July 27, 2020

Yodica: Pegasus & Vega – 35mm Film Review

In this review, I will be mostly talking about my experience using Yodica film Pegasus and Vega. They are both 35mm films that are an altered version of Kodak Gold 200 with colourized edges on both sides -with the type of colours varying on which type of film you purchase. The Vega has red and blue on each side of the film, while the Pegasus has a rainbow stripe across the entire negative. You can check out all of Yodica film’s different versions here. The film speed is set at ISO 400 on its label but personally I felt like the shots came out a bit underexposed (do note that I shot with my Pentax A3000 which also tends to underexpose shots). Either way, after learning from my first roll, I made sure to overexpose my next few rolls.

Lets get straight to it -Yodica Film is a “toy” film. It’s colourized effects mimic Instagram filters or other “popular” photography filters aimed for younger audiences. So overall, it is fun to play around with for a day or two with friends or in a fun environment such as a roadtrip or camping, but nothing more. I might even stretch it as to say that it may be used in a commercial setting where the purpose is to further stylize an image but that’s the extent of it. I say this because of the mood that the colourization effects create. For regular documentary or street shoots, where the mood should be as truthful as possible, Yodica colourization turns the mood into something that’s the complete opposite –fake. Even in serious moments, the goofy colourizations make the image bring out positive emotions, at least initially. As an example, after I ran out of T-Max during a Black Lives Matter rally here in Toronto, I had no choice but to swap my film with a Yodica. Luckily I only took two shots but they both came out looking like I shot the gay pride parade. Despite the fact that you can’t really shoot any type of photography where ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ is its main engine, I imagine fun portrait shoots or candid moments with friends would be fun. It’s really not my cup of tea, but maybe someone can use it to do serious documentary work. Anyway, I won’t be touching this until I can come up with a cool project to be ironic or something.

Tips

Shoot with your exposure slightly pushed -2/3 or 1 stop brighter gave better results for me.
Avoid strong direct light as it will somewhat nullify the colourization effect.
Shoot for balanced mid-tones: the shadows is where you can really see the colourization effect come to life. Make sure there are clear shadows within your shot and allow them to be shadows (don’t expose for it).