Troubles with cinestill 800T

Hello!!

Recently I have experienced some troubles with a set of Cinestill 800T rolls I bought to a local market. (www.foto-r3.com). I have attached some images.
At the left hand side, a cinestill 800T film I shot in the past, with its natural orange negative color and the correct labeling of the brand at the edge. Everything great with it. At the right hand side, the negative I have recently bought to a local market, without labeling at the edge and that pronunced blue tinted that ruin all the image.

Said that, at the beggining I thought it could have been produced by the chemistry used (a regular c-41, 1 liter kit), so I decided to change the brand and try again with next roll...I got same results.

Do you know what might be happening? The entire process leads me to think it is something wrong with negatives.

Thank you so much!

Filter left on the lens by mistake? Seems unlikely through two rolls over a period of at least days (to get the new C-41 kit and try again). Shooting outdoors, other than the golden hour, would produce a blue cast in the positive (yellow/orange on the negative), so we can rule that out, but an orange or red filter left on after a roll of B&W would give the kind of cast those negatives have without showing any significant change in the base and mask. Golden hour or sunset sky would also give bluish negatives compared to light that matches the film's balance -- and the background sky in that second shot looks like it ought to be quite orange -- deep into sunset or barely after sunrise, perhaps?

Wrong edge markings, though -- Lomography Redscale got mixed in with your Cinestill? I'd expect that to be deeply underexposed, though; it's at least a couple stops slower.

Hi Donald! Thanks for your reply and your time!

Donald Qualls said:

Filter left on the lens by mistake? Seems unlikely through two rolls over a period of at least days (to get the new C-41 kit and try again). Shooting outdoors, other than the golden hour, would produce a blue cast in the positive (yellow/orange on the negative), so we can rule that out, but an orange or red filter left on after a roll of B&W would give the kind of cast those negatives have without showing any significant change in the base and mask. Golden hour or sunset sky would also give bluish negatives compared to light that matches the film's balance -- and the background sky in that second shot looks like it ought to be quite orange -- deep into sunset or barely after sunrise, perhaps?

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I do not think so, mainly because I only use grad ND filters by now. It is weird because both negative and scanned positive file does not show any other color but blue, I mean, It is not similar to color casting or tinted images where color are showed in addition to the base ones, causing a change in the original colors. However, it seems as it has just developed the blue "channel", but I have changed the chemicals....so.....

Donald Qualls said:

Wrong edge markings, though -- Lomography Redscale got mixed in with your Cinestill? I'd expect that to be deeply underexposed, though; it's at least a couple stops slower.[/QUOTE
]
I dont know what you mean when saying that Lomography Redscale could have been mixed with cinsetill.


Thanks so much Donald!

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Arturo Carmona said:

both negative and scanned positive file does not show any other color but blue

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The inverted positive can't be the same color as the negative -- that blue negative should have produced a very orange/red positive after inversion. Something funny in your software (possibly a bad white balance?), in addition to the developing or film problem.

I dont know what you mean when saying that Lomography Redscale could have been mixed with cinsetill.

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The negative color is more or less what I'd expect from a redscaled color film -- exposed through the base, so the sensitivity of the color layers and the filter layer interact to produce a heavy red/yellow/orange positive (and a blue/cyan negative on normal looking base, more or less like what you have). Lomography films, I gather, often lack custom edge markings, but both Lomography and Cinestill pay some factory somewhere to confection their 120 film -- there's only one source of new backing paper on Earth at this time, and a 120 loading system is a huge investment that only makes sense if you're Kodak, Fuji, Ilford, or Inoviscoat. So I'm thinking some Lomography redscale film got crossed up and loaded into Cinestill backing, pouch, and box. If it happened to you, it probably happened to hundreds of others, too.

Can you provide a photo that shows a complete cycle of the non-Cinestill edge markings on the blue negatives, or at least copy the text and numbers? That might let someone identify the actual stock. Can't be Cinestill, though; their confectioner (who might be Kodak, or might not) puts the edge markings on for them after Kodak custom cuts the 120 film and Cinestill removes the remjet. Kodak doesn't make Visions3 stock in unperfed 61 mm format; 35mm and 70mm cine perf only, unless someone orders huge quantities like Cinestill did.

Donald Qualls said:

The inverted positive can't be the same color as the negative -- that blue negative should have produced a very orange/red positive after inversion. Something funny in your software (possibly a bad white balance?), in addition to the developing or film problem.

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Yes, I must have stated wrong, thats exactly what is happening on my scans, the negatives are blue but the scans of course are over saturated orange.

