Cinestill? My own version / experiment!
-
A
- Thread starter CineVisionLDN
- Start date
Recent Classifieds
-
Want to Buy Omega D5500 with Dichroic Head, Australia
- Started by andrewherrick
-
For Sale Two Graflex 6x9 film backs for Graflex RB 6x9 (2x3)
- Started by Alex Varas
-
For Sale Nokton 40mm f/.14 SC for Leica M cameras.
- Started by Alex Varas
-
For Sale Nikon F2AS + Nikkon 50mm f/1.8 Ai - CLA'd in July 2025.
- Started by Alex Varas
Forum statistics
50D colours are very different to Ektar. It is not so much the lack of grain (I don't see it an issue either with Ektar or Portra 160) and the speed is a bit limiting but the colours are different. Could I photoshop Ektar/Portra to look like it? I don't think you can but even if you could then I might as well shoot digital if I am to start doing this, plenty of Kodak and Fuji presets around for Lightroom.
I really enjoy exploring theses differences. I'm hoping to spool up some remjet free Fuji Reala 500D soon!
(And to Xmas)What is "different?" Can you tell in a comparison test without knowing the source film? Why is "different" perceived to be "better?" Why would Kodak make movie film to look noticeably "different" than still film? An alternate color palette reality? Does one "need" this "difference" to get a color image that is otherwise lacking in still films? Would an uninformed viewer choose one over the other? Does this difference show up in the spectrographic curves, or is it all in the eye/brain of the beholder?
And let's not forget, if you take the rem jet off before shooting, you no longer are shooting the film as designed. Maybe that's some of the alleged "difference," eh? Light back scatter, etc. And then if you process it in C-41, with or without the rem jet coating while exposing, you again move a step away from what Kodak intended.
Scratch mix ECN-2? Holy cow, what a glutton for punishment................ Presuming one can find the information.
C41 is a cheapskate film for unsuspecting punters to make for simpler mini lab processing.
The REMJET controls bleed from highlights better - like it did in Kodachrome.
I'd shoot it with REMJET on, there are people here that do that... One even cuts down 62 and 70mm ECN for 220 loads!
The only problem is it is lower contrast for cine positive film.
The normal cine theatres do a good job at projection.
ECN2 formula is easy and open public information on Kodak's site to allow cine labs to operate.
I normally make up chemicals from scratch though some (ECN) are difficult to get and need shipping and need rubber gloves like the mini lab chemicals.
Or, just shoot a C-41 film of choice and either home process it or take it to that dreaded minilab.
Oh please, if you can't see a difference in the colour of Ektar, Portra and 50D then, well no point continuing a conversation.
Would choosing 50D over Portra or Ektar magically improve a photo? Of course not. Would I prefer one over the other? Of course I would. If you can't understand that, well whatever. I don't care what an uninformed viewer would chose, I care what I would chose just as much as I don't care what food you like when I order at the restaurant. It is called "choice" and "personal preference".
Last edited by a moderator:
I've never shot a Cinestill, so I'm not qualified to make a statement from experience.
OK, so it has a different look just as Portra does from Ektar does from Fujicolor. Got it. My point isn't that, but does it matter? Will it make a superior image? Will people, especially the public, know? To say nothing of that to do it right, as intended, you need to shoot with the rem jet on and then go for that $42 per roll ECN-2 processing. Or, as Xmas suggests, mix your own, and then what do you have versus any other good color negative film?
I just try to sort out subjectivity from objectivity. If it's a nuance that generally won't be noticed, I'm saying take the easier route.
Yet you feel qualified to deride those that do like it and dismiss it as irrelevant. Nice.
When you eat do you ever think that you'd like to eat something nice or do you just go by nutritional value alone and then stick it in the microwave?
As for processing, the whole point of Cinestill and what the OP has created is that it is C41 so what on earth are you talking about?
Might as well shoot digital then.
Wow. Didn't realise this film experiment would cause such debate!
I do all my own processing and mix ECN-2 chemistry from scratch regularly. You need CD-3 and otherwise standard chemicals for developers. It is no harder to process than C-41 and remjet is a non-issue; it is easily removed during processing. See other threads here.
