Cinestill 800T Issues

KidA · Jan 20, 2016

After seeing this film's examples online, I HAD to try it. I started out with two rolls (purchased from the same reliable place I buy most of my film) that were exposed and developed months apart from each other. The first time, I exposed at 800 and developed normally. The negs came out like crap; very thin, extremely grainy especially in the shadows with big lack of shadow detail, and highlights were not crisp at all. I thought perhaps I might have done something wrong in either exposure or development. For the second roll, I decided to expose at 1250 and pushed to 1600 in development (not recommended to push at this exposure, but I was too worried so I pushed). The exact same thing happened. This time I was SURE I didn't mess up on exposure or development. I developed 15 other rolls with absolutely no problems. Can it just have been a bad batch of film?

Xmas · Jan 20, 2016

KidA said:
After seeing this film's examples online, I HAD to try it. I started out with two rolls (purchased from the same reliable place I buy most of my film) that were exposed and developed months apart from each other. The first time, I exposed at 800 and developed normally. The negs came out like crap; very thin, extremely grainy especially in the shadows with big lack of shadow detail, and highlights were not crisp at all. I thought perhaps I might have done something wrong in either exposure or development. For the second roll, I decided to expose at 1250 and pushed to 1600 in development (not recommended to push at this exposure, but I was too worried so I pushed). The exact same thing happened. This time I was SURE I didn't mess up on exposure or development. I developed 15 other rolls with absolutely no problems. Can it just have been a bad batch of film?

Try 400 ISO.

Gerald C Koch · Jan 20, 2016

Let's see. Where to start. You are using a film for other than its intended purpose. The film is designed for processing in ECN-2 not C-41 chemistry. To compound things further you also ignore Cinestills directions. Then complain about poor results. If you look at the samples online you will see color shifts and crossover. This film is not a bargain. Sorry, stick with still camera films.

Fixcinater · Jan 20, 2016

If you had problems with lack of shadow detail at 800, I would have gone the other way and put more light into the film. Pushing isn't magic, it doesn't get you light that isn't there on the film.

That being said, were you under tungsten light or were you trying to shoot it in daylight color situations?

wildbill · Jan 20, 2016

uh, Re-read your post to find the answer to the problem.

KidA · Jan 20, 2016

Gerald C Koch said:
Let's see. Where to start. You are using a film for other than its intended purpose. The film is designed for processing in ECN-2 not C-41 chemistry. To compound things further you also ignore Cinestills directions. Then complain about poor results. If you look at the samples online you will see color shifts and crossover. This film is not a bargain. Sorry, stick with still camera films.

What did I ignore?

KidA · Jan 20, 2016

Fixcinater said:
If you had problems with lack of shadow detail at 800, I would have gone the other way and put more light into the film. Pushing isn't magic, it doesn't get you light that isn't there on the film.

That being said, were you under tungsten light or were you trying to shoot it in daylight color situations?

Tungsten

KidA · Jan 20, 2016

wildbill said:
uh, Re-read your post to find the answer to the problem.

Don't see it what you mean. Please explain, oh wise one.

AgX · Jan 20, 2016

Gerald C Koch said:
You are using a film for other than its intended purpose. The film is designed for processing in ECN-2 not C-41 chemistry. To compound things further you also ignore Cinestills directions. Then complain about poor results. If you look at the samples online you will see color shifts and crossover. This film is not a bargain. Sorry, stick with still camera films.

Cinestill statement:

Our very custom "Premoval" process makes this motion picture (ECN-2) film safe for processing in standard photo lab machines and in C-41 kits, with great color and a slightly increased gamma level, equivalent to a professional 800 Tungsten C-41 film.

The OP did that and had bad results. He stated to have processed 15 other rolls with good results. What did he do wrong aside maybe that other film he underexposed a pushed in development?

Gerald C Koch · Jan 20, 2016

KidA said:
What did I ignore?

"I decided to expose at 1250 and pushed to 1600 in development (not recommended to push at this exposure, but I was too worried so I pushed)."

DREW WILEY · Jan 20, 2016

The color balance (or more correctly, dye curve relation) inherently and significantly changes with over and under whatever. At least, that is what Cinestill specifically points out. Underexposure results in grainy muddy shadows on numerous color neg films. Maybe not the correct
explanation in this specific case, but one of the usual suspects.

AgX · Jan 20, 2016

KidA said:
The first time, I exposed at 800 and developed normally... I thought perhaps I might have done something wrong in either exposure or development.

Maybe that was the reason for the failure at standard rating this time. Assuming that those other 15 rolls were Cinestill too.

Gerald C Koch · Jan 20, 2016

AgX said:
Cinestill statement:

The OP did that and had bad results. He stated to have processed 15 other rolls with good results. What did he do wrong aside maybe that other film he underexposed a pushed in development?

The two processing systems use different color developing agents and the couplers for each type of film are matched to the developing agent used. You will see color shifts and the use of the wrong developer will result in cross-over. PE commented on these faults in another thread.

