I don't completely understand why people seem very bent on hating Cinestill as some kind of exploitive interlopers. Cinestill is DEFINITELY not an everyday film, but I love using it in overcast and deep shadow. I usually shoot it at 400, too ... though once I accidentally shot it at 100 once and pulled it one stop in ECN-2 to tamp down the contrast ... and it showed that Vision 3 quality in actually turning out well. The halos can be tamped a tiny bit by mist filters, though that also carries its own look. It's certainly not something that is needlessly doubled in price from bulk loads like I see a lot of people claim. I definitely noticed rashes of weird damage, but I agree in some form of your assessment in regards of changes they've made. It's definitely much rarer now. And the RedRum thing was a nice recovery from what could have been a brutal financial hit. I'm fairly certain their film is usually finished by Ilford, but their earlier film resembled Foma's packaging. The film that became RedRum came in this type of wrapper, possibly because of pandemic issues? So I think it was Foma that made the error. But anyway ... this thing is a novel now. Thanks for a good video!

As of when this vid was posted 800T is the cheapest ISO 800 color negative you can buy (in USA) so now we can think of it as the "budget" film!!

I love the Cinestill Cs41 development kit. But their film is just too pricy. I really want to try 800T for some sweet halation-filled night photos, but her in Norway it costs about 240 NOK (about 27 USD/21 GBP/35 CAD/25 EUR) for just one roll, which is ridiculous. For that price I can get three rolls of Kodak Gold.

Yesterday I finally got my pictures from my first roll of 800t that I shot through last month. Oh boy, that's officially my favourite stock ! In sunlight shoot it as 400 and it's amazing, but of course the best shots i got were from night scenes. The shortcomings are underexposed it looks like arse. But it still has a lot of range,so rarely would actually lose a shot. I think it's better and even cheaper than portra 400

I think labelling it 800 was a mistake. So much of that intense grain goes away by just exposing it at 500. No ill effects on the highlights. My favourite is 400. Shame about the terrible qc though, I like the film when it's not full of pruple blobs, light leaks and static discharge marks.

I remember around Christmas time I ended up pushing Portra 800 to 3200 (purely for more handheld shots) and I ended up getting more pleasing results than Cinestill at 800 in similar scenes

Down here in Brazil, bulk loaded cinematic film is pretty much single handedly keeping film alive... Prices have gone so far up, you can't get a roll of film for less than 140 bucks anymore, but a 36 exposure roll of bulk loaded Vision or Double XX can be had for a third of that price. Lots of labs have come up with their own processes to handle the Remjet coating as well, so there's no need to have it removed beforehand or X-process to C41. Nowadays, when I'm not shooting slides, I'm usually shooting Vision or Double X

I'm super excited about 400D, because I shoot a lot in daylight but I love the look of Vision 3.

I'm just happy they're providing cinema film without remjet. They could just say "It's Vision 500T with no remjet, do what you want." and I'd be willing to pay. Kodak seems to hold Cine film to a different standard than the rest. I like their stills film but I think Kodak knows it's Hollywood's promise to keep shooting film that saved them and so they make sure the Cine film is a good product to pay that promise back. So shooting Cinestill really does have kind of a "Cinematic look" no surprise (except the halation which I could take or leave). Also 800T does need to be used in the conditions it was made for, like all films. Shooting a Tungsten film in daylight is a obviously not the way it was meant to be used (unless you're going for that look). Just like using Daylight film at night isn't the way it was meant to be used (unless you're going for that look). Shoot the Portra during the day, and pop in the Cinestill for when your friends go bar hopping at night.

I've tried shooting kodak 500t with the remjet layer on and developed using ECN-2. I think you get the best result when you lower the contrast in post and apply the kodak 2383 lut which warms up the image and giving it the classic cinematic look.

If you intend to use Kodak's Vison 3 500T film once in a rare while, and choose to buy Cinestill's remjet striped version of it for C-41 processing, well, that's your problem. If you want to regularly use Vision 3 film for its excellent performance when properly processed and/or to save a lot of money, then skip the repackagers, buy a Kodak 400 foot roll and re-spool it for yourself. It's a hassle, but the savings are substantial. Consider breaking a 400 foot roll down into 4 - 100 foot rolls to use in a regular bulk film loader, then resell any extra rolls to friends. Then, process yourself in ECN-2 kits, not C-41. You can buy ECN-2 kits for about the same price as C-41. The lower contrast makes the negative easier and more flexible to scan, and you skip the green color shift cast C-41 processing gives. Understand that no Vision 3 film, whether direct from Kodak or humped by Cinestill, will print well on RA-4 color paper, i.e., conventional color printing. This is because Vision 3, ECN-2 film, uses a different dye set than used in C-41 film, and it just won't print accurately on paper matched to C-41 film.

Excellent review - thanks.

Great video as always. I never saw the appeal of Cinestill because it felt too gimmicky (also the price doesn't help). I wonder if shooting normal Portra 400 or 800 with a cooling filter like 80b will produce similar results as Cinestill (without the halation effects). Might be a good idea for a video to do a comparison!

