Experiences pushing Eastman Kodak 250D?

radialMelt · Sep 10, 2024

Hi all,

Looking for user reports on successes and failures of pushing 250D to 400 and 800 ISO. I shoot it regularly at 200 ISO and enjoy the results, but as we get later into the year I'm looking for a little more speed, thus I am curious to try pushing it to 400 or even 800.

Please share your experience with this!

Cheers!

koraks · Sep 10, 2024

Yeah, I did that once (250D @ 800). Came out OK; a little punchy and of course some degradation of shadow detail. But it wasn't too bad.

Scans from optical prints onto Fuji DPII.

IDK what development time I used on these; I'd have to look it up. I figure it would have been something like 5 minutes or so. Maybe a little shorter. ECN2 developer at 41C.

xkaes · Sep 10, 2024

Is faster film hard to find or expensive?

koraks · Sep 10, 2024

xkaes said:
Is faster film hard to find or expensive?

Especially if you buy the 250D in bulk, it costs only a fraction of a regular C41 400 or 800 film, yes. I think I can shoot 3 or 4 rolls of 250D for the cost of a single roll of Portra 800.

radialMelt · Sep 10, 2024

koraks said:
Yeah, I did that once (250D @ 800). Came out OK; a little punchy and of course some degradation of shadow detail. But it wasn't too bad.

Scans from optical prints onto Fuji DPII.

IDK what development time I used on these; I'd have to look it up. I figure it would have been something like 5 minutes or so. Maybe a little shorter. ECN2 developer at 41C.

Thanks for sharing, koraks. Quite punchy indeed. Would probably work out okay in not-too-contrasty situations, but maybe a bit too much for mid-day high contrast scenes. Perhaps 400 is a good sweet spot.

xkaes said:
Is faster film hard to find or expensive?

more expensive yes, hard to find no. However, where is the fun in that? I have a pile of 250D so might as well use it

koraks · Sep 10, 2024

radialMelt said:
Quite punchy indeed.

Keep in mind these are scans from optical prints, and today's color paper is really contrasty. If you scan, you're not bound to the contrast the paper gives you and it's also easier to lift the shadows. Here's a quick & dirty scan of the same strip of negatives:

You could color balance this in whatever way you want of course.

radialMelt · Sep 10, 2024

koraks said:
Keep in mind these are scans from optical prints, and today's color paper is really contrasty. If you scan, you're not bound to the contrast the paper gives you and it's also easier to lift the shadows. Here's a quick & dirty scan of the same strip of negatives:
View attachment 378297
You could color balance this in whatever way you want of course.

Ah yes, fair enough, those certainly seem to have more latitude. Thanks again!

xkaes · Sep 10, 2024

And seeing how cheap 250D is, try it at 400 & 800 and see if you like it. I've got some 16mm 250D and would like to know how it goes. I've never pushed it. Getting the REMJET backing off is enough work for me -- but it's great film. Pushing 16mm film is not my "thing".

Brian Puccio · Sep 10, 2024

koraks said:
Keep in mind these are scans from optical prints, and today's color paper is really contrasty. If you scan, you're not bound to the contrast the paper gives you and it's also easier to lift the shadows. Here's a quick & dirty scan of the same strip of negatives:
View attachment 378297
You could color balance this in whatever way you want of course.

Thanks for posting. I was actually wondering the same thing myself since it looks like I’ll be trying to bulk load Vision3 and DIY ECN2 at home soon.

xkaes · Sep 10, 2024

Does your Vision 3 250D have a REMJET backing, like mine?

MattKing · Sep 10, 2024

xkaes said:
Does your Vision 3 250D have a REMJET backing, like mine?

If it is actually labelled as Vision 3 250D, it would have to.
If it is labelled as a Cinestill product, it probably doesn't.
I don't know if anyone else besides Cinestill has been able to get the resources together to buy from Eastman Kodak its minimum order of remjet-less ECN pprocess film.

xkaes · Sep 10, 2024

That's what I'm assuming. I only deal with 18-24" strips of 16mm film. I'm curious as to how those with longer strips deal with it.

radialMelt · Sep 10, 2024

There's plenty of info - here and elsewhere - on how to remove remjet. I personally use the Kodak recipe for ECN-2 prewash, with some manual wiping after processing and before drying.

I'd like to keep this thread on topic though, please. Anyone else have experience pushing 250D to 400 or beyond?

MattKing · Sep 10, 2024

Due to the influence of flare/halation, remjet-less film will give you a bit more "apparent" speed in many instances than the film with remjet. So that certainly factors in to the considerations.
Are you using ECN chemicals, or are you trying to use C-41?

cmacd123 · Sep 10, 2024

too bad that fuji left the Movie Business, they used to have a 500D stock to go with there 500T stock.

and yes, all the colour Vision films coming from Kodak have the remjet.

Experiences pushing Eastman Kodak 250D?

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