Is it better than Portra or Ektar or .... That depends on what you want. I feel 5207 is very wide latitude (14+ stops advertised) and a very forgiving film. It scans with essentially no grain. Tweak the process timing of the color developer to taste - I go about 10% longer than spec - and there is plenty of contrast for optical prints. Colors are just beautiful and saturation is high without being over the top.
I like to think of it as slide film with latitude.
I have not used 5201 or 5203 but I have over 1000 feet of 5207 on ice and also some of the 500T.
FPPs prices ARE about 4x direct from Ekta but you can get a 100 ft roll at a tolerable price. Otherwise you can hunt eBay or find a place that sells short ends - not as easy as it sounds. There a quite a few vendors of rolled films. FPPs sells 24 exposure rolls but I don't feel the price is that great, although I buy quite a bit from FPP in general.
Is it better than Portra or Ektar or .... That depends on what you want. I feel 5207 is very wide latitude (14+ stops advertised) and a very forgiving film. It scans with essentially no grain. Tweak the process timing of the color developer to taste - I go about 10% longer than spec - and there is plenty of contrast for optical prints. Colors are just beautiful and saturation is high without being over the top.
I like to think of it as slide film with latitude.
I have not used 5201 or 5203 but I have over 1000 feet of 5207 on ice and also some of the 500T.
FPPs prices ARE about 4x direct from Ekta but you can get a 100 ft roll at a tolerable price. Otherwise you can hunt eBay or find a place that sells short ends - not as easy as it sounds. There a quite a few vendors of rolled films. FPPs sells 24 exposure rolls but I don't feel the price is that great, although I buy quite a bit from FPP in general.
Oh, please. "Might as well shoot digital" because I'm askance that a film designed for ECN-2 and rem jet has the latter removed ahead of shooting and then is processed in C-41? Cut me/us some logical slack.
I would never criticize anyone for exploring, trying, pushing the envelopes. Or, just having fun. No problemo. But don't try to blow smoke up my orifice that even after remjet removal prior to shooting and then processing in C-41 you have a product superior to conventional good color neg films, especially Ektar. If that was the case, surely someone at Kodak would have had a light bulb go on.
As someone mentioned upstream, yes, Kodachrome had rem jet. I lean towards thinking that rem jet is sort of an insurance policy and something good. Cool. But just like real insurance policies, we don't all need a million dollar umbrella policy.
Yup, to everything you mention. I ask, with all respect, why you felt it necessary to mix ECN-2 instead of just using readily available C-41 chemistry. If you are printing to RA-4 with standard times, the negatives will be of low contrast, as will the prints. If you do the hybrid thing, it won't matter.
The wide SBR you mention is roughly inherent in all color neg emulsions. The ECN-2 camera films were designed to then put onto an internegative film and from there, a positive print out the the theaters.
Because ECN-2 is the correct process for this film. (For those who may not be aware, ECN-2 uses CD-3 as the color developing component while C-41 uses CD-4.) As much as I like to scratch mix and match and find what materials CAN do in addition to what they are designed to do (as well as get away cheap where I can), I am not into the cross processing thing.
However, many seem to feel that running the Vision 3 films in C-41 works just fine. It is my sneaking suspicion, that if we could get under the hood we would find that Portra, Ektar, Vision3, 400 Max, Gold 200 and maybe even T-Max and the latest round of Tri-X are made of mixes and matches of the same basic components with the dyes and sensitizers tweaked. They are more similar than different. This being one of the key reasons Ektachrome went away - because it didn't use those same components.
Not saying they are the same films. Quite to the contrary: they all have their characteristics. I have no direct or inside knowledge, of course, but I think that using a small set of components in various optimized mixes is what keeps the films available.
In addition, I think that this same idea is what makes processing Vision 3 films in C-41 work out OK. By the same token, processing C-41 films in ECN-2 might work out OK, too. Haven't tried and don't plan to.
