man.

[@alexanderhakimi8297]

highly enjoyable. thank you sir.

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks Alexander

[@ASvideo88]

Hi Azriel, several years ago i developed many different expired (expired for 1-15 years 135 and 120) E6 & C41 films at home with Tetenal liquid chemistry. I encountered same issue with "blank" tops and bottoms of the developed film strips of random batches and emulsions of film. If the film expired more then 5 years before development sometimes after my usual development "ritual" i get blank tops and bottoms. After trial and error i came to conclusion that no matter how you store film, with time film base become more tougher and less penetrable for water and chemistry. For development i use two types of tanks: paterson with double 135 plastic spirals and noname with double iron spirals. Metal spirals has much less contact area with film so in case development with blank tops and bottoms i get much smaller blank tops and bottoms with metal spirals then with plastic. When film mounted in spirals and first developer is poured in film simply sticks to spiral and because of the up/down movement at the time of development you get gradiented blanks at the tops and the bottom. I find a way to dramatically reduce this issue with simple prebath with water of the same temperature as first developer for no less then 5 minutes. In this case i also do not overuse first developer (it does not sucked into emulsion and film base) and as result i get much cleaner color developer, in case of 3 bath tetenal E6 kit i developed 26 rolls of 135 E6 film in pairs with no single issue except development times become to long because i added time after first 12 developed rolls at the same rule as in tetenal manual. I developed this way more then 2k expired rolls of E6 film, about 70% of expired rolls was refrigerated by me or purchased from trusted seller. Sorry for my English, it`s not my native language.

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks for the comment and tips. I think for me the more I shoot expired the less I enjoy it. I liked the novelty, but now I just want solid results.

[@sophrapsune]

Great review & interesting history. Thanks.

[@AzrielKnight]

Thank you :)

[@TheDecguy]

Your thoughts on what to do with old films remind me of my idiosyncrasies. I have a brick of Kodachrome 64 in my freezer. Sometimes when I’m actually using the freezer for food (not that often since I’m a bachelor) I see the Kodachrome sitting there looking back at me. It brings a tear to my eye.

[@AzrielKnight]

Maybe someday someone will bring it back, either way it's worth more in the freezer :) Thanks for the comment.

[@filmismorefun]

Awesome review! The vid was jam packed with nostalgic info. I shot a VR roll earlier this year, and had a similar result. I'll still shoot expired color (working through a brick of versa max now actually), but I try to cap it at a decade. That tends to give a little bit a fade and degradation to add character, but not to the point of turd polishing as you had mentioned haha.

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks for the comment! A decade sounds about right. When I did the video on The Advanced Photo System I used film about that age and the results were great.

[@jakewestbrook3214]

I have two rolls of 100- The first is a 36 exposure roll, with no exposure markings on the back, I've shot one frame at 6(ish, because the camera it's in only goes down to 12), but I may go a little up after seeing this. The second Is a 24 exposure roll I found in an Argus C3, with the markings on the back. This one will be processed in the next week or two. Besides, expired color is a fascinating shooting experience.

[@AzrielKnight]

The more I shoot colour, the less I like it. But that's just me.

[@janhoogendijk8604]

informative historical KODAK VR not aged same like wine.

[@AzrielKnight]

lol, nope :)

[@merlinmarquardt]

Really excellent and informative video.

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks Merlin :)

[@layonel9900]

Hi Azriel ! Great video ! With the return of Ektachrome, you should talk about Kodachrome, it is a very interesting film in its conception with a very unique color rendering. I'm sure you would make a great and very interesting video about this.

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks for the suggestion. The reason I haven't tackled it yet is because there is soooo much history. I may have to make it a 2 parter. I'd also be worried I'd miss something. Someday :)

[@aag24]

Wonderful video, as ever, Azriel. Expired colour film is such a bad value for money here across the ocean in Englandshire (as I learnt to my cost a couple of years ago). Though I found some generic unbranded colour film that my mother kept in a fridge since I was a small boy - and it worked perfectly - the colours were so lovely. Obviously an emulsion that is no longer produced.

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks very much :) Fridge is the key to those films still being in good condition, for sure.

[@roesler4372]

I thought you were done!? Glad your back regardless.

[@AzrielKnight]

I thought I was too :)

[@iminthatweirdpartofyoutube2687]

I have some color film from 1955... I think ill keep it on the shelf!

[@AzrielKnight]

lol, good call :)

[@iminthatweirdpartofyoutube2687]

also heads up, if you order ektachrome from the film photography project you can get a dollar off per roll!

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks for the tip!!

[@iminthatweirdpartofyoutube2687]

Azriel Knight if you use the code "ektachrome" each roll is 11.99, the only problem is I have no idea what the price will be from everyone else!!

[@AzrielKnight]

B&H still offers free shipping for over $99 Canadian, probably stick with them. We'll see when I'm ready to order.

[@cristianionescu8510]

Hello! Do you by any chance have Kodakcolor VR 100 /200 Technical Data Sheet? Thanx.

[@ralfpetitt713]

Nice hair

[@AzrielKnight]

Keeps my face warm.

