CineStill 50D Film Review

CineStill 50D is a relatively slow, fine-grained/high-resolution, colour-accurate negative film that shows prominent red halos around bright highlights.

This film is a pre-processed (by CineStill) Kodak Vision 3 film, safe to develop at a local lab or in a standard C-41 chemistry kit at home. Although it can also be processed in ECN-2.

In this review, I explain how this film works, share a few samples (along with a downloadable high-res scan), and leave you with some exposure tips for making better photos with CineStill 50D.In this review: What is CineStill 50D? Halation on CineStill 50D. CineStill 50D dynamic range and colours. Exposure tips for shooting with CineStill 50D. CineStill 50D grain and resolution. Hi-res CineStill 50D scan samples. Where to buy CineStill 50D. Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!

What is CineStill 50D?

CineStill 50D is a pre-processed Kodak Vision 3 50D film, originally made for motion picture studios.

This Kodak film was used in major productions, including Interstellar, Tenet, Dunkirk, and Killers of the Flower Moon. However, you can’t buy it directly from Kodak, and even if you do get some, you can’t shoot it in your 35mm (or medium format) film camera.

There’s a special carbon-based layer on the back of Kodak Vision 3 films called remjet. Designed specifically for high-speed motion picture cameras, it prevents static discharges as film travels through the rollers at 24 frames per second and dramatically reduces halation.

Halation is a process of bright light penetrating all the transparent layers of film and reflecting off your camera’s pressure plate back into your film. As a result, areas of your image with bright highlights can get “halos” rendered around them. These “halos” are the diffused light reflected by your camera’s pressure plate. On colour-negative film, they appear red because the red film layer is the closest to the pressure plate.

Remjet is the special carbon-based layer that prevents halation by blocking light. Because film needs to be transparent for scanning or printing, it must come off during the development. An alkaline pre-bath step can remove the remjet; however, most labs aren’t equipped to perform it — and if it’s not done correctly, the chemicals can be contaminated and the images ruined.

CineStill makes Kodak Vision 3 film safe to develop at a regular lab or at home using the standard C-41 chemicals. They remove the remjet layer from the film, split the giant cinema reels into standard 36exp. strips, and package it into DX-coded metal canisters.

Halation on CineStill 50D.

Without the remjet layer, Kodak Vision 3 film can render visible halation in certain cases — notably, in the shaded areas next to very bright highlights.

This effect isn’t as pronounced on CineStill 50D as on the higher-ISO CineStill emulsions, such as the CineStill 400Dynamic and CineStill 800T. However, it may affect the colour of certain elements in your photos, such as the white snow and bright water planes, making them appear a little redder than usual.

Note that all films produce some levels of halation. Even those that don’t have a remjet layer use other ways to prevent halation — this effect can not be fully eliminated — even with remjet. CineStill films simply make it more noticeable.

CineStill 50D dynamic range and colours.

Like all CineStill colour films, 50D produces accurate colours (bearing the halation effect in mind) with excellent spectral sensitivity, which makes it suitable for portraits and any application that requires realistic images.

The 50D’s colours can appear a little saturated compared to other premium Kodak colour films like Portra 160. This may be due to the fact that the Vision 3 emulsion was designed to be developed in ECN-2 chemistry — but I wouldn’t consider that a point against the film. I think it looks great out of the box, and it’s also very flexible when it comes to colour correction and adjustments.

​✪ Note: I use this method to scan all film for my reviews. It creates consistent results that make understanding and comparing the emulsion’s colour/contrast attributes possible.

Kodak’s datasheet for this film lists characteristic curves, which illustrate a useful dynamic range of about 11 stops. However, this graph is made with Kodak Vision 3 film (which includes a remjet layer), developed in ECN-2 chemistry. Developed in C-41 (the chemistry you and your lab are more likely to use), this film may have a narrower dynamic range.

Nevertheless, I found CineStill 50D to still be very good at preserving shadows and highlights without any additional noise. I wouldn’t be surprised if 50D retained all of its 11 stops of dynamic range, regardless of how it’s developed. There do not seem to be any significant downsides to cross-processing* this film.

✱ — Cross-processing means developing film designed for one type of chemical in another. For example, Kodak Vision 3 film is designed for ECN-2 chemistry; developing it in C-41 means it is being cross-processed. Another example of cross-processing is developing slide film (which is designed for the E-6) in C-41.

Exposure tips for shooting with CineStill 50D.

CineStill 50D is a relatively slow film, which can be challenging to expose correctly in subdued light. However, it’s perfect for reusable film cameras in daylight, such as the Kodak Ektar H35N, which has a fixed aperture of 𝒇8 with a 1/125s fixed shutter.

The above specs/settings will overexpose CineStill 50D by one stop in full sun; this film can handle that without any issues. Other reusable cameras may have an 𝒇11 fixed aperture, which also works great with this film. Just ensure that you use flash in the shade.

This film is receptive to edits in post, but you should still aim to expose it correctly — with a light meter or via the Sunny 16.

As I’ve already mentioned above, 50D is the least likely out of the CineStill films to produce halations in your images. This may be due to various factors, which include the film speed and the fact that daylit scenes have fewer shaded areas that draw contrast around the halos. If you are hoping to render prominent halos, aim to include very bright spots of light in your image surrounded by dark/shaded areas.

CineStill 50D grain and resolution.

The 50D is “Kodak’s finest grain motion picture film,” which is evident in the good film scans — even when shot without a remjet layer and developed in C-41.

To see exactly how well this film resolves detail, I took a sample photo with one of the sharpest 28mm lenses for 35mm film ever made and scanned it at full resolution on PrimeFilm XAs, yielding ~137MP file after some interpolation:

It was very impressive to see how much information this film can carry. Of course, you can get even more detail with CineStill 50D in medium format.

The extreme close-up has also revealed a curious artifact: tiny white dots across the entire frame. These are certainly not dust spots (dust is larger and has a different shape). The spots may be the result of cross-processing 50D in C-41, or they could be the remnants of the remjet layer that could not be completely removed down to the microscopic levels of enlargement.

You can examine this film in greater detail for yourself with this free high-resolution download file pack:

Hi-res CineStill 50D scan samples.

To get an up-close glimpse at CineStill 50D’s unique grain structure, you will need a high-resolution scan file. This free download includes three 6,786 × 4,686px files (32MP each): a negative, an equalized positive, and a colour-corrected positive.

You can also use these files to try your colour correction workflows.

➜ Free Download: Sample CineStill 50D 35mm Film Scan (JPEG)

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Where to buy CineStill 50D.

CineStill products have always been in demand. Despite its relatively high cost per roll, CineStill 50D often gets sold out during the peak season (spring/summer). This film is often available at various brick-and-mortar stores, labs, and online retailers, such as the ones linked below:

❤ By the way: Please consider making your CineStill 50D film purchase using this link  so that this website may get a small percentage of that sale — at no extra charge for you — thanks!