Cinestill 800t, what's it all about??

I wanted to post a couple examples of successes and failures, and some thoughts. These are all from a hybrid workflow so I apologize if these break any rules.

Some good results: I was mistaken with these, I thought I shot it at 1000 but I actually shot at ISO 800 and pushed one stop in development. These all scanned really easily and the colors were good pretty much with very little effort. The lighting was tungsten and blue LED mostly.





I shot this at 320 and developed at standard c41 times. The lighting was mixed with CLF, tungsten and daylight.

And then some horrible failure examples, shot at 500 ISO (and slightly under exposing at times for shutter speeds' sake) with pretty much all CLF or LED lighting. I had some really bad issues with remjet sticking in this batch for some reason... Colors were all over the place, horrible grain, etc. These are color corrected as good as I was willing to do.



I feel like in non-tungsten lighting it should be rated at a lower ISO, and narrow spectrum lighting like CFL or cheap LED it really looks horrible and under exposes. I wonder if cross processing in c41 requires additional development time or exposure. I haven't really come across anyone online talking about it.

Toasty said:

I wanted to post a couple examples of successes and failures, and some thoughts. These are all from a hybrid workflow so I apologize if these break any rules.

Some good results: I was mistaken with these, I thought I shot it at 1000 but I actually shot at ISO 800 and pushed one stop in development. These all scanned really easily and the colors were good pretty much with very little effort. The lighting was tungsten and blue LED mostly.

I shot this at 320 and developed at standard c41 times. The lighting was mixed with CLF, tungsten and daylight.

And then some horrible failure examples, shot at 500 ISO (and slightly under exposing at times for shutter speeds' sake) with pretty much all CLF or LED lighting. I had some really bad issues with remjet sticking in this batch for some reason... Colors were all over the place, horrible grain, etc. These are color corrected as good as I was willing to do.

I feel like in non-tungsten lighting it should be rated at a lower ISO, and narrow spectrum lighting like CFL or cheap LED it really looks horrible and under exposes. I wonder if cross processing in c41 requires additional development time or exposure. I haven't really come across anyone online talking about it.

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Funny, I've had the same thing happen. Shot at 800 and pushed a stop the photos look better than shot at 400-500 and developed normal time.

I wonder what shooting at box and pushing a stop would do...maybe this film needs a longer development than standard c-41 times.

C41 processing will result in too high gamma. These films need less development in C41 than regular 3m15s, not more.

And if you’re shooting a tungsten balanced film like 500T, shouldn’t you be balancing light sources or filtering appropriately? When shooting this film for motion picture use much time, money and effort was put into making sure the color temperatures of the light sources matched what the film was seeing. And many light sources can’t render color correctly on film.

koraks said:

C41 processing will result in too high gamma. These films need less development in C41 than regular 3m15s, not more.

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Right-o.

Let me establish what I'm doing here and what many others are doing.

I'm shooting expired unknown tungsten balanced motion picture film, that was broken down from a huge roll, bulk loaded, in a still camera using 85 filters or 85B filters or no filter, under any assortment of lighting conditions, shooting at inconsistent speeds, and developing in a home tank with chemicals, that are suspect and exhausted and of the wrong process for this film, removing the REMJET with any variety of ways. Then scanning the stuff and trying to make it look presentable with post processing.

From one roll to the next there is no telling what will happen and we expect it. We are in unexplored territory.

Sure, from a technical standpoint the film may need less development in C-41. However, cinema exposes half or less of the frame and the grain is not as much of a factor. To get the film to look good on a still full frame shot might just take a different time or method. There is really no established way to do it.

As for me, I've noticed that shooting a stop or half stop over and pushing the development time gives a cleaner more color consistent photo. I've also noticed that not all 85 filters are equal and not all 85's play well with all lenses.

Here it's pushed to 800, no filter and developed for a c-41 one stop push. Looks cool and clean.


400, standard C-41 times 85B filter. Looks quite grainy but the colors are warmer.


Half-frame, 400, 85 filter. (Olympus Pen EE3) Colors are really nice, grain is acceptable.


For me the film is cheap, fast and fun to play with. Yes, it's unpredictable but I don't care. If I want predicable and boring I have many plastic fantastic CPUs with lenses that get the job done 99% of the time with no issues. However this is just my philosophy. Enjoy film however you like.

You're absolutely right; everyone should decide for themselves how they want to work. My statement about development times was made from my own perspective in which I like to print optically, as scanning gives me little pleasure. Hence, my remark about gamma was based on the requirements of RQ4 paper and also in connection with ECN2 film being a substitute for C41 films like portra. If you get the results you like with push processing in C41, more power to you!

koraks said:

You're absolutely right; everyone should decide for themselves how they want to .work. My statement about development times was made from my own perspective in which I like to print optically, as scanning gives me little pleasure. Hence, my remark about gamma was based on the requirements of RQ4 paper and also in connection with ECN2 film being a substitute for C41 films like portra. If you get the results you like with push processing in C41, more power to you!

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'Keep throwing things at the wall until it works' method for me.

Optically printing color...now that's beyond my skill set.

I find the comments on push processing to be interesting. For the most part, when using ECN2 as still film, I find that a 5 min development time is optimal. Much of the stock I have is expired, and I have come to the conclusion that expired ECN2 film benefits from a longer than standard development time.

newcan1 said:

I find the comments on push processing to be interesting. For the most part, when using ECN2 as still film, I find that a 5 min development time is optimal. Much of the stock I have is expired, and I have come to the conclusion that expired ECN2 film benefits from a longer than standard development time.

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My experience is quite close. About 4m30s ECN-2 development at 41°C yields about the right contrast for RA4 paper. Colors remain off though. Blue shadows and yellow highlights.

If you try shooting in daylight or indoor with fluorescent, it's gonna stink!

I find it's great for night street shooting.

However, it has a very distinct red "halo" around some highlights and speculars. I suspect the removal of the rem jet is responsible for this.

dmr said:

it has a very distinct red "halo" around some highlights and speculars. I suspect the removal of the rem jet is responsible for this.

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Yes, that's due to the remjet backing missing. As long as it's there, the film is very resistant to any firm of halation or light piping.

newcan1 said:

I find the comments on push processing to be interesting. For the most part, when using ECN2 as still film, I find that a 5 min development time is optimal. Much of the stock I have is expired, and I have come to the conclusion that expired ECN2 film benefits from a longer than standard development time.

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Think I should always give it a stop of extra development? I'm going to start trying this, it can't hurt honestly...

Interesting discussion. I have about 1600 ft of expired Visions2 re-cans in the fridge. Got it for pennies to play with, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

[QUOTE="Colors remain off though. Blue shadows and yellow highlights.[/QUOTE]

That may be attributable to the higher temperature you are using, not the higher time. I process for 5mins at 100 deg. F and have no visual crossover. I bridge the remaining contrast gap with H202 in the RA4 developer when printing.

The ECN2 process prescribes 41°C, so I settled on that. I'll try a lower temperature, but I have to say I'm very skeptical. Even fairly large variations in pH didn't appreciably change the color balance (although it evidently does affect developer activity and hence requires adjustment of development time to match the contrast of RA4 paper). I might give H2O2 added to the RA4 developer a try as well, could be an interesting experiment.

I misspoke. I develop at 106F, which is the published temp. I guess that is 41C. But I don't get visible crossover.