Bronica Zenza ETRS With CineStill 800T

It was absolutely roasting on the day I had organised a series of workshops across London. To catch some cool air we stopped over in this cafe. Almost immediately I knew I had to get some shots on some CineStill 800T in here. So many tungsten lights! We reserved up a little spot while we waited for our cold drinks to arrive.

Armed with my Bronica Zenza ETRS I loaded up the roll and got shooting.

Why did the images come out blasted in orange? Well, if you haven’t checked out my previous video on this check it out here:

Essentially if the ‘remjet’ layer hasn’t been removed properly from the Kodak T rolls and then is processed in C41 chemicals you get this result. CineStill reimbursed everyone after it turned out the entire batch had turned out this way. Whilst I was disappointed not to see the actual results from this film I am really pleased with the shots nonetheless!

The Bronica’s waist level finder is an absolute dream to shoot with. Combined with the fact you have only fifteen shots per roll you are forced to carefully think about what you’re going to shoot and you have to move to reassess the best possible options. Using an eye level finder is a very different experience. You will have to slow down and eradicate the ‘spray and pray’ option which digital offers widely.

A little bit disappointed with the later images. Always remember to carry your light meter with you and definitely check the light meter reading if you’re changing your setting. You can use a simple phone light meter or a more expensive option such as the Sekonic light meters.

Get out there! Shoot and make mistakes, that’s the beauty of photography whether digital or analog. Learn to slow down your process, reflect on what your taking. Get in touch with your questions and comments. Would love to hear what you would like to learn more about or anything that you think I may have missed!

CineStill 800T Pushed On Yashica Mat 124G

The cold, wet and windy conditions continue to brace these shores. What’s better than sitting indoors for long periods of time? Go a cold wintry walk!

I’m loving the square format and the size of the negatives on the Yashica Mat 124G and had been itching to try some CineStill 800T on it for some time. I decided to go for a long walk and hunt for subjects to shoot in low light. After donning many, many layers and a beenie (not much natural insulation on top at the minute) I headed out in to the urban jungle.

Fortunate enough, I have shot with both the camera and film separately so this would be a good test of how far I could push the CineStill on this camera. What kind of images could I get?

The first thing to note with the Yashica Mat 124G is that it has an internal light meter which can deal with up to 400 ISO. Now this creates an immediate challenge on how to shoot with film beyond 400ISO. There’s no reason to panic though- simply push the film +1 stop in development and you’ll be all set with correctly exposed images. For ISO 3200 films such as Ilford Delta 3200 or Kodak P3200 just push the film +3 stops in development if shooting with this camera.

Mathematics aside, let’s dive in to the first shot. This newsagent seemed like a good port of entry. The light falling out from the shop has a nice blu-ish tinge to it and the halation of the LED lights have come out well too. In retrospect, I think this image would be better if, I just moved to the left a little more to capture the customer at the till so as to capture the sense of the place more. In post I raised the highlights a little bit, its a subtle change but I like that additional edit.

Walking along the road a little further down, I saw this Chicken & Chips shop with a large front glass with lots of light falling outside. The framing wasn’t too challenging and Lady Luck arrived as a customer walked right up to the till as I was readying to take the shot. There was a small bench to the right which in the original image is not very noticeable however in the second image with the edit you can make more of it. I wanted to highlight the texture in the foreground to give a little more sense of depth and scale in the image. However the edit has made the light a little flatter which may or may not be of be of taste. Overall, both the images work really well. This is certainly one of my favourite shots from this set.

Shooting petrol/ gas stations is a right of passage with any film photographer and I wasn’t going to pass up on the opportunity to do so. I do find it a little ironic shooting the petrol station but at the time of writing this perhaps we are reaching the end of the fossil fuel age? (I hope!) The image has been well rendered with some resemblance of the foreground too. Ideally more street lighting would have definitely added more depth to the image.

I think if I am going to shoot petrol stations again, I probably will use my Fuji GSWiii 6x9 on a tripod at night. The main reason is the landscape format would allow far more detail of the station to come out and it would probably be a more imposing image. Perhaps what is lost most in this square 6x6 format is the dead space above and below the station.

That is main reason why I probably subconsciously walked across the other side of the road to get a closer perspective which would fill the frame more.I decided to leave off the far left edge of the station banner to create this sense never ending length further. I brought the highlights down in the edited image to bring a bit more emphasis on the forecourt. Overall, pleased with both images.

