More "new" colour films

Agulliver · May 1, 2023

I received an email from Analogue Wonderland about "Candido" 800 ISO colour negative C41 film yesterday. Their price isn't bad, indeed the email was talking about how great it was to have an affordable high speed colour film. A bit of googling found the people who may be supplying it, where I was able to order some rolls for £2 less than AW offer it. Possibly UK based as the postage was very reasonably Royal Mail 1st class.

Colour me a little sceptical because the FAQ refers to "Ramjet" anti-halation and is very sketchy about where this film is made. They say it has a shelf life of two years after purchase. Sample shots on their website aren't stellar but I'm going to try it.

EDIT: I checked out the reviews on their site which have more sample pictures from customers and this is certainly some sort of motion picture film with the remjet removed. Has a load of cheap 500T hit the market recently? Some of the customer photos look very good. They also seem to offer a warmer (daylight balanced?) 400 ISO film with promises of another 400 ISO and a 200 ISO C41 film "coming soon"....all at competitive prices. Indeed the 800 is about as cheap as it's ever likely to get.

Has anyone else come across this?

Candido800 Colour Film

Introducing CANDIDO800 Colour Film 36 Shots BUY NOW! Experience the magic of Candido's ISO800 Colour Film, specially designed to excel in low-light conditions and fast-paced environments. Whether you're shooting under the stars, in dimly-lit rooms, or capturing action-packed scenes, this...

www.candidocollective.com

I've also been fed an ad via social media for "Poly Film Labs" who seem to offer a lot of very reasonably priced services and film. They are open about using large bulk rolls of film like Ektachrome and Vision 3 to sell 36 exposure cassettes at reasonable prices. I've ordered 3 of their Vison 3 500T too. They do explain this still has the remjet so I'll probably send it to them for processing as their prices are very reasonable. Of possible interest is that they offer quite frankly insanely low prices for cine film processing. I believe they also trade as Kerboros Productions Ltd...as that was the name on my payment. Poly Film Labs are on Facebook and Instagram, and they seem a friendly bunch.

Poly Film Labs

Suffolk Photo and Cine Film Lab

www.polyfilmlabs.co.uk

Please note I am not recommending these two companies yet, as I am yet to receive or use any products/services. I have ordered film from both, and will be sending some super 8 Tri-X to Poly Lab in August. This is more "Heads up, especially UK folk, you might want to try these people".

pentaxuser · May 1, 2023

Agulliver said:
Candido800 Colour Film

Introducing CANDIDO800 Colour Film 36 Shots BUY NOW! Experience the magic of Candido's ISO800 Colour Film, specially designed to excel in low-light conditions and fast-paced environments. Whether you're shooting under the stars, in dimly-lit rooms, or capturing action-packed scenes, this...

www.candidocollective.com

I've also been fed an ad via social media for "Poly Film Labs" who seem to offer a lot of very reasonably priced services and film. They are open about using large bulk rolls of film like Ektachrome and Vision 3 to sell 36 exposure cassettes at reasonable prices. I've ordered 3 of their Vison 3 500T too. They do explain this still has the remjet so I'll probably send it to them for processing as their prices are very reasonable. Of possible interest is that they offer quite frankly insanely low prices for cine film processing.

Thanks for the post. What! Honesty and prices are reasonable. May they rot in hell for these two sins- amounting to utter heresy

pentaxuser

Rudeofus · May 1, 2023

If you look at this offer here, then you can see either a couple of minutes of movie, or you see the material for 185 rolls of 135 format still film for 36 exposures each. If you obtain cheap film canisters and figure out an efficient way to spool that film, you can sell 185 ECN-2 film rolls. If you figure out, how to remove the rem jet layer before spooling, and have the guts to sell film for cross processing, you have 185 rolls of C-41 ISO 800 film!

henryyjjames · May 1, 2023

Rudeofus said:
If you figure out, how to remove the rem jet layer before spooling... you have 185 rolls of C-41 ISO 800 film!

I want to find a way to do this, but I am not sure how I will be able to . I have a darkroom, but it will still be a challenge.

