CineStill Film

[sblitz]

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Thinking about using it indoors, to shoot a band playing at a bar or some such venue. Dark, spot lights, usual mix of different colored lights, etc. My plan is to push it to 3200. I have used it only at 800 and mostly outdoors at night -- anyone ever use indoors to photograph a band/musician? My other choice is to push Portra to 3200 (will also be using Ilford 3200 in my other camera). Thoughts? Suggestions?

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[xalo]

Hi Steve,

funny you're mentioning this, I was just thinking about using my remaining roll of CineStill on Sunday during a party/concert... Did you see the promotional pics on the CineStill website? I like the expressive, somewhat psychedelic colours of the session with Arcade Fire quite a bit. (Although I notice that they play it very low key re/the red halos in all pics on the site...) Portra should be more neutral, but I've never tried it pushed.

 

To control the appearance of the red halos, I'm thinking of framing tight, trying to block out the spots or avoiding backlit poses. Or else really let them blow in... it's anyway kind of an experiment. Talking about it, I might even get to the Lomo store to stock up.

 

Cheers,

Alexander

[brt]

Thinking about using it indoors, to shoot a band playing at a bar or some such venue. Dark, spot lights, usual mix of different colored lights, etc. My plan is to push it to 3200. I have used it only at 800 and mostly outdoors at night -- anyone ever use indoors to photograph a band/musician? My other choice is to push Portra to 3200 (will also be using Ilford 3200 in my other camera). Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

Hi Steve,

 

take a closer look here:

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/film-forum/310284-samples-cinestill-film-zero-one-two.html

The photo of the singer was made in a quite dark jazz club. Exposure was obtained with a spotmeter pointing at the lady. ISO 1600, dev push 2, 1/60 f 1.4.

I would choose CineStill in favor of Portra800 for this kind of photography.

 

all the best

brt

[sblitz]

thanks, was looking for that thread, as I did post there several times and have used the film. I am still a little confused about 1600 and pushing development two stops instead of one? Perhaps it works because the film is really rated at 500 and that creates the latitude to go 2 stops for one stop over 800. BTW, how did the 3200 turn out? Thanks, Steve

[brt]

thanks, was looking for that thread, as I did post there several times and have used the film. I am still a little confused about 1600 and pushing development two stops instead of one? Perhaps it works because the film is really rated at 500 and that creates the latitude to go 2 stops for one stop over 800. BTW, how did the 3200 turn out? Thanks, Steve

 

Color negative film gets grainy with underexposure and contrasty with pushing. I try to avoid grain.

Jonathan Canlas has published an excellent book about shooting with film. Take a closer look here: Film Is Not Dead

I like his work. I prefer film color to digital color. I did not try ISO 3200 with CineStill yet.

 

good luck

brt

[sblitz]

so if you shoot at 1600 with a 2 stop push you get less grain and more contrast than a 1 stop push? sounds good to me, just want to make sure.

[benedict297]

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I like the film, so far have shot 2 rolls. However, it definitely does not like high contrasting lighting (especially neon). What happens is that you get a lot of halos.

 

Hope this helps

[chris_livsey]

The halos from light sources are almost inevitable and for a band under spots could be an issue. The remjet backing being removed on this film for still work is the anti-halation layer so you will see halation effects these are also coloured which some love, some hate. I have shot indoors in mixed tungsten/fluorescent with no white balance issues. Tested with and without orange correction filter indoors and out, good job I kept notes as post scanning they are indistinguishable. A couple of examples shot at 800 no push. Next roll I will ask for either a stop push at that rating or take the speed down one or two stops the results are a bit grainier than I have seen elsewhere.

 

Mixed artificial light with halation and coloured halos

 

 

Fine with shop lighting no light source in frame bit grainy maybe me underexposing.

 

 

 

Mixed daylight and diffuse, so no halation, artificial light sources, no filter.

Closest to a rock band

 

 

OK three examples I can't count

Edited July 17, 2014 by chris_livsey

[Brenton C]

I am captivated by the look of this film...desparate to try it.

 

I'm confused, though, about the relation between the ISO its shot at, and the "push" value.

 

I always thought if you shoot, say, an 800 asa film at 1600, that you develop it with a 1 stop push.

 

It loks here like speed the film is shot at is disconected from the push value. Or referred to separately.