I carried on hunting for a new subject, however there really wasn’t much available to shoot and the lighting with in most part very poor. As I framed up this local newsagent I had envisaged seeing a much brighter foreground areas with the light spilling out from the shop. However, this was not to be. So I compensated for it by bringing up the highlights and finer details are more present in the edit. It was far more in tune with what I had in mind when I originally took the shot.

One of the biggest learnings from this evening walk was the limit to which CineStill 800T will work in extremely low light conditions. The motor shop sign in this image didn’t come out but is a good example of when not to shoot with this film (unless you have a tripod and do a long exposure!). The more ambient light available on the street the better your CineStill film will fare get you the image you are looking for.

Green washing forecourt came out well as there was a little bit more light available in frame. Perhaps taking the image from the side where the purple colours are popping would test the film more.

Have you used one of these self collecting boxes?

The last image comes out well and a realistic capture of this cinematic film. However from the outside, there is not much information. As a result, I increased the highlights a little bit more in the edit which brings out the street corner better. Overall, would have been better to have kept the green tinge from within the shop.

Overall, CineStill 800T performs well in well light low light conditions the best. If you are looking to push the film a bit further you are more likely to get more context in the foreground in very low light conditions but will probably have to compensate by using a tripod and accept the grain and muddiness of the image may increase. Happy Creating!

Apocalyptic London with CineStill 800T on Nikon FA

We all love the cinema; the films, the emotion, the story. Trying to recreate that cinematic feel has been made easier by the crowd funded CineStill brand which removes the remjet layer from the original Kodak films for the film photography enthusiast to have fun with! 

I am a big fan of futuristic type films such as Blade Runner but what drew me in more was the rendition of colours and light. I always wondered how the filmmakers were able to achieve such depth and unbeknownst to me it was this special cinematic film that was being used. 

It was an absolutely delight when I heard that this film was available to shoot with and after making several calls to photography specialists around the UK, I landed my first few rolls that had literally just arrived at the wonderful Analogue Wonderland (www.analoguewonderland.co.uk) Their friendly service dispatched the films that very day and I was so excited start shooting with this film as soon as possible! 

I decided to find an evening to shoot this roll in Central London, where I could find bright lights in to the late evening. For this walk, I took my Bronica Zenza ETRS medium format camera. Fifteen shots of high density cinematic film were about to be shot! 

Wandering the streets, I took my time framing each shot, trying to capture scenes which afforded plenty of night light. This being a test roll, I wanted to see how these images would fair under relatively bright night conditions. 

It wasn’t until many weeks later that I would find out from my developer that there was something seriously wrong with the images. Ricardo had seemed really worried when I initially spoke with him about the issue but he had taken the time to research the issue and postulated that the Remjet layer had not been fully removed properly. As such, when developed, it created this large orange haze across the whole image. Later, Magda emailed me some links to forums where this was being discussed in much detail. Turns out there was a whole batch of this film which CineStill was now recalling.  I called up, Analogue Wonderland and as usual they took care of everything with ease. 

Perhaps surprisingly, I am quite pleased with how the images have come out. The tungsten lighting has been amplified in deeper red/orange colours and in contrast with the black in the images, it gives a really apocalyptic feel to the set. Brighter white lights gave a bright yellow feel (the Waffle Cones image!) and it would have been interesting to see how other similar scenes may have come out too! My favourite image is right at the end of the selection, walking towards the West End theatres. The large lit billboards, street lamps and taxi headlights with the red sky and floor give a real feel the pandemic times we are all going through today. 

What is the Remjet layer? 

This is a black layer made from a coating of black particles that is found on motion picture Cine film.  

What is its purpose?

The Remjet layer protects the film from static and halation of lights and is most commonly used on Kodak films. 

What needs to be done in development?

The black layer must be carefully removed during the development process. If it is not properly removed it can lead to the images coming out with a dull orange complexion as you can see from the video. 

How can I save time and money in development of motion picture film?

The easy answer is to use CineStill 800T. Their film removes the Remjet layer for you so you can process it with ease in C41 chemistry. 

However, there are some downsides to pre-removal of the Remjet layer. It will lead to your images coming out with halation of any lights in low light conditions. If a subject and location is chosen appropriately the images have a great potential to the viewers delight! 

Another advantage of using CineStill 800T is you can use develop this film from the comfort of your own home using C41 chemistry, or simply take it to your local developer! 

No thank you, I want to use the original motion picture film! Where can I get that?

You can get Kodak Vision 3 200T and 500T Colour Negative Film from specialist film stockists. A simple search online will point you to a wide range of stockists closest to you.