But a key thing to remember is that in any color film, the developer in oxidised form is half of the color dye. You don't get the same chromophore from CD-4 as you get from CD-3. But again, the dye components may have been engineered that either CD-3 or CD-4 are acceptable. IDK.
And this film shines for hybrid use. It was intended to be scanned because that is how movies are made today, well recently anyway.
As I mentioned above, a 10% extension of development time, with constant agitation, gets a usable contrast. YMMV. I will admit that my biggest use of this film is a hybrid worklflow. As much as I like to, I do not have bunches of time to set up and print RA-4 - or anything else for that matter. Most (too much?) of my available time is spent learning and researching the various film processes. Sometimes Shutterfly is just the easy way out!
I have thought about getting some ECP to make slides.
Perhaps when you stop looking at things as being superior or inferior to each other and just accept them as different then maybe you'll see what I mean. We get it, it is ok to explore and push the envelope and try new things as long as it fits within your prescribed notions of superior/inferior. Different is not allowed, just superior.
So for the time being I will bow out to your superior intellect, knowledge and experience of something you never used and say this: goodbye!
Last edited by a moderator:
@film_man: I liked your long-ish post very much. Good points all; I would go a step further and note that except for Tri-X, I think all of the films mentioned are T-grained.
Yes, of course you can compensate for low contrast for paper prints. And I guess anyone doing their own paper prints isn't going to hand off their un-remjetted CineStill/Vision film to the minilab for straight C-41 processing.
It is not I who started making claims of superiority. It started with the implication from the OP that something special is in the offing. And what CineStill implies, too. I questioned if the ECN films are superior shot as still, and if so, how. Is that so terrible? And if they aren't processed as intended, how can that be the same as what Kodak designed the film/developer system for? Is that so terrible?
And I said that if it's all for foto-fun, that's great! Is that so terrible? But there is often a need for people to justify a subjective or emotional decision as objective or rational. No need for this boy.
My questions and concerns have nothing to do with allegedly claimed "superior intellect, knowledge and experience." Just wanting to know why this is a great way to shoot color neg that has the implication that it's superior to regular C-41 film and processing.
In fact, not hoping for superior results, but just for fun and to save film costs, I might well try some ECN after I lower my C-41 film stocks.
It also occurs to me that wouldn't RA-4 developer perhaps do well with this film? After all, its CD-3 based, at least as I understand it. Lots of experimenting in order, or course. David Linga has done some of that.
Yes, of course you can compensate for low contrast for paper prints. And I guess anyone doing their own paper prints isn't going to hand off their un-remjetted CineStill/Vision film to the minilab for straight C-41 processing.
It is not I who started making claims of superiority. It started with the implication from the OP that something special is in the offing. And what CineStill implies, too. I questioned if the ECN films are superior shot as still, and if so, how. Is that so terrible? And if they aren't processed as intended, how can that be the same as what Kodak designed the film/developer system for? Is that so terrible?
And I said that if it's all for foto-fun, that's great! Is that so terrible? But there is often a need for people to justify a subjective or emotional decision as objective or rational. No need for this boy.
My questions and concerns have nothing to do with allegedly claimed "superior intellect, knowledge and experience." Just wanting to know why this is a great way to shoot color neg that has the implication that it's superior to regular C-41 film and processing.
In fact, not hoping for superior results, but just for fun and to save film costs, I might well try some ECN after I lower my C-41 film stocks.
It also occurs to me that wouldn't RA-4 developer perhaps do well with this film? After all, its CD-3 based, at least as I understand it. Lots of experimenting in order, or course. David Linga has done some of that.
I just bought a roll each of 250D and 500T films from the Film Photography Project. $6.99 each, no problem, but then I noticed that these reloads are only 27 exposures! How weird is that? I let them know that I thought so, and to not give us another 20 cents of stock (I worked the numbers,) is sort of cheating.
The good news is that their cheapest shipping is $2.72.
My C-41 is all mixed up and ready to go.
If I get all crazy and can't live without a rem-jetted film, any ideas how to take a Kodak 400' roll and peel off 100' for the bulk loader?
The good news is that their cheapest shipping is $2.72.
