Kodak Colorplus 200 seems unreliable now

One of my favourite film stocks to shoot on even since the earliest days of getting into film photography has been Kodak's Colorplus 200. This film was insanely fun to shoot, offering such beautiful colours in almost every environment imaginable, from dark lighting to bright scenarios, it always managed to surprise somehow, and the best thing about this film stock? At one point Colorplus 200 was considered the 'budget' film stock to choose if you didn't want to spend too much and build up your supply a little. I used to buy this film in bulk myself, in fact I mostly shot this film as a result of its colours and cheapness. At around 3.50 GBP per roll before the pandemic. These days Colorplus 200 has nothing cheap about it, it's either sold out entirely or incredibly difficult to find with a high price of around 10 GBP per roll, about the same price as all other films stocks, though they too are a bit higher these days. Film is a bit of a dead medium now as a result of the prices, but here and there in parts of the world you can find decent deals on it. The problem? Colorplus 200 seems a bit... odd now. There's something that doesn't feel authentic to its prior nature. Either they changed something up, or I suspect many storefronts are now selling Colorplus 200 expired, while pretending it isn't.

I still have a ton of fun shooting film and Colorplus 200, but now I seem to feel that whatever I shoot, that confidence with it is gone. The idea I have for it ends up being completely different in reality. Where the colours are in fact quite muted, lacking in contrast. It doesn't seem to capture that vibrance and variation in colour within a scene anymore. Even in very good lighting conditions, down to low lighting conditions with a steady hand. I'm not really sure what the reason is, as I mentioned above. Though I have tried testing different shots out in attempt to see whether it's just me, comparing it with prior photographs shot on the stock. It just doesn't seem right. And bringing the stock to paid photography shoots just seems like a bad idea with the total dice roll on quality later once the film is developed. I suspected at one point that maybe even the place developing the film may be responsible, something with their process in developing perhaps. But testing out other companies, it seems the same outcome is met. It's sad, film itself is a wonderful photography format. It contains so much soul to it, such an intimate process to have with a camera and the world around you. But the quality seems to drop off as prices continue to rocket.

I've read many things about the stock, on rumours on how it's discontinued in parts of the world, how in some locations it's plentyful. Kodak is known for being, well, shit. So it wouldn't surprise me if they had cheapened out even more on the film's production and done specific releases of it in batches around the world where it may have more popularity, leading to some changes in the process, yielding different results. Each of these images were shot with my Canon AE-1 with that same roll of Colorplus 200. I don't even know what to think of them. Some are okay, some have just miserable colours where they really shouldn't, and others have some of that hint of Colorplus 200's colour range, while actually looking a bit more like something from Pro Image 100 or Kodak Gold. Whatever it is, Colorplus 200 is no longer a major favourite of mine. I'm not sure I can trust it anymore, or that it's even worthy of the price. Though, that conspiracy regarding expired film hitting the storefronts remains. Shops are desperate to get big sums of film in for the hungry photographers, and can lower the prices slightly and make them more appealing, if they also buy those rolls in bulk knowing they're expired and cheaper to begin with.

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