 

Can someone clarify?

[chris_livsey]

The disconnect is because of the "latitude" of colour negative stock especially the current Kodak Portra 400 and Fuji400H, note that Kodak Ektar is the exception being much less tolerant and somewhat unpredictable in how it changes with manipulations away from "base" iso.

 

Most shooters will routinely shoot at least 1 stop UNDER rated speed, so at 200 ISO for those stocks, and develop normally. You can continue to do this for up to five stops, links later.

 

Rating the film as faster, so shooting 1 stop OVER box speed and giving normal development, is doable but already undesirable (for most people YMMV) effects occur so grain is visibly increased and there detrimental effects on contrast and colour saturation.

 

So if you, because of the light available where you are shooting, require more speed you rate the film faster as above but then ask for a push in development to bring the "look" back to the "normal".

 

The Fuji is used in a number of wedding photographers look especially to give a pastel effect by shooting the 400 at 200 at least if not lower and exposing carefully for the shadows as mid-tone. The look is obtained by using a pro lab who are told what look you want, and this applies across all these "effects" so they produce a scan matching your intentions. A standard mini-lab will scan to bring the negatives to the average and the effects will be lost and the look will be horrible or in low amount changes just not seen as the film is so tolerant and can be scanned to look as if it was shot at box speed.

 

This is all why there are now books for shooters who have only done digital and ETTR exposures where all this is totally un-intuitive.

 

 

 

If you Google Jonathan Canlas and Jose Villa they are the wedding shooters leading this work of pastel and pro scanning.

 

This link to the web pages of a UK lab scanning to a pro level shows the effects of the exposures and stock, disclaimer: I have used them but pay full dues.

 

Kodak Portra and Fuji 400H comparisons and exposure tests | UK Film Lab

 

Start by looking at the third set down showing shooting +2 and -2 stops from box speed no push. Scanned in a mini-lab you would be pushed (sorry) to tell them apart. this is what confuses a lot of shooters. They run a test roll using + and _ stops and the lab scans come back looking all the same and the negative strips because of the colour masks are hard to interpret by eye compared to B/W negatives.

Unless you are skilled home scanning does the same as the software is set to produce the average and unless you intervene it will bring all the exposures and colours/contrast back to the middle.

[xalo]

Last Sunday, I exposed one CineStill film as iso 1600. I had it developed in my usual lab (negatif+) as iso 3200 (2IL push as compared to the 1IL - nominal - underexposure). I didn't read the light exactly masterfully and quite a few frames would have needed more light. Underexposed, thin shadows on the negatives produced quite some grain in the lab scans. The file with the blown out screen (public viewing of the Wolrd Cup final) has seen an attempt of noise reduction in PS5, which slightly smoothened the mess a little.

I'm quite hapy with the cleaner frames, so this experiment is to be continued. Thanks again for the hint!

 

Cheers,

Alexander

 

(All pics CineStill @ 1600, push developed 2 stops, Leica M5 and 50/2 iv @ ƒ2)

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[chris_livsey]

Two points:

 

Yes I think you needed to be a little more generous with the light. How were you metering?

 

I think the lab has tried to scan to bring out shadow detail and has emphasised the grain. If you let the shadows stay shadows and the content be led by the highlights the frames would look much better and suit the subject. The look you have is that of a D3/s/D4 at night but with grain, it can look artificial. IMHO the scans are not sympathetic to the subjects and have, as I described above, tried to pull the results to the middle and "normal".

 

Not a point an explanation:D

Think back to "punchy" transparency colour film. With highlights held the shadows blocked out totally with no detail at the drop of a hat but no one cared because the look was "right". Your results are from trying to pull detail out of the shadows which would be better left.

[xalo]

Thanks, Chris.

Yes, the lab's scans all try to lift the shadows. I measured for some lighter shadows, with the M5's almost spot meter, but stopped short of following it further down than 1/8. On my screen, only the second frame above looks relatively smooth and quite close to what I expected. No re-scanning now of other frames (not many worth the effort anyway), forgot my computer's charger in the office... Writing with this phone is no fun either, so I might get back to this later...

Cheers,

Alexander

[Brenton C]

Chris,

 

Thanks for this tutorial, so clearly explained. Think I'll bookmark this for future reference so I don't lose it.

