With this week’s Film Friday we are completing the Cinestill triangle so to speak. Today we are taking a look at Cinestill 800T, arguably their flagship film and definitely the most popular of their film offerings. Cinestill 800T originally began life as Kodak Vision 3 5219 Motion Picture film, also known as Vision 3 500T. This film stock has been in use by motion picture photographers for many years now, but only recently became widely used in the still photographer realm. It is a tungsten-balanced color negative emulsion known for exceptional latitude, fine grain, and accurate colors when shot under tungsten lighting.

The practice of using motion picture film stock in 35mm still cameras is nothing new. Cinematographers would often shoot short rolls in still cameras and rush the processing as a means of testing lighting and exposure prior to committing large and expensive rolls through their motion picture cameras. Such a practice is actually what helped give rise to the 35mm format a century ago. But even in more modern times, the use of motion picture film outside of movie shoots has been an ongoing practice for decades. Still photographers would acquire the leftover and unused ends of motion picture rolls and load them in bulk cassettes for their own use. This has largely been driven by the love of how motion picture stock looks. Motion picture films are often at the forefront of film emulsion technology and can offer not just different looks, but also superior qualities, over the more readily found still film market. But there has always been two challenges keeping this practice from becoming widespread and this is what Cinestill has mastered with their conversion of Vision3 500T into Cinestill 800T.

The biggest challenge is that motion picture film has a remjet backing layer. This special, carbon-based layer serves as a lubricant, anti-static and protective layer for the film as it passes at high speeds through motion picture cameras. The ECN-2 chemical process that is color motion picture film’s native process has a designated step that safely removes this remjet layer. The common C-41 process used for color still film has no such step and running motion picture film with that remjet layer through the C-41 process will ruin the chemistry in the processing machine, can damage the film itself and negatively effect any other film being processed at the same time. In other words: a big, huge, frustrating and expensive mess. Photographers have worked around this by sending their snippets of film off to motion picture labs, but herein lies the other hurdle. Most motion picture labs require minimum lengths of film to effectively run their process and a measly 36 exposures doesn’t even come close to enough length. So such rolls would have to be spliced together with other rolls or saved up to run as a batch - which is time consuming, expensive and risky.

Enter the Brothers Wright, Brandon and Brian, who were fond of shooting motion picture stock and determined to find a way to solve these two aforementioned challenges. In 2012 they began beta testing special rolls of Vision3 500T that they had specifically treated to remove the remjet backing prior to exposure. This film was then packaged in new cassettes and sent out into the world. Early results were extremely positive and the film saw an almost overnight rise to fame. Not that there weren’t early wrinkles to iron out. Rolls often showed weird effects from contamination and the remjet-less film was (and still is) particularly susceptible to exposure from static discharge, leaving a photographer with random red lightning bolts across their images. Initially Cinestill 800T was only available in 35mm but after several more years of trial and development, along with a successful Indiegogo campaign, the film was made available in 120 as well.

Alright, thank you for indulging us our dive into Cinestill’s history and a bit of an explanation as to what the film is, but now let us turn to its qualities and reasons for shooting a roll or two.

Cinestill 800T working its magic under the artificial lights of nighttime. Image made with a Pentax 6x7.

Cinestill 800T has a lot of things going for it. As we said, motion picture film tends to have some of the best film emulsion technology put into it, but Cinestill 800T is more than the sum of those parts. The film’s defining quality is its cold blue tungsten color balance. It is meant to be exposed under the heavy yellow cast generated by incandescent and other tungsten lights. These lights usually operate at a color temperature of about 2400K, which is significantly more yellow than the traditional “white” of 5000K daylight. Normal film exposed under incandescent lights will have that heavy yellow cast that can be impossible to correct back to normal colors. One can use color correcting filters, which block some light and thereby slow the film down, or use tungsten balanced film. All this means that if you need to shoot under such lighting and strive for normal colors, then a film such as Cinestill 800T is your top choice. This feature, combined with its high speed, has made the 800T popular for low light and nighttime work. Even though many city streetlights have converted to LED in recent years, it is still common to find tungsten lighting on display and the ability to produce normal colors under such lights can be very welcome.

The flip side of this coin is that during daytime hours, Cinestill 800T produces a cold, bluish color cast unless a warming film such as an 85 or 81 is used on the camera. Many photographers have embraced this color palette though, instead of working against it and have used Cinestill to great effect during the day, even unfiltered. Even with its natural tendency toward blue during daytime hours, it is possible to remove much of Cinestill’s color cast in printing or scanning, returning the film to a more neutral color tone. But be advised, if you hope to produce rich warm colors with the 800T during the day, it is recommended that you overexpose the film by a stop and shoot it at ISO 400. That extra stop of exposure allows even better results when correcting out the natural blue cast of the film during the day.

