What is happening to Cinestill?

Steven Lee · Oct 14, 2023

Meh... I side with CatLABS. They are the most innovative small photo distributor in the US, bringing us nearly all film processors currently made anywhere in the world, from JOBO and Heiland to Filmomat, SST4, and Dev.a. My TAS processor is a complete game changer, there's no other place to get it. I spent thousands of dollars with them. Omer is awesome to work with. I do have a problem with him rebranding someone else's films and intentionally not telling the customers what they are. But...

Cinestill shouldn't exist. The entire company, including its name, is based on a fundamentally sinister idea: let's take cine film, strip it of anti-halation properties, suggest developing it in the wrong chemistry, pretend really hard to be the "manufacturer", charge an insane markup, and sell it to morons who learn by youtubing and believe that they'll get Saving Private Ryan color palette by shooting cine film. I can't think of any other industry where this would have worked. The photography world is strangely susceptible to all forms of cargo cultism. Have you seen the marketing collateral for their E-6 chemistry? Extra 3 stops of dynamic range vs the "conventional" E-6 chemistry sold by less sophisticated manufacturers like Fuji or Tetenal. So yeah, I fully support some community backlash on these clowns.

JParker · Oct 14, 2023

Steven Lee said:
Meh... I side with CatLABS. They are the most innovative small photo distributor in the US, bringing us nearly all film processors currently made anywhere in the world, from JOBO and Heiland to Filmomat, SST4, and Dev.a.

From a customer point of view completely understandable.

Steven Lee said:
My TAS processor is a complete game changer, there's no other place to get it.

Hm, you can also buy them directly from Heiland, or from Fotoimpex for example.

Steven Lee said:
I spent thousands of dollars with them. Omer is awesome to work with.

Good to hear.

Steven Lee said:
I do have a problem with him rebranding someone else's films and intentionally not telling the customers what they are.

It won't be such a problem if he only would have been silent about the original source of his rebranded films. But at least in the case of his latest film he was completely dishonest and repeatedly told absolutely wrong statements about it. He acted as if his customers are total idiots. And as a potential customer I ask myself, if he is cheating me here with this product, can I then trust him with other products?

Steven Lee said:
Have you seen the marketing collateral for their E-6 chemistry? Extra 3 stops of dynamic range vs the "conventional" E-6 chemistry sold by less sophisticated manufacturers like Fuji or Tetenal.

I agree concerning their E6 chemistry. I was not satiesfied at all. The worst E6 chemistry currently on the market.

retina_restoration · Oct 14, 2023

Steven Lee said:
I spent thousands of dollars with them. Omer is awesome to work with.

If you are shoveling money at him, of course he's going to be "awesome"! But he's been rude and disingenuous to many of us, and I for one will not spend money at CatLabs because of his behavior.

pentaxuser · Oct 14, 2023

chriscrawfordphoto said:
Those are filter factors, not base exposure indexes. You're just making yourself look even more foolish. I'm a retired English teacher with a maters degree in literature. I can read and analyze text! You're way out of your depth here. Words have meanings and no matter how much it makes you emote like a child, you don't get to change those meanings.

I too had a look at the references provided by Eugen and from what I could see you are right with 2 exceptions only in terms of the list of films whose speeds are affected by whether it is daylight or tungsten: 1) Ilford Ortho 80 Plus where Ilford makes it very clear that there are two separate speeds for daylight and tungsten exposure 2) Kodak Double XX where the difference is much less than with Ilford Ortho but does drop from 250 to 200

What I don't know is whether this alteration in speed is specifically tungsten light at the temperature quoted as opposed to all artificial light, These days LED light covers most of the spectrum so does that mean that if you have a room light at say 5000K then you can ignore the advice given by Ilford and Kodak? As the film only recognises the temperature then presumably it is blind to what the source is so you can ignore the advice of either maker on its film's two speeds if you have artificial light at about 5000K?

I presume that if my conclusion is correct then at degrees K between tungsten and mid-day daylight do you apply a proportional alteration so for instance the change in speed for Ilford Ortho if the lighting is say 4000K might be just under or about ISO 60?