MattKing · May 1, 2023

Rudeofus said:
If you look at this offer here, then you can see either a couple of minutes of movie, or you see the material for 185 rolls of 135 format still film for 36 exposures each. If you obtain cheap film canisters and figure out an efficient way to spool that film, you can sell 185 ECN-2 film rolls. If you figure out, how to remove the rem jet layer before spooling, and have the guts to sell film for cross processing, you have 185 rolls of C-41 ISO 800 film!

I don't know if others have been able to make the same deal with Eastman Kodak that Cinestill did:
- buy enough, and Eastman Kodak will make a bunch of ECN-2 film for you that never has remjet included with it.
The halation performance will be "interesting", and there will be contrast challenges if developed in ECN-2 and contrast and colour challenges if developed in C-41, but you will end up with inexpensive film - if you can find a less expensive way to confection it than Eastman Kodak emplys.
No frame numbers though, unless you have the machinery to add them.

Rudeofus · May 2, 2023

My impression is, that a number of small companies have figured out a way to do this, and that's why we're seeing so many new "ISO 800 tungsten balanced" products out there. I have shot quite a few rolls of Cinestill 800, and can report the following:

highlights within the image frame will have red halos, not everyone likes these
this film stock is the only color film stock worth shooting for casual shots in artificial indoor lighting. EI800 is already borderline in most such situations, but a wide angle image stabilized lens makes it work.
I usually scan my color film, and never had a real problem with colors or contrast, at least not more than with regular C-41 stock.
Vision 500T rocks!

Steven Lee · May 2, 2023

@Rudeofus I am not disputing your experience, but I think that saying that 800T is the only color film worth shooting indoors is... let's just say subjective. I am having a far easier time scanning and getting good color with Portra 800 shot indoors with artificial lighting. Sure, the white balance needs correcting, but at least the RGB curves are parallel. Every Cinestill emulsion I've tried required massive color correction efforts to look OK. Cross-processing ECN-2 in C41 just isn't worth it IMO.

Flighter · May 2, 2023

Interesting! Only seems to be 24 exposure rolls though.

Agulliver said:
Possibly UK based as the postage was very reasonably Royal Mail 1st class.

Looks to be supplied from the UK as the FAQs on "Duties & Taxes" on the Candido site includes the following

WILL I HAVE TO PAY DUTIES AND TAXES?
You are solely liable for any customs and taxes levied your nation's government if you are a client from a country other than the United Kingdom.

Their FAQs on "Our Products" also states the following:

WHERE IS THE FILM MANUFACTURED?
We work with a select number of partners across Europe and Asia to bring you the best film possible, at the most cost effective rates! Before releasing the film, we tried and tested various samples from different manufacturers before deciding on the highest quality product.

So [pure speculation on my part] possibly sourced from Asia (China) in which case it may be Vision 3 that has had the remjet removed in China as was the case for the film in this Emulsive article "5 Frames… Of “Sinostill” 800T a cheaper alternative to Cinestill 800T?". The Candido ISO800 would presumably originate from Vision 500T and the ISO400 from Vision 250D with the cross processing bumping the speed to 800 and 400 respectively, but what is the origin of the Candido ISO200? Vison 200T or 50D?

Their Products FAQs does say, however:

WHICH METHOD, C-41 OR ECN-2, IS PREFERABLE FOR CANDIDO FILM?
Candido was developed for use in the C-41 processing of still photographs which is ideal for any processing lab or home development kit.

Which doesn't tie in with a Vision 3 origin unless one takes the view that removing the remjet is developedq for use in the C-41 process.

MattKing · May 2, 2023

Flighter said:
Their Products FAQs does say, however:
Which doesn't tie in with a Vision 3 origin unless one takes the view that removing the remjet is developedq for use in the C-41 process.

That is indeed what most of them are using as a "definition" of "for use in C-41 processing"

armadsen · May 3, 2023

MattKing said:
No frame numbers though, unless you have the machinery to add them.

Cinestill even has their own name and frame numbers on the edges of the film. Do you think they do that themselves?

Rudeofus · May 3, 2023

Steven Lee said:
@Rudeofus I am not disputing your experience, but I think that saying that 800T is the only color film worth shooting indoors is... let's just say subjective. I am having a far easier time scanning and getting good color with Portra 800 shot indoors with artificial lighting. Sure, the white balance needs correcting, but at least the RGB curves are parallel. Every Cinestill emulsion I've tried required massive color correction efforts to look OK. Cross-processing ECN-2 in C41 just isn't worth it IMO.