Donald Qualls said:

The negative color is more or less what I'd expect from a redscaled color film -- exposed through the base, so the sensitivity of the color layers and the filter layer interact to produce a heavy red/yellow/orange positive (and a blue/cyan negative on normal looking base, more or less like what you have). Lomography films, I gather, often lack custom edge markings, but both Lomography and Cinestill pay some factory somewhere to confection their 120 film -- there's only one source of new backing paper on Earth at this time, and a 120 loading system is a huge investment that only makes sense if you're Kodak, Fuji, Ilford, or Inoviscoat. So I'm thinking some Lomography redscale film got crossed up and loaded into Cinestill backing, pouch, and box. If it happened to you, it probably happened to hundreds of others, too.

Can you provide a photo that shows a complete cycle of the non-Cinestill edge markings on the blue negatives, or at least copy the text and numbers? That might let someone identify the actual stock. Can't be Cinestill, though; their confectioner (who might be Kodak, or might not) puts the edge markings on for them after Kodak custom cuts the 120 film and Cinestill removes the remjet. Kodak doesn't make Visions3 stock in unperfed 61 mm format; 35mm and 70mm cine perf only, unless someone orders huge quantities like Cinestill did.

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Yeah man, pretty interesting what you mentioned. That could be possible the way you explained. But ,does lomography use vision 3 film as well as Cinestill does? I say that, because highlights spots on the images (practicals and things like that) also appears with that glow commonly found on cinestill film.

I contacted both cinestill and the local store to check what could have happened. I wil let you know the final statement.

Thank you so much Donald!

Since the rebate markings are obviously different on the second roll, Cinestill should be able to tell you if the film on the right came from them.

Maybe you bought a fake "Cinestill"? Or Cinestill for some reason changed their finishing line of 120 film and they messed up some batches (film put into backing paper incorrectly - emulsion facing the backing paper). The results on the second film look like they could come from shooting through the base of the film (like in Lomo Redscale films). If you still recall the original scenes shot on the second roll, see if you get proper scene orientation with the emulsion facing up. If that is the case, then the film was most probably shot through the base.

Donald, that is a daring but clever explanation you offer.

brbo said:

If you still recall the original scenes shot on the second roll, see if you get proper scene orientation with the emulsion facing up. If that is the case, then the film was most probably shot through the base.

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Thats a good point dude! I am going to try that.!!

The halation on the non-Cinestill film may be normal for Lomography, especially when redscale rolled. From what I've read, most of the Lomography film stocks are Kodak or Agfa aerial and copy film leftovers, recut to 120 or 35mm format. Aerial films generally don't have remjet, but if there's antihalation dye, exposing through it might tend to make halation worse instead of better (though it would also reduce film speed, suggesting the film with the blue images never had it).

Things are bit more complicated. UIn general the red-sensitive layer is more sensitive than the upper layers to compensate for losses trough the layers even in its own spectrum.

brbo said:

The results on the second film look like they could come from shooting through the base of the film (like in Lomo Redscale films).

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Hi guys!! I have been checking it out at home, in fact I decided to unfold one of the new rolls of Cinestill 800T I bought, and thats exactly what is happening. The negative has been rolled inverted as it should. As @brbo mentioned, the images I shot and its numerology marks are inverted as well, the shiny part of the negative (the base) that should show a right orientation of the originial scene, is in fact the opposite.

I have attached a video of me unfolding the roll to get conclusions from you. What I have not figured out yet is why the negative has not the Cinestill marks on the edge. Keep searching...


Thanks a lot for your help guys!!

This is finally the answer I have recieved from Cinestill that confirm our suspects:

It seems like the rolls you purchased were part of a recent batch of 800T 120 that was recalled due to an issue in manufacturing where the film was taped backwards onto the backing paper, resulting in a "redscale" effect when shot and processed. These rolls can be identified with the batch number "8010411," which is on the box next to the expiration date.

All authorized dealers of CineStill film should by now have been notified and reimbursed by their respective distributors, as well as instructed to provide refunds to their customers. Please contact the store directly to request a refund.

Thanks guys for your help!!

This case shows how important quality control at all stages is, including the ready-to-ship product.

Arturo Carmona said:

This is finally the answer I have recieved from Cinestill that confirm our suspects:

It seems like the rolls you purchased were part of a recent batch of 800T 120 that was recalled due to an issue in manufacturing where the film was taped backwards onto the backing paper, resulting in a "redscale" effect when shot and processed. These rolls can be identified with the batch number "8010411," which is on the box next to the expiration date.

All authorized dealers of CineStill film should by now have been notified and reimbursed by their respective distributors, as well as instructed to provide refunds to their customers. Please contact the store directly to request a refund.

Thanks guys for your help!!

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And it was something announced already in this site.

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/cinestill-800t-recall.177037/

Well, I even participated in that thread... How embarassing... seemingly I'm in shorttime memory mode this year.