My C-41 is all mixed up and ready to go.
If I get all crazy and can't live without a rem-jetted film, any ideas how to take a Kodak 400' roll and peel off 100' for the bulk loader?
Hi Paul
Two things are really easy!
Making up the ECN2 chemicals from scratch.
Loading 1000 feet of cine into loader.
-
-- you need a set of modern micro scales with 0.01 gm resolution about 50 USD barrier gloves and dust face mask and goggles
-
-- can of 1000 feet cine
-- changing bag medium size
-- small 100 foot cine camera reel (the reels came with most 100 foot loads)
-- scissors
-- empty 100 foot bulk box or can
the cine can sealing tape is best removed in subdued light and the can slid into already loaded cbag carefully then zip up
Split the can parts leaving the film in half can flat on bag
Undo sticker on end of film
Feed end of film into small spool cine film in half can and spool both still flat
Wind slowly about 40 mins for 100 foot when spool fills to brim you have 95 foot plus
Snip film put spool and cine into respective containers
Open changing bag and retape both cans.
Normal loaders take the cine spools
You can get a spool on eBay but some one local will mail you one for free.
Don't try with a cine loader core as spaghetti all to likely
Some cine may be wound outside in but Kodak identify this as it would be bad in a cine camera...
I use 5222 as well as ilford and FSU cine normally decades since I scratch mixed colour
A cine short end is cheaper than a virgin can there were two on sale on forum last year ...
Last edited by a moderator:
@Xmas: Thanks for the voice of experience! I guess I knew I could keep my arms in that changing bag for a long time and slowly move the film from one roll to the other, I was hoping that there was a faster method. You know, like using a 35mm film editor..........which of course is expensive and won't fit into a changing bag! Regardless, that you have done so gives me hope! And I no longer have any film cans or hubs. I suspect I'll just count bulk loader crank handle revolutions, feed directly from the big reel to the film cassette.
It will be awhile when or if I do this. I'll have to shoot those two rolls I bought, evaluate, if if I think worth the effort of making a significant investment into film and then dealing with home processing and rem jet forever more. etc. etc.
I'm not going to the trouble and expense of making ECN-2 developer. C-41 is just fine for me. Negatives will be scanned, so many sins can be absolved. Including shooting 500T in daylight. When I used to routinely shoot ECN, living ten miles from one of many Hollywood labs processing this, you would tell them that it was shot with or without a color correction filter. They didn't care one way or the other, but knowing how it was shot let them dial in color correction easily.
It will be awhile when or if I do this. I'll have to shoot those two rolls I bought, evaluate, if if I think worth the effort of making a significant investment into film and then dealing with home processing and rem jet forever more. etc. etc.
I'm not going to the trouble and expense of making ECN-2 developer. C-41 is just fine for me. Negatives will be scanned, so many sins can be absolved. Including shooting 500T in daylight. When I used to routinely shoot ECN, living ten miles from one of many Hollywood labs processing this, you would tell them that it was shot with or without a color correction filter. They didn't care one way or the other, but knowing how it was shot let them dial in color correction easily.
A hub (if you mean a core) very risky the small camera reel
-contains any side slip and
-measures out a full loader length which may be less than 100 foot.
The 1000 film may only be on a core never had a reel.
I dyson the changing bag inside before hand and don't scratch, a bulk loader might scratch.
If you find an easier method I'd bee all ears.
Cine film may be thicker and difficult to get 36 in some cassettes though 27 would be erring on side of caution.
Those companies selling the ECN films always used 36 exposure reloads. Unless the Vision films are suddenly a lot thicker than of old...... 
No idea what a dyson is. Never had a clean bulk loader scratch film.
No idea what a dyson is. Never had a clean bulk loader scratch film.
Hi Paul
I was trying to help as with some cassettes 5222 or indeed HP5+ is tight for a 36 load. I don't know about Vision films.
A Dyson is a bagless vacuum cleaner, normally with a HEPA filter.
I can't see how you can use a bulk loader to count frames off a cine core without risks of scratches.