My experience may be tainted by the fact, that I develop my Cinestill 800T in ECN-2 soup, and in this case colors look ok straight from the scan. The trickiest interactions during post processing of my scans are due to the fact, that many of my shots are somewhat underexposed to make them happen at all.

Your Portra 800 is ISO640 from the onset, and artificial lighting turns this into an ISO160 emulsion in the blue channel. Even shooting at EI500 is borderline (as in: F/2 and 1/6-1/15s) in many situations I encounter indoor, already only possible in static situations and with image stabilizer or on a tripod.

MattKing · May 3, 2023

armadsen said:
Cinestill even has their own name and frame numbers on the edges of the film. Do you think they do that themselves?

They might - but I expect they are getting someone other than Eastman Kodak to do that for them. As I understand it, the confectioning/finishing continues to be a bottleneck for production of Kodak 35mm still film, which would argue against Kodak doing it, but perhaps they do have excess capacity for the edge printing part of the process.

Steven Lee · May 3, 2023

Rudeofus said:
My experience may be tainted by the fact, that I develop my Cinestill 800T in ECN-2 soup.

Ouch sorry I misunderstood then! Now it makes sense.

Sirius Glass · May 3, 2023

Rudeofus said:
My experience may be tainted by the fact, that I develop my Cinestill 800T in ECN-2 soup,

Next time instead of soup use photochemicals.

cmacd123 · May 3, 2023

REmonds me of the haydays of Movie production. At one time both Movies and TV shows were comonly originated on 35mm film. At 90 ft a minute, it often resulted in "Short ends" say 150 ft left, not enough for the next shots.
the production would sell those to a broker and small cine labs would buy them and load them into cassettes. then they would almost give them away, knowing that you needed a movie lab to deal with the rem-jet.

once you sent in the film, they would processit is ECN, (and later ECN-2) do a contact print on colour print stock and mount the resulting "slides" Many only were set up to do stight runs and so you were expected to use an 85 filter in Daylight. (as you really still should to get the best results out of the "T" movie stocks.)

of course since they were contact printed, the slides had the emulion on the wrong side and you had to use a flat field lens on your slide projector as the "ektanar C lens" on a normal projector would leve the edges fuzzy. AND the Kodak print stocks were optimized at the time for better colour in teh theatre, and faded after a couple of years. (not a problem for Hollywood as the release prints were commonly destroyed after the theatrical run.) the newer Kodak print stocks no longer fade.

Agulliver · May 4, 2023

I've tried Lomography 800 (which is believed to be Kodak Max 800) and Portra 800 in recent times. I far prefer the Lomography 800. What I do most often with high speed film is shoot in a jazz & blues club. My attempts with Portra saw the colours all off and even trying to tweak electronically could barely save them. The Lomography 800 comes out well with almost no tweaking necessary. It's a strange setup in the club light wise with red being the predominant colour.

I've been wanting to try Cinestill but seeing a couple of more "local" deals on what may be 500T loaded for still use I'm going this route for now. If the film doesn't give me what I want in the club I'll find other uses for it. I can always slap an 85 filter on and shoot in daylight....one can never have too much colour film!

I've received notification that both orders have been posted, with the "Poly Film Labs" providing a Royal Mail tracking number suggesting the film will be with me tomorrow. I've also communicated with them via Instagram and they are friendly and enthusiastic about all things film.

Regarding "developed for use with C41"....I think one could count removing the remjet or arranging for it to have never been there in the first place does count. It's going to be fun with the Candido seeing how my lab finds it for C41 and scanning. The Poly Labs stuff I'll probably send to them for ECN-2 processing and scan myself.

I'll likely have some results to share with y'all in the next month or so.

Steven Lee · May 5, 2023

Agulliver said:
I've tried Lomography 800 (which is believed to be Kodak Max 800) and Portra 800 in recent times. I far prefer the Lomography 800. What I do most often with high speed film is shoot in a jazz & blues club. My attempts with Portra saw the colours all off and even trying to tweak electronically could barely save them. The Lomography 800 comes out well with almost no tweaking necessary. It's a strange setup in the club light wise with red being the predominant colour.

