The Beautiful Glow of Cinestill 800T (35mm)
Back with some more 35mm Goodness!
I finally made it through my first roll of CineStill 800T. I say finally because I started shooting this roll during my trip to NYC a couple of weeks ago for Chinese Lunar New Year.
Unfortunately I didn’t have time to finish the roll before having to wrap up the trip. So for the last couple of weeks I’ve been taking shots here & there to finish up my first roll of CineStill 800T.
Shooting Info
The following images were shot on a Minolta X-370 with a 45mm MD Rokkor-X f/2.0 lens.
We processed the film at the Alternative Gallery using the Kodak C-41 Color Negative Developing Kit.
I also did the scanning myself using a Canon Canoscan 8800f scanner and VueScan.
NYC Stuff
I started off this roll with some shots in NYC’s East Village.
One of the things that’s immediately obvious about CineStill 800T is the glow of bright lights, often referred to as halation. It’s much more pronounced than normal photographic film stocks due to the process of re-purposing Kodak Vision3 35mm Motion Picture film.
To make the film viable for use in shooting & developing as still photography, a layer of the film known as remjet, must be removed. This layer typically absorbs excess light. But with CineStill films that extra light gets through because the remjet layer is no longer there.
I was concerned I wouldn’t like the glow but I’m very pleased with the results! It goes further than normal film without going too far. Absolutely adds a dreamlike quality in all the right places!
You Call This A Snowstorm?
Recently we were forecasted to get smacked with a pretty serious snowstorm, somewhere in the range of a foot of snow or more. It ended up being barely a few inches. But it still looked pretty!
During the height of the storm I decided to go walking around town with my camera, to see where the action was at.
Unfortunately there wasn’t much activity. Most of the restaurants were open but also completely empty. I think I saw maybe 5 people out walking during my 2+ hour journey.
But I still got a few really nice shots that I liked! And after all, this was more to test the look of the film than anything.
You’Re Still Not Done?
With the snowstorm I found myself being choosy. Some of the things I thought might be a nice image I ultimately decided not to photograph. My main rationale was I didn’t yet know how the images would look. Knowing that helps immensely when deciding your shots.
Being that the film is a little pricey, I decided to baby the roll a bit and ended up not finishing it during the snowstorm.
I brought my camera along for a little pick-up for some expired film (which I’ll discuss in a future post). On that trip I was able to grab a couple cool shots of some lighting setups on a damp evening.
Then I had just a few more exposures left and decided to fire off a few shots in front of the gallery to finish up the roll. The last image is of a kid that was walking past the gallery and I asked to take his photo quick because I thought he had a great look to him.
This image clearly lacks any halation because there is still daylight and no artificial light sources are present. CineStill 800T definitely has a similar look to 400D in natural light, though a bit more blue.
Final Thoughts
CineStill makes KICK ASS film! Or at the very least they re-purpose Kodak Vision3 35mm motion picture stock very well.
Overall this film has a beautiful glow and cinematic atmosphere.
It would have been awesome to shoot the entire roll in NYC at night with all of its incredible illuminated scenes. But for the first roll it was actually nice to shoot in various settings to get a taste of what the film can do.
My only complaint about CineStill film is its price point. At $17 a roll I feel like I have to make the most out of every shot. Which I guess has its advantages, but man that’s expensive! Every out of focus or bad shot feels like a pricey mistake! A roll of CineStill is the same price as a roll of Kodak Portra 800 film. Which is a Professional grade film and considered one of the best on the market.
I still think CineStill is going to be one of my go-to brands. But I will definitely be mixing in some cheaper film stocks to help balance things out. Unless I become filthy fucking rich or something, then I’ll shoot CineStill endlessly!
