And on the Color Front, CineStill Film - Not Working Out For Me

I wrote some time back about a new film stock (CineStill) that I wanted to try for my low light concert photography.

 

(Click Here) to read more about the film. Originally made for motion pictures, it's advertised as iso 800 nominal, pushable to 3200, and suitable for standard C-41 processing. I did not find this to be the case in my situation.

 

Now, let me start by saying that my opinion here is of how this film does not fit my specific shooting style and needs. That includes many variables: actual lighting characteristics of the subject I was shooting, camera, lens, exposure, film, processing, and I'm sure many others. Let me also say, however, that most of those variables (besides the film) are well-controlled. For example, I have shot the exact same camera and lens many times in low light situations like this. My processing (now consistently done through The Darkroom, at a rate of about 50-100 rolls per year) is bulletproof; I've never had bad results in any roll other than the two rolls of CineStill used in this test.

 

I shot CineStill at a house concert (my friends The Green Boys) in Washington, DC. Tough lighting, to be sure. Tungsten bulbs (which should have been exactly the right test case for CineStill, since it's tungsten balanced), all coming straight down from recessed lighting in the ceiling, which made for horrid shadows, and overall pretty low light levels. So, it was admittedly a tough test.

 

CineStill is apparently about iso 500 natively, but is marketed as having wide exposure latitude, with the ability to go to 1600 without pushing, even higher with pushing. In this case, I shot it at iso 1600, and deciding to give it the best chance of sufficient exposure, did have The Darkroom push the processing by one stop. For reference, I also shot a roll of Ilford Delta 3200 at 1600 with much better results. I'll share some of those images in a subsequent post.

 

Here's the best of what I got (initial color balance was way off; Lightroom helped with that):

 

And here's some of the worst:

 

In this second shot, you can see a lot of what I didn't like. First, total loss of details in the shadows. I've brought them up in Lightroom, but at great cost of noise/grain. Look at the shadows under Sean's eyes on right. Terrible. My conclusion is that shooting this film at 1600, even if you do push process, is not such a great idea.

 

Now notice the bright blue spot in the center - I found this, and to much worse extent, in several pictures. Inexplicable in terms of actual lights in the room.

 

Finally, and this is the worst part, the line of spots that go from Ryan's cheek (on left) horizontally across the image. These are places where the film emulsion is permanently marked with flow marks. I say permanent, because the folks at The Darkroom were nice enough to try cleaning them up for me, largely to no avail. In some of the shots, these liquid marks are just terrible. Again, they were processed in standard C-41 chemistry, pushed one stop as I requested.

 

In general, I found that the negatives had these liquid marks, and were absolute magnets for dust and particles. Sort of like the emulsion remained sticky or something. I could not get clean scans. Again, I've never had a problem near this extent with any other film stock.

 

Here are some more of my disappointing results with CineStill:

 

Lost shadows.

 

 

 

 

 

Liquid tracks. Notice the strange blue spots on the drummer's leg above.

 

And these were the most useful images selected from two 36 exposure rolls. Really.

 

So, at $10 per roll, I certainly won't be doing any more experiments with this film.

 

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: I bought my CineStill from Freestyle (Click Here). They were more than fair in dealing with my situation, which I appreciate very much. Buy from them with confidence.

 

I do know that others have gotten some gorgeous results with this film. While I'd like to know how, or how I messed up, I'm not willing to risk the cost of dollars and lost time and photo opportunity to do it.

 

Oh well, not all experiments yield positive results. My next set of experiments in hopes of finding a nice low light color film look will be with Fuji Natura 1600 that I picked up in Japan.

 

DMC-365.blogspot.com

 

Continuing the Quest for a High Speed Color Film - Fuji Natura 1600 is Next

I recently tried a new film, CineStill, which lists the ability to push it to very high iso levels as one of its features.

 

(Click Here) to read a little about CineStill. I bought mine from Freestyle.

 

I shot two rolls of CineStill at a house concert, which should have been the perfect test location. I shot it at iso 1600, and asked The Darkroom (thedarkroom.com) to push it one stop in processing. I'm not ready to enter a verdict on CineStill yet, and will write more about that later. Suffice it to say, I don't think I'm done looking for a great color film for low light concert shooting. Once I find one, I will do my best to replicate the look in Lightroom, exactly as I've done for Ilford Delta 3200 for black and white images.

 

On my way to the flight home from Japan, I found five rolls of Fuji Natura 1600 color print film.

 

Fujifilm Natura 1600 Color Print Film

 

At a little less than $10 per roll here in the Tokyo Narita Airport, it's about the same price as CineStill. I'm looking forward to giving Natura a try.

 

If it works well, I'll have a good basis for defining a new color look in Lightroom. That's the possible upside. The possible downside is that I'll fall in love with the film's look; it's essentially not available in the USA at all, as far as I can tell. I saw a couple of questionable-looking ads, at about $20 per roll. I won't be doing that.

 

Anyway, once I've thoroughly evaluated CineStill, I'll post the results. Of course, I'll also post any results I get with Natura. More film fun!

 

Surprisingly, this is the only photographic product I purchased on my trip to Japan. I saw a few interesting products, but nothing good enough to part with my cash.

 

DMC-365.blogspot.com

 

CineStill iso 800 Tungsten Balanced Color Film - Something Else to Try

Image Source: http://aphotocontributor.typepad.com/aphotocontributor/2014/03/pretty-palate.html

I read a very interesting post on the blog "APhotoContributor," about a type of film I've never used before, known as "CineStill." It's an iso 800 film, color balanced for tungsten light sources. Not something I'd want to use every day. In fact, I think I've only used tungsten-balanced film once or twice, and it was film that a friend gave to me. The author used a conversion filter (85B) when shooting the film in daylight.

(Click Here) to see the post on APhotoContributor. There are lots of examples shot on this film, in many different lighting situations.

So why would I be interested in trying this film? I think it could be a very interesting way to shoot low light concerts in color. Granted, many modern music venues use the dreaded LED light sources, which are impossible to balance for. The issue is that they only emit a very narrow wavelength range, so you get full saturation in one color channel, nothing in the others. But, for those beloved stages still lit with filtered tungsten lights, this could be very interesting.

The CineStill film is available from Freestyle, but for quite a high price ($9 per roll). I'm going to assume these are 36 exposure rolls, but don't know that for sure. CineStill can be processed in normal C41 chemistry (what your few remaining drugstores who develop film use). I would send mine to The Darkroom (thedarkroom.com).

What makes the film even more interesting is that you can push it to iso 3200. That would definitely come in handy for some low light music clubs.

(Click Here) to see CineStill on Freestyle's site.

What I may do is try a roll or two, then see if I can replicate the look using my Leica M9 and adjustments in Lightroom, similar to what I've already done with Ilford Delta 3200.

I'm discovering new things to try, working between film and digital. What I've come to realize is that I should not try to make the same image style with my Leica M9 at iso 1600 as I would at iso 200. Once I understand that, it opens some doors. If I'm emulating Delta 3200, with its high grain and contrast, shooting the M9 at iso 1600 is no problem whatsoever. The grain added in Lightroom works just fine with the CCD noise generated in the M9 at such a high iso setting.

 

I feel like I'm leaving a plateau in learning over the past couple of months, and things are getting more interesting again.

 

DMC-365.blogspot.com