On April 10, 2026, Kodak did something it hasn't done in over a decade: it announced an entirely new film emulsion. Not a rebrand, not a repackaging, not a revival of something from the archive. Verita 200D (5206/7206) is a brand-new daylight-balanced color negative motion picture film — the first original emulsion Kodak has created since the Vision3 line launched in 2007. For anyone who shoots film, the significance of this cannot be overstated.
The stock was developed in collaboration with director Sam Levinson and cinematographer Marcell Rév for Euphoria Season 3, which premiered on April 12, 2026. They exposed over one million feet of Verita 200D during production — a full-season commitment to an emulsion that didn't exist until they needed it. That is not a test run. That is a vote of confidence measured in shipping pallets.
Kodak creating an entirely new emulsion in 2026 is not nostalgia. It is a statement about the future of film — made in a million feet of exposed negative.
Why Verita 200D Exists
The backstory matters. Sam Levinson and Marcell Rév shot the first two seasons of Euphoria on Kodak Vision3 stocks — primarily 500T and 250D — and built the show's visual identity around the texture, grain, and color response of photochemical origination. When they began pre-production for Season 3, they approached Kodak with a specific creative brief: they wanted a stock that delivered bolder color saturation, warmer skin tones, and deeper blacks than what the existing Vision3 palette could offer. Not a push or pull of existing stock. A new emulsion.
Kodak's film research lab in Rochester accepted the challenge. The result is Verita 200D — a 200-speed daylight-balanced negative film designed from scratch to meet those creative demands. It sits in the Vision lineup alongside the existing stocks but is not a variant of any of them. The emulsion chemistry, the dye couplers, and the spectral sensitivity curve are all new.
The fact that Kodak still has the institutional capability to do this is remarkable in itself. Formulating a new color negative emulsion requires chemistry expertise, coating precision, and quality control infrastructure that only a handful of facilities worldwide can deliver. Rochester is one of them. That it was deployed for a major HBO production rather than a limited test batch says something about how seriously Kodak's entertainment division takes this market.
The Look: What Verita 200D Delivers
Based on the production stills and early footage from Euphoria Season 3, Verita 200D has a distinctive character that sets it apart from the existing Vision3 daylight stocks. The key attributes Kodak has highlighted:
- Bold, saturated color. This is not the restrained neutrality of Vision3 250D. Verita pushes primaries harder, particularly reds and blues, while maintaining separation in midtones.
- Warm skin tones. The highlight response shifts toward magenta rather than staying neutral, which adds warmth to flesh tones without requiring filtration or grading. Skin reads as alive, not clinical.
- Deep blacks. Shadow density is notably richer than Vision3 250D, giving the image a heavier base that anchors the saturated color palette above it.
- 200 ISO daylight balance. At 200 speed, Verita sits between the 50D and 250D in the Vision lineup, offering a versatile daylight option with moderate grain and strong latitude.
The magenta highlight shift is the detail that will generate the most conversation. Most modern color negative stocks are engineered for neutral highlights — the assumption being that colorists want a clean starting point. Verita goes the other direction. It bakes a tonal bias into the emulsion itself, the way classic stocks like the original Eastmancolor Negative did before the era of digital intermediate grading. You don't grade into the Verita look. You get it on the negative.
Format Availability
Verita 200D is currently available in 65mm, 35mm, and 16mm motion picture formats. It is designated 5206 for 35mm/16mm perforations and 7206 for 16mm single-perf. Kodak is offering the stock by request through its sales representatives — this is not a walk-into-a-store product. It is allocated film for professional motion picture productions, at least for now.
There is no 135 still photography version. There is no 120 roll film version. If you shoot stills, you cannot buy this emulsion today in any format that fits your camera. That will almost certainly change — but the timeline is anyone's guess.
The Still Photography Question
Every film photographer reading about Verita 200D is asking the same question: when does this come to 135 and 120? Kodak has not announced plans for a still photography version, but the precedent is clear. Vision3 stocks have been repurposed for still photography by third parties for years — CineStill built an entire brand on it. Kodak itself has shown willingness to cross the motion picture / still photography boundary with products like Ektar and the consumer Gold line.
A 200-speed daylight color negative with bold color and warm skin tones would slot into a gap in Kodak's current still photography lineup. Gold 200 is a consumer stock with a specific look. Ektar 100 is fine-grained and saturated but cool. The Ektacolor Pro (formerly Portra) line is designed for neutrality. Verita's warmth and saturation profile doesn't duplicate any of them.
The more immediate path is the one CineStill pioneered: buy the motion picture stock, remove or work around the remjet (or the new AHU coating), and respool for 35mm still cameras. Whether CineStill or another third party takes that step with Verita 200D remains to be seen, but the demand is already vocal in film photography forums.
What This Means for the Film Market
The significance of Verita 200D goes beyond its technical specifications. Kodak creating a new emulsion in 2026 is a market signal. It says that film production is not just surviving on legacy demand — it is attracting enough revenue to justify research and development of entirely new products. That has not been true for most of the past fifteen years.
Consider the context. Kodak emerged from bankruptcy in 2013 with its film division intact but diminished. Since then, the story has been about keeping existing stocks in production, managing supply chain constraints, and responding to the unexpected growth of the analog photography market. The investments have been in capacity — more coating runs, more shifts, more raw materials — not in formulation. Verita 200D breaks that pattern. It is the first time in nearly two decades that Kodak has poured R&D resources into creating something genuinely new on film.
For the broader film community, this matters for a simple reason: a manufacturer that invests in new products is a manufacturer that plans to be around. Kodak is not milking a legacy business. It is building for a future where film — both motion picture and still — continues to have a market.
Track Your Process, Whatever You Shoot
Whether you are shooting established stocks or waiting for the next new emulsion to land in a 135 cartridge, the discipline is the same: log what you load, meter what you shoot, and review what you get back. Every roll teaches you something — but only if you keep a record of the decisions you made when you pressed the shutter.
Pellica's film roll tracker lets you log every roll and frame with full exposure data, film stock, camera body, and personal notes. When a new stock like Verita 200D eventually reaches still photography, your first rolls with it will be worth documenting carefully — and comparing against everything else in your library. The built-in light meter helps you nail exposure on unfamiliar emulsions, and the lab finder connects you with development services wherever you shoot.
New emulsions don't come around often. When they do, the photographers who document their first rolls are the ones who understand the stock fastest.