Yes, Cinestill 800T can be used during the day and produce relatively normal colors but it is recommended that you expose the film at ISO 400. Image made with a Hasselblad 500C and Cinestill 800T rated at ISO 400. Developed normally.

Moving on from Cinestill’s unique color palette. Next up is its incredible latitude. This film is exceptionally versatile and forgiving. It has an extensive reach when it comes to shadow detail but also does a nice job managing highlights. It is a wonderful film for harsh light and high contrast situations, delivering a soft and smooth tonal range. We read accounts where photographers would often shoot it as high as ISO 1000 (one stop over its native ISO 500) and develop it without pushing because the film still handled its shadow details really well. But if you want to get really crazy Cinestill 800T can be rated as high as ISO 3200 - as long as you give it a nice three stop push during developing. Circling back around to the 800T’s tonal qualities though, we really cannot overstate how nice they are. This is a film that has more delicate tones than even Kodak Portra. The images that come from Cinestill have a feel all their own because of this, as well as having the upshot that you have a lot of tonality to play with in post-processing.

Another daytime, cherry blossom image showing that lovely soft tonality that Cinestill 800T has inherited from the Vision3 film technology. Image made with a Hasselblad 500C.

So, we have an interesting color palette, great latitude and excellent tonality. It almost seems an afterthought to mention that Cinestill 800T is very fine grained for its speed. Yes, you will still see grain but not much of it and even less if you are shooting it in medium format. We’d say it is comparable to Kodak Portra 800 but that is almost unfair because Portra borrows its film grain technology from the Vision films. Needless to say, film grain will not be on your mind often with this film.

See much film grain? Yeah, we don’t either. Image made with a Pentax 6x7.

Alright, that brings us to Cinestill 800T’s last big quality: it’s glow. Specifically we are referring to the red halo effect the film picks up when shot into bright lights or strong backlighting. This is a product of that remjet layer having been removed. In addition to its other functions, the remjet layer also acts as an anti-halation layer, preventing light from passing through the film, bouncing off the camera’s pressure plate and reflecting back through, scattering as it goes. All films are prone to this to an extent, but most of them also have these anti-halation layers built into them that normally wash off during developing. There have been a couple other films notable for their lack of this layer over the years such as Kodak HIE and Efke IR820C Aura infrared films. But those films were black and white, so the glow was a pure white glow. With Cinestill 800T, it still picks up that glow but with a red color as well. Again, this should be seen as a feature of the film and not a flaw because it can be used to make some distinct images. Take it out at night and line up a shot with lots of street lights. Or get a subject between you and the sun. There are a lot of creative ways you can put this quality of the film to use to make images in a way you cannot with any other color film out there (other than Cinestill 50D, which has the same feature for the same reasons).

The red halo halation effect of Cinestill 800T on prominent display. Image made with a Pentax 6x7.

A more subtle use of the halation effect. Image made with a Pentax 6x7.

The halo can occur even in daytime scenes and is helped along by overexposure. Image made with an Olympus OM-1.

That pretty much concludes our run through Cinestill 800T. It is a very distinct flavor of film among the color options we have for our cameras these days. Having the film available in both 35mm and 120 is a nice bonus, and being able to easily develop it in C-41 chemistry without fear of the remjet layer mucking everything up is also appreciated. While the film initially was most popular for nighttime work and was originally intended for tungsten lighting, in the past few years more and more photographers have been experimenting with it during the day, unfiltered blue tone and all.

So if you have not yet tried a roll of this film yourself, we highly encourage you to do so, especially now that you are armed with some technical introduction and the inspiration of our sample images. We keep the film in stock as often as we can, despite the supply from Cinestill being spotty over the years and going through long droughts of one format or the other.

When in stock, you can find Cinestill 800T on our website right here.

As usual, we’ll close out with a few more samples.

Cinestill 800T shot through a Pentax 6x7.

Cinestill 800T shot through a Holga fitted with a triangular mask.

A little night portraiture aided by Cinestill 800T’s fast speed. Image made with a Hasselblad 500C.

One more because we cannot get enough of how fun Cinestill 800T is with the glow of lights at night. Image made with a Pentax 6x7.

Film Friday - September 20th, 2024. Cinestill 800T