 

As for cinestilll, I sent my girlfriend to check out the cinestill threads here. "This could be the death of. Digital picture taking" says she.

 

It sure has a striking "feel." Or. . . Quality that's difficult to articulate.

[chris_livsey]

Brenton, A pleasure to share.

I'm afraid she is wrong. I sometimes shoot 6x4.5 so I get 16 on a 120 roll. It costs £5 a roll and £10 roll to develop and scan so £1 for every shutter press. The shooting is slower and more considered anyway so not a burden. My son & I shot RIAT (Royal International Air Tattoo (Show) ) in the UK last week. He had a D3 (mine, but there you go) and took around 1,000 frames and was not gunning it continually they do fly all day. 120 made it to his Flickr which is not a bad hit rate but not what you would contemplate with film.

Both have a place, the trick is knowing what to use and when.

Much of the CineStill technology in the Vision3 stock is used in the new Portra. A major difference is the Vision3 stock is designed to have lower contrast and believe it or not a flatter colour palate so the movie people can copy and grade post shooting, that contributes to its "look" in stills. Again scanning is very important to get the look you want, consider it a RAW file

[A miller]

Steve and others -

 

I wouldn't push this film to 3200 and then digitize it. I seriously doubt that it will come out in an acceptable fashion.

 

Even more so with portra. I wouldn't use portra indoors at all, really. I wouldn't push it to 3200 even outdoors.....

 

Having said this, I would feel VERY differently if the negatives were printed in an analog fashion (except I still wouldn't use portra indoors unless I had to).

 

I have found that the cinestill film has a LOT more latitude when printed manually vs being scanned. The grain is a lot finer and there isn't the annoy bluish hues that come with the scans (which I find can only be removed by desaturating the blues entirely).

 

Assuming analog prints won't be made, my film of choice would be Ilford 3200 B&W.

 

Fyi, I just posted some recent examples of the cinestill in Times Square at night. Not pushed. 75mm summilux wide open. A bitch to color correct given the mulitutde of lighting hues and intensities, but worth it in the end.

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/people/356118-more-times-square-mecca-all-thats.html

 

Best,

 

Adam

[250swb]

There is nothing inherent in CineStill film that causes scans to come out with a blue cast, any colour cast is the fault of the person operating the scanner. Given your scans are clearly bad, perhaps if done properly you may also get an increase in tonal range as well. I'd ask for them to be done again because I've scanned CineStill at home and they look perfectly normal, in fact the film can be used in daylight and it simply comes out a bit cooler looking than normal daylight film, but no blue cast either way.

 

Steve

[A miller]

it may be the fault of the operator, but I find that it is nevertheless pervasive relative to other films. If you look at all the examples of cinestill posted on this forum by a wide range of people, the majority have a nasty hue to the shadows, whether it is blue or another color. i am not smart enough to be able to very simply avoid this in my vuescan workflow. But I find that it helps to work on the WB of the image while it is in the preview mode in vuescan and before the final scan. I find that one of the main culprits is having WB be too cool.

 

Any tricks that could be used in the vuescan workflow would, I'm sure, be highly valued by many forumites.

 

Best,

Adam

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[250swb]

I can't identify anything I think of as tricks and to be honest I only bother to get white balance 'close enough' and do the rest in the more powerful Photoshop.

 

Of course you can deal with shadows separately in PS and adjust the blue out either locally or across the whole image. But sometimes if I have an awkward colour cast I find it easier to use the 'White Neutralizer' filter in Color Efex by using the dropper to sample an average shadow tone (something blue I guess in this case) and either adjust the shadow colour balance locally or across the image to whatever amount that looks accurate and/or natural. In terms of looking natural I think sometimes photographers forget what that is, the Impressionist painters illustrate very well that shadows are not colour cast neutral.

 

Steve

[A miller]

Hi Steve - thanks for sharing the insights. They are promising, particularly for those who use PS. It is comforting to know that even pros such as yourself have to deal with bluish hues in the shadows and otherwise from the tiff files that you get from your scanner.

 

One epiphany that I have had fairly recently is that, notwithstanding the general convention to not muck around with the color and exposure setting as part of the scanning process, and to aim for a flatish scan and focus processing efforts in PS or LR (or whatever one uses), there is value is trying to achieve as neutral a WB as possible, particularly with cinestill 800.