KodakUltraMax 400

Kodak UltraMax 400 is an ISO 400 consumer color negative film for C-41 processing, sold in 35 mm. Kodak designs it for snapshots in difficult light, with fast action, zoom lenses and flash, and makes it “printing compatible” with Kodak Gold films [1]. Since November 2025, Eastman Kodak sells it directly under the same name, while Kodak Alaris still lists it [2] [3] [4].

Look and color

• Saturated, for most reviews. Kodak promises “bright, vibrant colors” [1]. The Darkroom finds “rich saturation” [7], Wit & Folly “lots of saturation in all colors” [11], and My Favourite Lens colors that are “all well-saturated” with “no single standout colour” [14]. A lab found it “a lot punchier both in color and contrast” than Portra 400 [9].
  • The dissenting view: Casual Photophile finds its rendition “true to life, less punchy and saturated than” Fujifilm Superia 400, with reds “nicely restrained” [6].
• Warm colors, not necessarily a warm cast. Many reviews speak of Kodak warmth: a “warm, pleasing color palette” [7], “that trademark Kodak warmness” [14], a palette “warm like Kodak Gold 200” [10]. But next to Portra 400, it is Portra that has “a bit warmer white balance” [9]; next to Fujifilm 400, UltraMax shows “a bluer bias” [16]; and it lacks “the beautiful warmth of Portra” for Analogue Wonderland [15].
• Bold blues and reds. Blue Moon Camera: “Blue skies are rich and bold. Reds and oranges jump out. Greens are lush.” [13]. Tahusa finds it sensitive “to red and blue colours” [12]. Next to Gold 200, one reviewer sees “subtler, less pronounced cool greens” [10].
• Skin. Kodak promises “accurate skin-tone reproduction” [1]. At box speed, skin tones “of all shades are spot on” for Casual Photophile [6], but “not as accurate as Portra 400” for Tahusa [12], and they “pick up a bit of a yellow tint” when overexposed [13].
• Shadows. In a lab’s side-by-side test, UltraMax shadows had “a yellow/reddish hue”, Portra 400’s “very blue/green” ones [9]. Blue or gray weather can leave “colour casts in the shadows” [8], and underexposed shadows “can take on a green cast” [13].

Tonality

• Curve. On the datasheet, the toe runs from about 5 to 3 stops below middle gray; the straight part has slopes of about 0.60 (blue), 0.54 (green) and 0.52 (red); about 5 stops above middle gray, the green and red curves bend to a slope of about 0.45 (our reading of the graph) [1]. That shoulder comes later than Gold 200’s, at about 3.5 to 4 stops [20], and earlier than Portra 400’s, which shows none up to about 6 stops [19].
• Contrast: medium to high. The Darkroom and Tahusa both write “medium to high contrast” [7] [12]; Wit & Folly finds “high contrast, especially on bright sunny days” [11]. Next to Portra 400, “the contrast difference is pretty drastic” [9]. Blue Moon Camera places it between Portra and Ektar, “pretty similar to Kodak Gold 200” [13].
• Latitude: narrower than Portra, generous over.
  • Less than Portra 400 for a lab, “but the latitude difference isn’t massive” [9]; “not quite as wide as Portra 400’s” [14]. Analog.cafe reads about 8 stops from the datasheet curve, against 12 for Portra 400 [8].
  • Overexposure: The Darkroom finds that it “handles overexposure beautifully” [7], and Wit & Folly overexposes it “by 2 or 3 stops” [11]. Analog.cafe disagrees: “You won’t get away with over-exposing it by three stops.” [8]
  • Speed: Blue Moon Camera shoots it “anywhere between ISO 100 to ISO 800” without special development, and pushes it to 1600 [13]. Kodak publishes no push data [1].
• Long exposures: no correction from 1/10,000 s to 1 s; beyond, Kodak warns that exposures “may require compensation and filtration” [1].

Grain and sharpness

Kodak rates grain with the Print Grain Index (PGI), a perceptual scale for prints viewed at 14 inches. 25 is the approximate visibility threshold, and 4 units make one just-noticeable difference [1].

• The datasheet gives only this one figure. Blue Moon Camera quotes 44 for UltraMax and 46 for Portra 800 [13]; Kodak’s datasheets say 46 and 48.
• Reviews disagree on how it looks:
  • Coarser than Portra 400: “a lot more grain” [9], “quite coarse” [12]. For Analog.cafe it is “chunkier than Portra 400’s” but “appears smoother as the individual granules aren’t as sharp” [8].
  • Close to Gold 200: “I didn’t notice a great deal of difference” [14].
  • Fine: “very fine grain” for Casual Photophile, for whom it becomes pronounced “most readily when the film is under-exposed” [6]. Wit & Folly finds it “most visible in images taken in low light” [11].
• Sharpness: Kodak claims “excellent sharpness” but publishes neither a modulation transfer curve nor a resolving power figure [1].

Spectral sensitivity

The blue-sensitive layer stays on a plateau from about 400 to 475 nm, the green-sensitive layer peaks near 549 nm and the red-sensitive layer near 652 nm. The blue and green curves cross near 489 nm, green and red near 585 nm [1]. Fujifilm 400’s datasheet curves are close to these but “not identical” [16]. The Grain Archive color style is tuned from the datasheet and the reviews above; it is not computed from these curves.

Names, status and history

• From Gold 400 to UltraMax. According to Blue Moon Camera, the film appeared in the late 1980s with the other Gold films, was relabeled Kodak Gold 400 in 1997 and “adopted the moniker Kodak Ultramax 400 in 2007” [13]. Wikipedia’s list of films also dates Gold 400 from 1997 to 2007 [18]. The current datasheet dates from February 2016 and spells the name “Ultra Max” [1].
• Eastman Kodak distribution (November 2025). UltraMax 400 and Gold 200 joined Eastman Kodak’s own range on November 3, 2025, in retro-style yellow boxes, while Kodak Alaris kept listing them [4]. Unlike Portra, UltraMax kept its name [5]. On September 29, 2026, both companies listed it in 35 mm only, in 24 and 36 exposures [2] [3].
• Fujifilm 400: reportedly close, not confirmed. Fujifilm’s “made in USA” 400 is often said to be UltraMax.
  • In a side-by-side test, Dave Palumbo found them so close that he “might as well think of them as interchangeable, though I do see minor difference”: “a yellow bias in the Fuji stock vs a bluer bias in the Ultramax”, and a slightly lower contrast for Fujifilm. The datasheet curves “are not identical” [16].
  • Analog.cafe concludes that “Fujifilm 400 and Kodak Ultramax are not the same thing”, UltraMax showing “more contrast in the shadows” on the curves, and notes that “neither Fujifilm nor Kodak indicated who makes Fujifilm in the US” [17].