Thanks

pentaxuser

mshchem · Oct 14, 2023

retina_restoration said:
If you are shoveling money at him, of course he's going to be "awesome"! But he's been rude and disingenuous to many of us, and I for one will not spend money at CatLabs because of his behavior.

We reap what we sow.

koraks · Oct 14, 2023

mshchem said:
We reap what we sow.

And on that bombshell...

Let's end the CatLABS bashing.

MCB18 · Oct 14, 2023

Steven Lee said:
Meh... I side with CatLABS. They are the most innovative small photo distributor in the US, bringing us nearly all film processors currently made anywhere in the world, from JOBO and Heiland to Filmomat, SST4, and Dev.a. My TAS processor is a complete game changer, there's no other place to get it. I spent thousands of dollars with them. Omer is awesome to work with. I do have a problem with him rebranding someone else's films and intentionally not telling the customers what they are. But...

CatLabs is an awful buisness and I will never give them money again after the experience I had with them and the amazingly shitty behavior of Omer in terms of buying gear and claiming the film he sells is new. If there’s a film photography company that is worse than Cinestill, CatLabs is it.

Edit: didn’t see moderators post above, apologies for continuing on the subject.

mshchem · Oct 14, 2023

koraks said:
And on that bombshell...

Let's end the CatLABS bashing.

I love Catlabs, I've bought thousands of dollars worth of stuff from Omer. He's helped me out before I bought anything from him. My wife is from the East Coast, she doesn't back down from an argument either.

When I was discussing reaping and sowing I was talking about members of this forum, apparently a moderator as well.

Molli · Oct 15, 2023

Eugen Mezei said:
Who is that Chinese seller? I am looking for as much sources as possible, so I can ordere where it is most convenient for me.

The reseller is in the U.S. as far as I can surmise from the Reddit post - -

It's the manufacturer (or Remjet Removalist/Repackager?) who's in China. Their film is branded as Reflx 800 (that's f-L-x on the end there, not a typo).
The person writing on Reddit was selling through eBay. I don't know if that's still the case and they didn't mention their eBay ID.
I just did a search for it and got only two results, both of which are being sold from Hong Kong - a single roll for $31 or two for $60. That's in Australian dollars; you can probably almost halve those prices if you're paying with "real" money.
Still too expensive for me.
Sorry to not be of more help, it's just not a product I have much interest in, but hopefully the brand name will help track some down closer to home for you.

Alan Edward Klein · Oct 16, 2023

Why would you use a film that shows haloes?

Ivo Stunga · Oct 16, 2023

Alan Edward Klein said:
Why would you use a film that shows haloes?

Artistic choice is one rock-solid argument and one shouldn't look any further. Especially with IR material where it just fits naturally.

Dustin McAmera · Oct 16, 2023

Alan Edward Klein said:
Why would you use a film that shows haloes?

Spiritualism? #cottingleyfairies

MattKing · Oct 16, 2023

Alan Edward Klein said:
Why would you use a film that shows haloes?

To a moderate extent, Kentmere films do halate more - at least more halation than the Ilford branded films do.
There are a fairly large range of circumstances where we can tolerate - even appreciate - a fairly high amount of halation.

Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" comes to mind:

pentaxuser · Oct 16, 2023

Why was it infamous? Nothing in the clip seemed to suggest that adjective or was "infamous scene" just the usual clickbait that YouTube uses as a means of promotion

Thanks

pentaxuser

koraks · Oct 16, 2023

pentaxuser said:
Why was it infamous?

'Infamous' is probably not quite right, indeed. AFAIK the scene is mostly famous among photographers and cinematographers because it was shot with that legendary 50mm f/0.7 Zeiss / NASA lens.

MattKing · Oct 16, 2023

koraks said:
'Infamous' is probably not quite right, indeed. AFAIK the scene is mostly famous among photographers and cinematographers because it was shot with that legendary 50mm f/0.7 Zeiss / NASA lens.

That and the scene itself was basically impossible to film prior to then - candle light isn't very bright - and as a result had a mood and presence that was quite extraordinary for the time.
I was 19 when I saw it on a big screen, as a first run movie.
This article is quite interesting: https://theasc.com/articles/flashback-barry-lyndon

pentaxuser · Oct 16, 2023

koraks said:
'Infamous' is probably not quite right, indeed. AFAIK the scene is mostly famous among photographers and cinematographers because it was shot with that legendary 50mm f/0.7 Zeiss / NASA lens.