Noel
I was trying to help as with some cassettes 5222 or indeed HP5+ is tight for a 36 load. I don't know about Vision films.
A Dyson is a bagless vacuum cleaner, normally with a HEPA filter.
I can't see how you can use a bulk loader to count frames off a cine core without risks of scratches.
Noel
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2008
- Messages
- 2,816
- Format
- 35mm
It's a weird-looking overpriced plastic vacuum cleaner, which, according to the endless adverts, does things which no other cleaner has ever done in the history of the world. Ours did....for six months, when it died. Took it back, got a Miele....built like the proverbial (real metal, just like a proper camera!) I can see it lasting us out and becoming a family heirloom !
Hi Paul
I was trying to help as with some cassettes 5222 or indeed HP5+ is tight for a 36 load. I don't know about Vision films.
A Dyson is a bagless vacuum cleaner, normally with a HEPA filter.
I can't see how you can use a bulk loader to count frames off a cine core without risks of scratches.
Noel
I was trying to help as with some cassettes 5222 or indeed HP5+ is tight for a 36 load. I don't know about Vision films.
A Dyson is a bagless vacuum cleaner, normally with a HEPA filter.
I can't see how you can use a bulk loader to count frames off a cine core without risks of scratches.
Noel
Ah, Dyson. Now I recognize that. I'm so old, everything is a Hoover.
OK, while I've dismissed the subjective, "It's movie, it must be better," comments, I admit I've gotten very curious. Here are some things I've found out along the way:
1) I've looked at the Kodak tech sheets for the 50D, 250D, and 500T films. Due to the fact that consumer Kodak films now use a different standard than the old RMS granularity, it appears to me that they still fall short of the best C-41 films.
2) Likewise, the resolution falls short of Ektar 100. Even the the 50D. The only two films that Kodak ever rated the resolution of as "Excellent" are the Ektar 100 and the consumer 400 High Definition, may you RIP. (Still my favorite.)
3) You can buy 400' cans of the Kodak films on eBay for around $100.
4) If I had to find another high speed color negative film, as I will after my 400HD stocks run out, I'd go for the Portra 400 and not worry about rem jet. Heck, it's even based on the Vision3 technologies! B&H iists a 100' bulk roll, but no price.
I think between Ektar 100 and/or Kodak 400HD or Portra 400, it doesn't make much sense to use the Vision3 films other than for fun or experiments. OK, you can save some money.....
So, I do have one roll each 250D and 500T coming to putz with, but I can't see them bettering what is out there for still films.
4) And with the ECN films, you are locked into home processing, no option to go to a (rapidly disappearing) minilab.
OK, while I've dismissed the subjective, "It's movie, it must be better," comments, I admit I've gotten very curious. Here are some things I've found out along the way:
1) I've looked at the Kodak tech sheets for the 50D, 250D, and 500T films. Due to the fact that consumer Kodak films now use a different standard than the old RMS granularity, it appears to me that they still fall short of the best C-41 films.
2) Likewise, the resolution falls short of Ektar 100. Even the the 50D. The only two films that Kodak ever rated the resolution of as "Excellent" are the Ektar 100 and the consumer 400 High Definition, may you RIP. (Still my favorite.)
3) You can buy 400' cans of the Kodak films on eBay for around $100.
4) If I had to find another high speed color negative film, as I will after my 400HD stocks run out, I'd go for the Portra 400 and not worry about rem jet. Heck, it's even based on the Vision3 technologies! B&H iists a 100' bulk roll, but no price.
I think between Ektar 100 and/or Kodak 400HD or Portra 400, it doesn't make much sense to use the Vision3 films other than for fun or experiments. OK, you can save some money.....
So, I do have one roll each 250D and 500T coming to putz with, but I can't see them bettering what is out there for still films.
4) And with the ECN films, you are locked into home processing, no option to go to a (rapidly disappearing) minilab.
Last edited by a moderator:
| Photrio.com contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. To read our full affiliate disclosure statement please click Here. |
PHOTRIO PARTNERS EQUALLY FUNDING OUR COMMUNITY:  |