If it was cheaper, it may be worth it. I can get films without bloom and expiration issues for cheaper even today. It's a very niche film.

So much great info in this video. You packed in all the important points on shooting 800T and then some. The majority of times that I shoot it I'll push it to 3200 or 1600. For me it's a great night time/ indoor option, but that's pretty much it.

I still enjoy shooting it. Both in conditions where I know that the halation will not show up, and where I want to use the halation for effects, and as a high-speed film with relatively tight grain as opposed to pushing 400 speed color film. I also really enjoy it for holgas because the latitude is so huge that you don't have to work around the limits of a single shutter speed (~1/100 s) and two relatively small aperatures (~f8 and ~f11). Without pushing it might as well be ISO 200-2000 which definitely combats the worries of not hitting a good exposure that you can have with a holga.

Used some CineStill 800T, pushed to 1600, for an amateur stage production. Results weren’t that bad but I preferred the b&w I shots pushed to 3200.

If you want to try out Cinestill 800t($16.50 a roll), just buy Reflex Lab 800t($12.99 a roll) and you get a metal film can. And if you want a good black-and-white Kentmere 400($5.80 a roll) shot at +2 stops, it looks great and is made in the same Factory as Ilford's HP5($9 a roll).

I have a roll of 35 mm and a roll of 120 mm in the freezer, that I purchased some years ago… 2018 expiration date. Guess it’s time to get out and find a couple of 24 hour gas stations…or maybe that ship has sailed already;-)

I started with film back in the mid 80s. I haven't shot film in a while so I asked my nephew what he recommends for low light and he mentioned Cinestill 800T. I'm the house photographer at a music club that seats about 180 people. I will shoot a roll of Cinestill there and see what I get. I also picked up a roll of Kodak P3200 and I'll give that a go too. Looking forward to shooting film again. Back to my roots!

I quite like Cinestill 800T - I personally like the look of it on an overcast day, as well as at night and indoors

Until I see another option for color negative that pushes decently well to ISO 3200, I'm gonna have to keep on the 800T train even though I will never financially recover from it. I use it mostly for club and rave photography for genres where artists prefer veeeeery subdued light... gotta make due

Film Lab Technician here - never seen that water damage in our cine800 scans, but occasionally we see a red lightning effect in our customer rolls. Love the vids. Big fan.

I love using Cinestill 800 for portraits. The skin tones are nearly perfect.

I was tempted to shoot 800T for Halloween last year, but decided to just pop in a roll of Portra 400 and push it (pull it?) to 800, since I had a few laying around. And of course I told the lab to develop it at 800 as well. It gave very decent results (contrasty and punchy), and I found that I could still use it for normal shooting instead of worrying whether things would look blue-ish from the tungsten balance. But I'm still interested in trying a roll at some point, just to change things up. Right now I just finished shooting Fuji Superia 400 at ISO 200, woot. It'll be like Christmas getting it developed! :)

That subway shot with the subway moving was incredible.

I love rolling 16mm expired vision2 200t that I've had cold stored for awhile into 110 cartridges, and then shooting that through the minolta110slr and pocket fujica 350 zoom for more manual control than the majority of 110 cameras give you. Its saves money since per frame 110 is pretty pricey for such a small neg, and that's always a good thing. In my opinion the vision stocks produce much richer images that the lomo 110 stocks (don't get me wrong, god bless lomography for keeping 110 alive, and tiger 200 is my preferred if I shoot their stocks) and I develop that vision2 at home with the ECN 2 cine simplified kit and get lovely results. Really looking forward to seeing that video on ECN2 come out. I'm a fan of their dev chems, DF96 monobath is an easy, quick BW process, 3 minutes with fresh chems at 80 degrees, and you're golden, haven't really shot their films, as I've just been bulk loading my own Vision, so not much to comment on there, but a lot of great info in this video. Was considering trying out the 800t, now I think maybe it's not for me as I don't do a lot of night shooting. As always, love your channel, keep up the amazing work. A new analogue resurgence video always brightens my day, so thanks for that!

If you look at the perforations you can clearly see that Cinestill is doing something different now, since the perfs are not for motion picture anymore. To be honest I think people really should take into consideration that this film would go through a colorist in the film industry. And boy, can it make some stunning results, if it's handled right.

Lucy Lumen did a great survey about people's favourite film stocks recently, and Kodak Gold turned out to be the favourite of the vast majority. Fun video, definitely worth a watch. I really enjoyed hearing your thoughts on Cinestill, they really do seem overhyped to me, and your video about their rebranded sous vide machine was not a good look considering their claim that the machine was an original product made for film development. Boo! I've shot 800T once, and while it's nice to have the option for neon shots and the like, it won't be a film I'll reach for often, especially with the hefty price tag.

I love these film reviews! Very insightful. Thank you!

Neat video on explaining this stock of film. I just started shooting 800t a few weeks ago!