Thanks so shouldn't that be "famous"

pentaxuser

mshchem · Oct 16, 2023

50mm f 0.7 is insane. This jogged my memory, tremendous accomplishment for the time. Still looks great

brbo · Oct 20, 2023

PetaPixel with another "educational" piece on CineStill trademark outrage.

Agulliver · Oct 23, 2023

Cinestill claiming that everyone else's Vision 3 500T without remjet was so bad that it had to be discontinued.

That is plainly not true.

And I strongly doubt that any buyers are "confused" as they claim, into thinking that the competing 800T films are actually Cinestill.

koraks · Oct 23, 2023

Agulliver said:
Cinestill claiming that everyone else's Vision 3 500T without remjet was so bad that it had to be discontinued.

That's not literally what they wrote, though:

Unfortunately, similar products released by other companies at that time were substantially inferior in quality to CineStill’s, and eventually each of these products were discontinued by the companies making them.

I emphasized 'and', which does not strictly speaking imply causality.

Of course Cinestill or any other manufacturer would state their own product is superior to alternatives. I wouldn't make too much about that.

Agulliver said:
And I strongly doubt that any buyers are "confused" as they claim, into thinking that the competing 800T films are actually Cinestill.

Again, that's not what they say. They say, literally speaking, that there are spillover effects of negative experiences with one project reflecting on their product. Not because buyers believe it's the same product, but because it would have the same vulnerabilities. That's quite different.

brbo · Oct 23, 2023

Hmm, it was actually CineStill film that had QC problems. People reported a number of issues with CineStill films back when CineStill were still removing the remjet themselves. I can't remember any other company selling Vision3 films in EU/US with remjet already removed.

I think trademark registration and CineStill going after other companies (resellers, actually) has less to do with concerns about negative experience with other subpar "cine", "800T" and "tungsten" products and more to do with Kodak making it easy for companies to buy Vision3 films without remjet (so no remjet removal procedure is necessary anymore), thus bringing competition to CineStill.

Agulliver · Oct 23, 2023

It certainly appears to be the case that a number of other sources of Vision 3 stocks sans remjet appeared in recent months.....many priced considerably lower than Cinestill and which seem to offer a product that performs as well.

If Cinestill really have been awarded a trademark for "800T" then that was an utterly daft move by which ever body recognises trademarks in their jurisdiction....but it would also be a fact that others couldn't use "800T". Wouldn't be the first time a legal entity had completely failed to understand a niche industry.

Last year I had to register some trademarks in the UK to protect the reputation of a conference that I run....but that was a different matter. Another person was trying to pass off their event as mine, even going as far as poaching speakers and putting out word that they'd taken it over. Here, nobody is trying to pass off their Vision-3 derived film as "Cinestill"....but US law may well not recognise passing off.

Oldwino · Oct 23, 2023

Why did Cinestill go after the QWD folks? They sell Vision 3 films, labeled as such, with the rem-jet, and the corresponding ECN-2 chemistry. And yet they (QWD) claim they got a "courtesy" letter from Cinestill, too. Did Cinestill just send out letters to all of their competition, hoping to muscle them a little?

brbo · Oct 23, 2023

I don't know, but they do have Amber T800 film for sale in their shop. They have it listed as "AMBER 800 ISO COLOR NEGATIVE MOVIE FILM 35MM X 27EXP" so QWD isn't marketing it as "cine", "T800/800T" or "tungsten", but I guess CineStill still feels like people could get scammed into buying inferior product... Heartwarming care for consumers.

What is happening to Cinestill?

Steven Lee

JParker

retina_restoration

pentaxuser

mshchem

koraks

Moderator

MCB18

mshchem

Molli

Alan Edward Klein

Ivo Stunga

Dustin McAmera

MattKing

Moderator

pentaxuser

koraks

Moderator

MattKing

Moderator

pentaxuser

mshchem

brbo

Agulliver

koraks

Moderator

brbo

Agulliver

Oldwino

brbo

What is happening to Cinestill?

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