What does this mean? "No tweaking necessary" part needs clarification, since all CN films require a massive amount of tweaking. Maybe your scanner software (or NLP, or ColorPerfect, or Negmaster) algorithm just happens to work better with Lomo 800 under that light? That seems far more plausible.

People often confuse film's inherent strengths & weaknesses with the strengths and weaknesses of their scanning routine.

Agulliver · May 5, 2023

I think it's fairly clear. For the subject matter I'm using high speed CN film for, with Portra I can't get the colours how I want them no matter how much I adjust the colour and light EQ settings. There's insufficient red, too much green and no amount of adjusting various channels or changing the white balance can bring out what I am looking for. I can't make Portra shot under those conditions produce images that look like the scene my eyes saw. With the Lomography 800 I rarely need to do anything with the colour EQ and just tweak the black levels a bit. I'm in no doubt that a more skilled user of photo editing software could do it, but I've tried and failed. I disagree that all CN films "require a massive amount of tweaking". I also regularly use Kodak Pro Image 100, Kodak Color Plus, Kodak Ultramax, Kodak Ektar, Fuji Superia 400, Fuji C200 and Lomography 100/800. I don't have problems making images that I want to make with those. And maybe if I used Portra in a more "normal" setting I'd like it too. But in that jazz club with all the red lighting it just doesn't work. BTW I scan myself, and found that the Portra negs were quite thin compared to Lomography 800 shot in the same camera, same conditions, same lens, same shutter speed and aperture. Which may be part of the problem I'm having with it.

Anyway the films from Poly Film Lab and Candido arrived. As I suspected, Poly Film Labs also trade as Kerborus Productions. The Poly film was just in black canisters, regular plastic bulk loading cassettes with nice but clearly inkjet printed labels. The Candido is in Fuji style frosted white canisters with the type of plastic cassettes one finds in disposable cameras. More pro packaging though. Note "Designed in London, Packaged in China"....and the warranty which is utterly without meaning in the UK as we have statutory consumer rights. Probably some generic blurb that they thought sounded cool.

I'll be trying both of these over the coming month or so to see if I can make them work in the way I want. Both are reasonably priced. And maybe I can get the cassettes back to reuse

foc · May 5, 2023

Steven Lee said:
"No tweaking necessary" part needs clarification, since all CN films require a massive amount of tweaking

I don't wish to start a scanning argument but I think this is not entirely true.

Depending on the equipment and software used and if you do it yourself or have a lab do it, there may be no need for post scanning tweaking.

There may however be some tweaking done just for tweaking sake. Just like the guy in the image who thought he could fix the dent (damaged bodywork) in the car.

koraks · May 6, 2023

foc said:
there may be no need for post scanning tweaking.

During the scanning process, however, a massive amount of adjustment is inherently present. It's in the very nature of color negative film. Sometimes what the scanning software spits out is close to what the user is happy with, sometimes there's a lot of additional adjustment necessary. What gives, either way?

Agulliver said:
But in that jazz club with all the red lighting it just doesn't work.

I have a feeling your problem might be too much red instead of too little. Given the color balance of the film (daylight) and the nature of the lighting you shoot under, you may be pushing the red channel all the way up its shoulder, leaving very little contrast in that channel. You end up with a compensation that either looks all an indeterminate and unsaturated cyan-ish mess, or a blown out mass of red. In your place I'd probably try and filter out some red to bring the color curves a bit closer to each other and then adjust to taste in post processing. The end result may end up a lot better although it would require letting go of some faith in the automatic color correction process in your scanning workflow. Again, just a personal perspective on what's going on; not a "right or wrong" situation.

Agulliver · Jun 6, 2023

First roll of Candido 800 shot and.....*I am impressed*. This does everything I had hoped. My usual Yashica Lynx with f1.8 lens has a problem so I used a Yashica Minister III at f2.8 and 1/15s for these. Word from the lady who processed them in an Agfa DLab C41 was that it went through like any C41 film and was easy to scan. Indeed she is looking at stocking this film if possible.