I backed their 400D with some 35 and 120 and I now think that was a bit premature on my part... they explicitly said it wasn't a movie film with the remjet removed in their press release and it was a new stock they had made by their "manufacturing partners" , I see the halation... so, no bright light spots for me, I backed a bunch of this on 35 and 120. I'm a Vision 3 250D shooter but I suppose this will be a shadow film for me. Their initial samples showed no halation but there wasn't any bright spots, so that's a bad on me. I honestly thought it was a new stock, it's obviously not if you watch their latest video on their staff shooting the first test batch. I'll shoot it I usually don't give away or sell my film stash, but I'll stick to rolling my own 50D and 250D and wash the Remjet myself. I had high hopes. oh well Hopefully IO can get the ADOX color mission and the JCH new 400 slide film in the future. Ya fooled me Cinestill, ya fooled me.

I like Cinestill 800T. It works for my style. Also I successfully pushed it to 3200 in 120 and it looked awesome. There isn't much variety of iso800 color film stocks, so I'll take Cinestill 😅

I actually enjoy using Cinestill 800T because of the halation. It’s a unique aspect of the film that other films don’t really offer. I don’t really see it as a negative but I do understand that some people only see it as a trend. Not all trends are devoid of artistic integrity.

What an awesome video!

I think because people continue to shoot this film at box speed (800), they end up with grainy and muddy images. Personally, that's why I just don't like it. People need to start playing around more with their film stocks. You'd be surprised how well this stock reacts to light when shot at 200, 400 even 640 ISO and developed at box speed.

Thank you for this

If your only gripe with cinestill is it is Tungsten based then invest in a colour meter or get an 85 filter and learn about colour balance

I got few very nice results, and many not so good... next -> Kodak Gold 200 120

Really informative and well-made video! I've definitely been trying to widen my horizons when it comes to b&w and colour film, I started off with Colorplus and found it to be a great Introductory film and one that I still use a lot as it's more affordable. My local darkroom is selling a bunch of Fuji Superia 200 and Reala 100 for a very very good price, not sure how it was stored and never shot expired stuff before so interested to see how my test shots turn out!

It is the ultimate Gas Station film!!!

so insightful!

Cinestill is definitely something I shoot sparingly. It’s fun to experiment with, but a bit expensive.

Short answer is yes and you should try using it if you’re curious.

It all comes down to taste I guess. A lot of people like cinestill and portra 400 nowadays. I am personally not a fan of both. But luckily there is still enough choice of film stocks to make us all happy

Know I know what I won’t be buying Cinestill film. Thanks for the heads up,

I would love if you could make a video talking about the underrated film stocks, because as a newcomer in the film community I’m a little lost in terms of stock and what they offer

you nneed to rate it at 500 and use a 85b warming filter for daylight shots. its has a nice look

Cinestill costs too much comparing to vision 500t. I get that removing remjet costs but increasing price that much is beyond my comprehention

Love KODAK Vision3 films, but not the Cinestill versions of it. Here in Europe you can get repackaged, vision3 film by Silbersalz35 and they proces the film with a special manufactured machine and scan it with a professional scanner. So no need to buy Manipulated film from Cinestill. Get the real stuff !!!

To answer the question in the title: No, it isn't. Just get some Vision 500T for half the price (if you get a 400ft can or bigger and you make your own rolls).

The only thing I am really curious about 800T is how much are people editing their pictures. The only time I tried 800T I got really excited about the gloomy blue tones and the light circles. But when I got the films developed they just kind of looked normal, although the lovely red circles on the lights were present. So I'm wondering how much are people really editing afterwards to make their 800T photos look bluer and more cyberpunk-esque.

‘The one cinestill doesn’t use, 250d’ just as cinestill release it haha

Ive heard that cinestill does not make this film... but from my understanding movie film is 35mm... so how are they producing 800t in 120?

The newest 400D is most likely a 250D though so there's that lol

If the film gains sensitivity due to cross-processing, why is the 50D still rated at 50 ISO?

The whole point of movie film - Remjet intact - was the lower cost. What is the point exactly of CineStill? Portra 800 looks better. Lomo 800 is cheaper. Both are daylight balanced. And they have less halation. Also, Vision3 isn't actually that grainy. The chances are that your lab doesn't use proper scanning techniques. If you doubt me, have a look at the output of cinema labs and how good their scans look, even from Super 16mm.

Cinestill 400d is vision 250d

I disagree.

Would you be in favor of Cinestill doing cutdowns for Super 8? I'd love to see a black and white negative.

Cinestill no longer remove the remjet. They're able to get the film before remjet is applied to it. Edit: ah you brought it up later

The like the film, I hate the crowd that lives by it.

Shoutout to that TPC Sweater! Super tight!

I think the film community is kinda of funny.

I like my highlights not be completely blown out thanks

hi

For what you pay per roll, it’s absolute junk, god were all suckers aren’t we, just shoot Vision 3 it’s like 1/4 the price jfc

Nothing better than shoot the real motion picture film! Cinestill 👎🏽

Cinestill has an ugly look to it I would rather use original movie film.

Ugly film

I shoot cinestill800T because I can shoot it at 1600, and other options aren’t available in my region for that iso. I need 1600 because I do bird photography and that requires me to use 1000 shutter speed both for the birds and stability. Plus my lens is very slow. I would even love pushing it to 3200 if my camera allows it.