[@ralfpetitt713]

Azriel Knight haha

[@MichalT]

Azriel Knight Just like the "O loupežníku Rumcajsovi" cartoon 🤣

[@burntoutelectronics]

I was given three rolls of kodacolor VR 1000 speed six months ago along with a roll of original ektar 1000 speed a swell but I'm definitely not going to use them. Just shelf items

[@AzrielKnight]

Probably for the best. If it were me I may be tempted to try one though ;)

[@jakewestbrook3214]

I've got two Ektar 1000s, one expired in 1992, the other is probably the same age, and an undated (but assumed 20 years expired) gold 1600. I genuinely want to try these but can never come up with an excuse to use them. There's nothing wrong with some experimentation.

[@burntoutelectronics]

Jake Westbrook well you've got all the excuses you need to use it! Just owning the film is a good enough reason to use them. But if you have two of the same film I would keep one for display and use the other for experimentation! I would be interested to hear about the results!

[@tjompen1968]

Just stumbled on 4 rolls VR100 in 120-format. Payed 4 USD. I will have to shoot one roll =)

[@AzrielKnight]

Let me know how it goes. Better than mine I hope.

[@Quiparounddreams1999]

I beg to differ on the nostalgia bit of it, also if you didn't want to go down to ISO 50, you could've shot it at iso 64 or 80 and more or less might've gotten better results.

[@AzrielKnight]

How so?

[@v-g-z3689]

Great Video! You might know this, but you would have gotten way better results if you would have shot the film at ISO 25. With negative film, I always do the age rule and then go one stop lower. That usually does the trick ;) In good sunlight, a film can still easily be shot at ISO 5 from the hand. 1/60 and f4 or 2,8. If you Keep your hand steady, 1/30 works as well :)

[@AzrielKnight]

Yeah, if I had my time back I'd have bought a 1000 speed roll.

[@Raychristofer]

Hello AK how are you? I've been following many of your experiments and learning a lot. I've also been developing a lot of Color Film sometimes the color is perfect and other times it's so off I can't edit it acceptable so, I have a really good idea for an experiment you can do. Then again I probably can do the same experiment butts we're supposed to develop color film at 102 degrees Fahrenheit otherwise they say there can be colorshift. I'm very curious what would happen if we developed color film at three different temperatures for example 80° 102 degrees and an over temperature of like 120 degrees. It would be interesting what the color shift difference would be and maybe we could learn to tune the colors of film slightly based on raising or lowering the temperature. What's your take on this?

[@AzrielKnight]

It's a good idea, one I have thought of. That and time, so same idea, but like 3 minutes less and five more perhaps?

[@Raychristofer]

@@AzrielKnight I just got two packs of lomography color 100 I'll be working on putting together a test and as you know they can really take a couple weeks to do something like that properly. I'll let you know to check it out. By the way I did a review of that lomography film on my channel if you ever in the mood to check it out. kzbin.info/www/bejne/f4myimWLrcuVick

[@eaty1232]

Kodak Ektachrome-X here. Shoot it or shelve it? 1969* From what I could see on the internet they look epic. Also bought it for 2.5$

[@AzrielKnight]

I'd probably keep it if the box is still nice.

[@eaty1232]

Box was opened and looks tired. The tin and cartridge is gorgeous tho.

[@valueshooters]

Does anyone process kodacolor? Did you do it yourself?

[@AzrielKnight]

Yup :) It's a typical c-41 process.

[@FRZNGLSRBM]

Great video, but I always preferred the Fuji Colors. Even though they are oversaturated apparently. 🙄

[@AzrielKnight]

I can see why it's nice and punchy.

[@FRZNGLSRBM]

@@AzrielKnight To me it's even more about the colors or maybe white balance. Cheap Kodak - like Gold for example - always looks too warm for me. I like cooler tones more, that's how I edit my digital images, too. And cheap Fuji films tend to look cooler to me, that's why I like em.

[@AzrielKnight]

Makes sense.

[@thedondeluxe6941]

If they would only start making the 1000 version again! Or at least the 400. Or a higher ISO Ektar. Or a high speed colour film in general, really. As long as I'm ranting: Dear Fujifilm please #bringbackprovia400

[@AzrielKnight]

If only Fuji cared :(

[@thedondeluxe6941]

Yes, indeed! Fuji really don't seem to care about film anymore. Kodak is at least doing some positive stuff. Let's hope for a vinyl record-style revival :-)

[@AzrielKnight]

I buy Vinyl on the regular. Let's hope!

[@thedondeluxe6941]

Same here!

[@batmandalorian5504]

Yeah I loved the 1000 stuff. It's weird they only made it for a couple years.

[@jklcvb5894]

It should be called This old film

[@AzrielKnight]

I thought, meh, This Old House talked about more than restoring old houses.

[@alexcheetah79]

I thought you stopped doing videos?

[@AzrielKnight]

I did, and then I missed it :)

[@Socrates...]

Kodachrome > Ektachrome > everything else

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks for the comment :) Not sure I follow.

[@Socrates...]

Azriel Knight my hierarchy of film greatness

[@SimplyVisibleYT]

Boom! 100th like.

[@AzrielKnight]

Thanks :)