I've included a few samples and a photo of the rebate area so people can draw any conclusions as to it's origin based on knowledge of edge markings. There are no frame numbers. The first frame was a little fogged but that could also be me just not winding on sufficiently. Every other frame was good. There is some halo effect around the brightest parts, eg light reflecting off a guitar or the red uplights behind the musicians on the long shot. For my purposes this kicks Portra 800 into the trash can. And it's half the price. Lab lady agreed it's probably tungsten balanced. The colours on the black male singer's tunic are superbly rendered as is the overall atmosphere at the club. BTW these are straight scans from the Agfa DLab, no adjustments at all.

koraks · Jun 6, 2023

Agulliver said:
it went through like any C41 film

But it's an ECN-2 film, specifically Vision3 500T by the looks of it. In my experience ECN2-developed negatives on this family of film are a little easier to work with both in digital space and wet printing. But C41 of course has the convenience factor to it that you can drop it off at any C41 lab provided there's no remjet on the film.

Agulliver said:
scans from the Agfa DLab, no adjustments at all.

Massive 'adjustments' are inherently made during the scanning process; it's color negative film after all, and added to this the color balance of ECN2 film is wildly different than C41 film (the link is to a blog I wrote on this recently). Fortunately the Agfa machine apparently does a decent job at giving back a result that you are evidently happy with (and I can see why; it looks pretty decent alright). Personally I feel there's still a distinct green shift to the images, but this is plausible also given the dominant red lighting which will throw off any digital correction process, unless it's a calibrated workflow. For instance, the 2nd frame I would balance more like this:

Notice also that despite the red illumination on the background, the saturation in those hues is remarkably low. If you shoot a scene like this on C41 or E6 film, or even digital, those reds tend to really pop out of the film/paper/screen. I think this might have worked out differently in ECN2 processing and it would be interesting to test this particular film in both C41 and ECN2 development under similar conditions. I have a feeling you might actually like the ECN2-processed results.

Of course, I wasn't there at this venue so I can't really judge what the lighting was like. Besides, it's kind of inconsequential what the lighting is like, given the fact that what you make as a photographer should primarily match YOUR vision, regardless of what 'reality' might have looked like!

As to the red halation, you either love it or hate it, I guess. With artificially-lit scenes (which this particular film is intended for anyway) I can sort of see the appeal in many cases. Here, I don't find the red glow around the telecaster necessarily objectionable. For my own photography, I prefer the remjet-backed stuff which doesn't do unintended 'special effects'.

foc · Jun 6, 2023

Agulliver said:
First roll of Candido 800 shot and.....*I am impressed*. This does everything I had hoped. My usual Yashica Lynx with f1.8 lens has a problem so I used a Yashica Minister III at f2.8 and 1/15s for these. Word from the lady who processed them in an Agfa DLab C41 was that it went through like any C41 film and was easy to scan. Indeed she is looking at stocking this film if possible.

I've included a few samples and a photo of the rebate area so people can draw any conclusions as to it's origin based on knowledge of edge markings. There are no frame numbers. The first frame was a little fogged but that could also be me just not winding on sufficiently. Every other frame was good. There is some halo effect around the brightest parts, eg light reflecting off a guitar or the red uplights behind the musicians on the long shot. For my purposes this kicks Portra 800 into the trash can. And it's half the price. Lab lady agreed it's probably tungsten balanced. The colours on the black male singer's tunic are superbly rendered as is the overall atmosphere at the club. BTW these are straight scans from the Agfa DLab, no adjustments at all.

Thanks for posting your results. I know stage lighting can be notoriously difficult to meter but you have done well and the images look, to me, great.

Andrew O'Neill · Jun 7, 2023

https://www.catlabs.info/product/xf...oLrUTHIWf1bGB49jPTqFXmSEHXaqGm1cWgAM-igSv_Agc

koraks · Jun 7, 2023

Andrew O'Neill said:
https://www.catlabs.info/product/xf...oLrUTHIWf1bGB49jPTqFXmSEHXaqGm1cWgAM-igSv_Agc

• Produces a near clear base making for easy scanning

They also mention E6 processing to get punchy transparencies.

Presently only in 120 and soon also in 35mm.

Given that Adox Color Mission is still on its back waiting to be resurrected, I guess this is Kodak Aerocolor III 2460 spooled for still photographers' convenience?

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