Kodak Verita 200

Today's episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Well, it didn't really make huge waves in the photo community because it dropped around the same time as New Monkey. And well, how do you compete with that? But Kodak dropped a new stock into their portfolio and everyone was like, dang, okay. But is it really a new stock? Let's do some digging. Kodak Verda 200D is the name of the new cine film that was developed for use from my understanding in collaboration with cinematographer Marcel Rev and used in full production on the latest season of Euphoria which I didn't watch because I'm over the age of 30. Look good though. Well shot. I'd watch it for this reason or that reason. 200 ISO, daylight balanced. Verda means truth in Latin and the data sheet emphasizes that this stock is quite good for flesh tone which is kind of a gross way of just saying skin but it might give us the first clue as to what this stock actually is. It comes in several formats. 16 mil is the smallest they cut for now so that's what I grabbed because this channel isn't Paul Thomas Anderson enough to shoot VistaVision yet. Whatever, I was able to obtain two 100 foot rolls by calling it Kodak's landline because I guess they still do it that way. I do hope that this stock becomes a little bit easier to obtain in the future. It was about $187 for two rolls not including processing and scanning which is not cheap whatsoever. Anyway, I've thrown away more money for less so I wanted to shoot some fun summer activities with it but first I'd have to find some fun summer activities after getting added to a group chat and being visually assaulted with some of the most heinous vocabulary the English language has ever known that I absolutely cannot put on the internet. I knew it was time for a huge group camping trip with the amigos. That's right, camping out in the wilderness where there's no Xbox, Chipotle or MLB highlights. It sounds like hell on earth, right? It's actually not so bad especially when you have a fully mechanical 16 millimeter camera and some new lenses which we'll get into shortly. I need to get my, my ---- together. Group camping trip on the motorcycles. Gotta pack the bigger tent which is this one which is a really ugly green color. What else would I need? Sleeping bag? Definitely bug spray. This one protects against West Nile virus which we may encounter up there in the Tahoe National Forest Do we need a giant knife? Well, probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have one. Sleep with it under my pillow like a nom. Oh, there's the fan. I've been looking for that for a while. Okay, final head count. Got chair, got sleeping bag, sleeping mat, tent. This bike needs gas. I think the fuel light's on. It's just so expensive nowadays. This is my main backpack. You can see I got my sleeping pad, blanket. My sleeping bag's in here too. Bunch of clothes. The Bolex is also in there. This is the tank bag for the motorcycle. Pretty much filled to the brim. Creepy ass book. And of course we also have some Kodak Verita 200D and some bear spray. Better to need and not have than have and not need. No wait, it's the other way around. Better to have and not need than need not have. Anyway, these two dipshits came to town and ah, damn, tradition is tradition. Don't just stare at it, eat it. Oh, it's a twist-off. Classy. I warmed it up for you. Whatever, we played the most backstabbing game of Catan I've ever seen in my days the night before our departure east. If you ever needed proof that I never learned from my mistakes, here it is. I once again packed my Bolex on the back of my motorcycle because one expensive lens falling off and exploding violently on the highway just wasn't enough, I guess. And we were off to the high mountains to lay claim on a small stake of land for two nights. The power's out at this gas station. Okay. A half or so just past Sacramento, we stopped at the local Ikea real quick to meet up with everyone for coffee and meatballs, I guess. Sorry, that's disrespectful. I mean, hoo-hoo drawl? Whatever, we overheard a couple taking a picture with their bikes in front of the sign because they thought the scene looked all-American, which is a funny thing to say about three Japanese bikes. That is a hell of a beefy bag on the back there. Beef! And yeah, we met up with everyone there. So unfortunately, yeah, that includes Maddie. Can I help you? It was another long journey after that, but we eventually made it up into the woods where the road opened up to beautiful country, occasionally, you know, interrupted by road work. Brennan and Tim passed the time by making out a little. God damn it. That was tough, man. That was tough. After getting to camp, I got my back blown out setting up my tent, whatever that means. I don't know, it just seemed like it applied here. Takes them three, no, four people to put up a tent. It just takes one frontiersman to put up his tent. Should I put the entrance right in front of this rock? So it's really inconvenient. Thank you, guys. Wait, what? Boone, that's all for you, bud. What? We were there for all of 10 minutes and somebody already clogged the pit toilet. So I guess I wouldn't be photographing it in the beautiful light anytime soon. Have you seen this stuff? This is brand new. Velveeta 200. Speaking of which, it was high time that I load up some 16 millimeter Kodak Verda, which its own data sheet kind of oddly mentions that it has a less a dynamic range than the Vision 3 stock. For whatever it's worth, I've known these people a very long time and they're absolutely meaner to me than my YouTube comment section will ever be. What's up, big dog? Look at this guy cosplaying employed. So I was already questioning why I was wasting this precious film stock on them and also why I was sober. Anyway, I found a nice hot patch of daylight to load this thing in because some bad decisions that I make all the time never change. You just get a DSLR. It's so hard being an artist. So hard being unemployed. I kind of wonder if we should just be silent the rest of the weekend. So how does Velveeta look? Can it magically make harsh, undesirable overhead light look good? It's not too bad, actually. It's a very sharp film stock. Maybe that's the lenses. I don't know. Shooting the remains of a fire our dips**t neighbors forgot to fully put out instead of just being a good smokey the bear and taking care of it myself. Anyway, our compound was established and to celebrate, a few of us went down the road to absolutely plow through some ice cream before heading up to the lake. Of course, you already know, I was