Because the color match is so bad you can use a tungsten film outdoors. Something that could not be done normally. The mismatch is so bad that it partially corrects for the film mismatch tungsten to daylight.

I have looked at several dozen Cinestill examples on the web. In none of them do I find the results acceptable. They all have a shift towards blue. Some are worse than others but none are really acceptable.

KidA · Jan 20, 2016

Minor colour shift I can deal with and are expected. My results look nothing like what's on the website. Something, other than colour shift went terribly wrong.

KidA · Jan 20, 2016

AgX said:
Maybe that was the reason for the failure at standard rating this time. Assuming that those other 15 rolls were Cinestill too.

The other rolls were not Cinestill.

Photo Engineer · Jan 20, 2016

When you process a motion picture color negative product of any type in the C41 process, it is a crapshoot! You can expect anything but the correct results that the manufacturer intended, no matter what you do in exposure or process modifications.

I've tried this before and it just does not work out well.

PE

KidA · Jan 20, 2016

Photo Engineer said:
When you process a motion picture color negative product of any type in the C41 process, it is a crapshoot! You can expect anything but the correct results that the manufacturer intended, no matter what you do in exposure or process modifications.

I've tried this before and it just does not work out well.

PE

How would you explain these results then? http://mrleica.com/2015/03/11/cinestill-800-t-film-portraits/

Of course, not the greatest results I've ever seen (they're a little inconsistent) but generally, they came out decent. Mine look nothing like that. He even explains how the exposures were rated: 200-1250 without altering developing method. There's no reason why EI 800 developed normally and 1250 push n+1 shouldn't give me acceptable results. Unless everyone online is lying! Everyone that tries it seems to love it.

MattKing · Jan 20, 2016

If the negatives are thin, they need more exposure.

Photo Engineer · Jan 20, 2016

KidA said:
How would you explain these results then? http://mrleica.com/2015/03/11/cinestill-800-t-film-portraits/

Of course, not the greatest results I've ever seen (they're a little inconsistent) but generally, they came out decent. Mine look nothing like that. He even explains how the exposures were rated: 200-1250 without altering developing method. There's no reason why EI 800 developed normally and 1250 push n+1 shouldn't give me acceptable results. Unless everyone online is lying! Everyone that tries it seems to love it.

"LAB DEVELOPED AND SCANNED"!

He does not state the process nor the scanning conditions (corrections). Can you clarify?

Oh, also I would not warrant the long term keeping of the film images.

PE

Gerald C Koch · Jan 20, 2016

All of the Osborne examples have a blue cast as I pointed out previously. It is particularly unpleasant in portraiture. When you push or pull color film you will get color shifts. As far as people liking it there are people who like lutefisk! Bit of Norwegian humor.

wildbill · Jan 20, 2016

MattKing said:
If the negatives are thin, they need more exposure.

here's your sign.

1. I shot a lot of 500asa movie film before cinestill began selling it. It's a 500 speed film, not sure how their process increases speed but I don't buy it.
having shot a lot of motion picture film, it takes a serious error in exposure to get unusable results.

zehner21 · Jan 20, 2016

wildbill said:
here's your sign.

1. I shot a lot of 500asa movie film before cinestill began selling it. It's a 500 speed film, not sure how their process increases speed but I don't buy it.
having shot a lot of motion picture film, it takes a serious error in exposure to get unusable results.

Probably C-41 gives more contrast or maybe the developer is much more active than the ECN-II counterpart...

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Xmas · Jan 20, 2016

zehner21 said:
Probably C-41 gives more contrast or maybe the developer is much more active than the ECN-II counterpart...

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The c41 process may be higher contrast but it won't do much for toe speed - if the result looks bad at 800 then 400 is a better bet.

Photo Engineer · Jan 20, 2016

The C41 developer is more active, but then it is designed to work with a different set of couplers and give a different dye hue. Each layer is designed to work with its own developer. And there is no easy analogy in words.

However, imagine 18 different racers, each 9 on 2 teams. They all run at different rates but do a good job matching speeds on their own tracks. Now, change their tracks. Put the nine racers from team 1 on the track for team 2 and vice versa. They may not do so well. They don't all finish in the usual order. This is what is going on here.

So then, lets say that the C41 cyan layer uses a Phenolic coupler, and the Vision film uses a Napthol coupler. The rates of dye formation are finely tuned for CD4 and CD3 in the example. Switch them and you do not get the same hue nor dye formation rate. You can indeed get acceptable results but not optimum results and even acceptable results are hard to come by and often must be "staged".

PE

Rudeofus · Jan 20, 2016

A lot of the posted images for Cinestill 800T are the result of hybrid processing, and all these nasties like color cross over, color cast and whatever can be easily corrected that way. What can not be corrected is underexposure, as pointed out by MattKing and others. If negatives shot at EI800 look thin and lacking in shadow detail, then EI1250 is most definitely not going to solve the problem, regardless of whether pushing was used or not.

Cinestill 800T Issues

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