Tudorcolor XLX 200: Cheap at Quarter of the Price

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Tudorcolor XLX 200 is a cheap, possibly rebranded version of a quality C41 film at a fraction of the cost. Used as test film for two newly purchased SLR’s read on to see if Tudor is a King of Film or a fat lump of lard. Sorry for the poor Henry The VIII analogy.

I’m a writer and filmmaker and I have a penchant for old M42 lenses. I built up my collection to use for shooting manual video on my Canon 550D, and I have just shot a music video on an old Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm and Helios I picked up from a bric-a-brac shop for less than £10.

I wanted an older stop down version of the Helios and bought one from Ebay. It came with a Zenit EM attached. The Zenit was thrown to the back of the cupboard and forgotten about for a month or two. I decided to see what it could do and ran a Fomapan 200 B/W film through it, and my love analogue photography began. I loved the results. Film paints a picture that a digital camera is programmed and trying it utter best to destroy…It’s not its fault, it’s just doing its job.

I’ve become more addicted to buying SLR’s than Corrie’s Peter Barlow is to Whisky. I bought a Yashica TL Electro, SP1000, Chinon CX and a Zenit E. I will get round to reviewing them, but I wanted a cheap film to run through the little darlings to see if they worked. Colour being the cheapest to process, I plumped for Tudorcolor XLX 200. You can get a pack of 6 for £8.99 including delivery if you search the internet.

I put one roll in my Yashica TL Electro and one in the SP1000 and shot over about a couple of weeks. From my research online I found that the rumour is that Tudor is rebranded Fuji Superia and this is all but confirmed by at least two online outlets that sell it under the Fuji sections of their websites and pretty much say as such in the blurb. So therefore there is no real need for me to review such a well known and reviewed film – I think the photos are all that is needed to prove its quality.

So, if you are looking for well cheap colour film why not stock up on this. I tend to use 200 film given I live in the north of Scotland and light is very temperamental, but there is 100, 200 and I have also seen 400 floating about cyber shops.

The beach photos were all taken with a SP1000 with a Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm 1.8 lens. The flower photos were taken with a Yashica TL Electro with a Taisei Kogaku Tamron 135mm 2.8 lens from the early 60’s. The forest photos were taken with the SP1000 and with the Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm.

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written by blanches_nickelodeon on 2012-07-27 #gear #people #negative #review #film-review #c41 #color #fuji-superia #cheap #lomography #print #user-review #sp1000 #tamron #carl-zeiss-jena #tudorcolor-xlx-200 #yashica-tl-electro #rebranded #rebadge

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sabilafaisal, norayr, pmonroe, capoverso, argentic-translation, peterpan61, mikael, jochan, bodhiboy, simonh82, bigbird, kamiraze, jawatembak, knipsomat, marcel2cv, reminator & blanches_nickelodeon.

11 Comments

knipsomat · 2012-07-27 08:57
Yeah CZJ Pancolar- incredible lens!!! :)
Nice that you found your way to film photography!
simonh82 · 2012-07-31 21:40
Beautiful flower photos in the first gallery, the third photo is just stunning. Fuji colour 200 pops up in a lot of guises. It is also the Boots own brand film and Agfa Photo Vista 200, which if you are looking for a bargain, is available in Poundland for £1 for 36exp roll. I've heard of a few people who even picked up a brick of ten wrapped in cellophane and got all 10 for £1.
adam_g2000 · 2012-08-01 05:30
As I read down and looked at the pictures I was thinking this looked like Agfa. @simonh82 I didn't know agfa was fuji, are all Vista products rebadged Fuji? How about Precisa CT?
adam_g2000 · 2012-08-01 05:32
@blanches_nickelodeon my goto old-skool SLR is a Praktica, love those M42 lenses too. Have a Carl Zeiss 35mm, a Pentacon 50mm (default Praktica lens) and a 135mm that I think is also Carl Zeiss. Great article.
blanches_nickelodeon · 2012-08-01 07:01
@simonh82 Great tips.... I'm well stocked on B/W which I prefer to use but if you can get film in Poundland then I'm so off down there for some. You know you have actually reminded me something which I completely forgot.... one of these films is Boots 200.... haha it completely slipped my mind that I ran out after the beach shots and ran in to Boots and bought their film... ooops.....well if you are saying that Boots 200 is also Fuji then no harm done.
blanches_nickelodeon · 2012-08-01 07:09
@adam_g2000 I love my SLR's I think my Spotmatic is my favourite but the Yashica is great and also the Zenit E. As for the lenses....it's a habit. I too have the 135mm CZJ but I find it is far too sharp for portraits....that's why my got to lens in that range is the Twin Tele Tamron. Just got a Zenitar-M 50mm which I'm still testing out but the CJZ 50mm is a cracking lens... so too the Helios 58mm.... they are cheap and give a great swirling bokeh that is really characteristic. I had a Pentacon 50mm but wanted to get a 28mm so I sold it to fund that.... it went to a good home in Sweden.
simonh82 · 2012-08-01 08:51
@adam_g2000 My understanding is that both the vista 200 and 400 are rebranded Fuji products. CT Precisa is also made by Fuji and is supposedly a slightly tweaked version of Provia 100f for the consumer market. It is definitely a slightly different emulsion as the effects when cross processed are really quite different. If you want to process in E6 then it is great value. Ferrania also made film for the Agfa Photo label, but they seem to have stopped all film production now and possibly gone bust. The also made a lot of the Lomography colour negative films so we'll see what happens there.

@blanches_nickelodeon I only discovered that poundland sold film quite recently. They used to stock KodaColor 200 in24exp rolls, which is a pretty nondescript film. Now they seem to be switching to Agfa vista 200 in 36exp rolls. According to some chatter on Flickr forums not all branches have the Agfa film yet, but most do.
110isnotdead · 2012-08-01 16:18
Whoa, those are some amazing shots. Especially the ones of the flowers. great job
blanches_nickelodeon · 2012-08-01 17:49
@110isnotdead thanks for the compliment.
bodhiboy · 2012-08-02 06:42
I like the shroom, this film is nice enough for lomo shots, particularly when you're not concerned about accurate colours etc. a good little write-up too, thanks for sharing.
wilsing · 2012-10-10 09:43
I came across this as I was 'researching' tudorfilm related info.

I found what I needed but also I stopped to say how I can resonate with some of things you mentioned. I am also quite addicted to camera gear acquisition and I have a reasonable collection of both digital and analog cameras not to mention lenses - including old DDR and USSR copies of great Zeiss designs. www.flickr.com/photos/just_solutions/5719419870/

I am about to buy film to find out if my newly purchased Rollei 35 XF was a mistake or not.

I wish I could find a bric-a-brac shop that has anything that I want for £10. Some of these long in the tooth items are fetching eye watering prices on eBay.