strapped to the nines with a bolex on me ready for some evening light. Let's go, mother*****! So what exactly is Kodak Verita 200? Did Kodak pull a brand new emulsion out of their ass just for us? I don't think so. Not exactly. When Kodak first posted about it months ago under vague and mysterious guise, I think a lot of people speculated it was Kodak Gold in motion picture form based on the ISO alone, which would be cool. Grainy, probably, but cool. But as this one Reddit user pointed out, spectral sensitivity info on the data sheet is suspiciously similar to Portra 400, a stills film stock, perhaps just rebadged to Verita because of naming rights surrounding Portra. Why do you think it is we have Ektacolor 400? If it is truly the old porty potty 400, then when Verita is being processed in ECN2, it's technically a cross process and that may explain the 200 ISO rating. We've seen the ISO be different for cine and photography a few times. Cinestill 800T is essentially Strip Vision 3 500T. Portra 400 that we know nowadays is more or less a reformulation of all the Portras that existed back in the day, except maybe not Portra black and white, otherwise engineered to favor modern digital scanners instead of traditional enlarging. So it makes some sort of sense to cut the stock to motion picture formats because unless you're literally Christopher Nolan, you're probably having your film scanned into digital. The data sheet even explicitly says you should use a digital intermediate with this stock. Anyway, I need to split off from the herd to go find Monica in town as there was literally no service anywhere on that mountain and she was the last one joining us. The town was pretty cute though. I'd be happy to get snowed in there and write a best-selling novel this winter. To AI. To AI? After yoinking the old rock and of course hitting my brother's Mercedes, I figured the light wouldn't get much better so I grabbed the 16 and got to work. That gray sweatshirt belonged to my grandfather, by the way. Here's a picture of my mom wearing it back in the day. Her dog isn't taken a dump in the photo, by the way. I double-checked. Perfect lighting. Let's grab the Bullocks. Oh, I never gave you a tour of the tent. Not really a lot to see. There's Monica's cot. There's my World War I hospital bed-looking sleeping bag and there's the Bullocks. Whatever. That evening it was getting a little too chummy around the campfire so I need to bring out the chemical warfare. You're gonna throw it at Jason's head? Microphone on? I do, yeah. It's right on his very tiny nipple. All right, we're doing the farts, right? Everyone's copping an attitude right now. Dude, who took his sh** all? And because, for some reason, I can't let anyone have any peace ever, I brought the ass-spray back out at the campfire and they all totally had no idea that it was me. Jason. Jason seems like one of those guys that buys fart-spray in school. He smells like a cow with his sh** right behind him. And it eventually got, you know, advanced dark out there in the wilderness. We all went to the main road and did some stargazing in the middle of it, just waiting for the semi-truck with failing brakes to show up. Who wants some make out? I don't know if it gets much better than this. Nice quiet morning and I'm not hungover. That's probably the best part, actually. Forgot to bring a coffee cup. Drinking out of one of my camp pans. Done it before. I'm a real survivalist frontiersman. This is how I get out of doing chores. I'd be the documentarian. Yeah, what kind of 401k benefits are you getting? Motherf**ker, we're not even getting paid. That was the last of the 16. So after I tweaked some settings on my bike to make it go 15 times faster, and of course sound like it's 15 times more likely to break down, I put some more Verita in the Bolex for the day of head. Ahead. Sorry. Yeah, the Verita datasheet was right. Flesh tones look great, you know, when they're photographed in direct fleshlight. Additionally, something I found interesting in the datasheet, yes, don't be impressed or anything, is true, I can read. It says the highlights on the stock will actually tend not to be neutral and instead go like slightly magenta. Recommended to be digitally nerfed down in color grading, which is what I did with these scans. What's up, big dog? You know what this is missing? Vodka. With the spirit of drinking lakeside forefront in our minds, we hopped into the car and headed to the local general store to pick up some ice before heading to the lake again, where there was also plenty of ice. Just in liquid form. So two new lenses on the Bolex. Ever since the tragic loss of my Angenieux lens, which, moment of silence out of respect. So ever since I lost that lens, I've been pontificating about how to replace it. So I ended up making full use of the Bolex turret system by picking up two new lenses. Both are Cine Nikors for C-mount, dating back to sometime in the 1950s, I think. Mine are likely more modern reformulations. Many people online say they're known for their sharpness, but this 10 mil is quite globby up in the corners. That's probably the technical term for it. The other lens is the 50 mil Cine Nikor, equivalent to something like a 175 mil on full frame. This lens is actually sharp and renders a super pleasing look. Dang, who's that stud? Anyway, Maddie kept complaining about how dry her ham sandwich was, so I decided to fix that for her. Did it get your sandwich at least? Not in service, out service. What can you say? The light's kind of ass right now. While we wait for the light to come back before we roll on some more 16 millimeter film, let's take a moment and thank today's sponsor, Squarespace, for their ongoing support. Need a professional website fast? 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Even if Verita is allegedly just a recycle of Portra. I do actually like Verita quite a bit, which is odd because I'm pretty apathetic towards Portra 400 itself nowadays. I do recognize that it's, you know, it's a good stock. Thug recognizes Thug. I mean, it's literally Kodak's most popular film stock, but every time I shot it, it was always kind of flat and the colors were, you know, a bit muted. Vision 3 250D is probably the closest motion picture stock to this one, but I like Verita a bit more. The colors are more workable. If Kodak continues to offer it in the future, which it seems like that will be the case, I'd probably go with it for daylight work over 250D, but that's just my preference. I'm not a cinematographer. Real cinematographers shoot more rewarding formats like IMAX, though 16 mil is close-ish.