CineStill 800T Film Review

CineStill 800T is the world’s first¹ motion picture film pre-processed for development in standard chemicals. This high-speed tungsten-balanced colour emulsion is best known for its halation effects, fine grain, wide dynamic range, and accurate colour reproduction.

There’s nothing out there quite like the 800T (or its analogs). This film combines the latest technology built by the largest colour film manufacturer in the world (Kodak) with characteristic light distortions that create instantly recognizable results. Its popularity has been steadily increasing since its introduction in 2012 to the point of becoming a cultural cliché.

In this in-depth review, I’ll share my six years of experience with the film in samples, detailed technical specifications, a dive into history (including the recent controversy), and advanced shooting tips.

In this review: A brief history of CineStill 800T. Grain structure, resolution, and sharpness. CineStill 800T exposure guide and dynamic range. Pushing and pulling CineStill 800T. CineStill 800T colours & halation. Tungsten vs. daylight colour balance. Shooting CineStill 800T in daylight. Scanning CineStill 800T. How Kodak motion picture film is processed and packaged for still photographers. The 2023 CineStill controversy. Other CineStill colour cinema films. How much does CineStill 800T cost, and where to buy it. Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!¹ — While there may have been attempts previously to re-spool motion picture film for still cameras, and it has certainly been done by some manufacturers, CineStill is the first modern independent company that brought this as a commercial product to the masses.

A brief history of CineStill 800T.

CineStill was founded in 2012. The 800T was their first product. You can still read the founders’ first-ever post in which they shared their initial tests for what would become CineStill 800T. The article where they announced Cinestill 500Tungsten (later renamed to “800T”) still has just two comments, and their Etsy shop that sold their first few rolls has one lonely review.

Being one of the most talked-about brands in 2023, CineStill has come a long way. You dive even deeper into the company’s upstart in the history section for the CineStill 400D film review. But for the sake of brevity, I’ll keep this section more to the point.

800T is the product of the Brothers Wright experimenting with cameras and lenses on the side as they employed themselves as wedding and contract photographers. The 800T is their first and largest success, which came from filling the widening gap in the high-speed colour film selection as the market pivoted to digital photography in the 2010s.

Brothers’ Wright project results have exceeded expectations: CineStill 800T delivered more than anyone would’ve expected from a repackaged bulk-loaded motion picture film reel. Shortly after their initial sales blew through the roof, a medium format version of the 800T campaign was launched. The company continued to grow ever since, reaching about a dozen employees by 2024.

More recently, CineStill found a few competitors that managed to make products similar to the 800T. This has given rise to some controversy (more on that below).

Grain structure, resolution, and sharpness.

CineStill 800T (based on Vision 500T 5219/7219) features an impressively fine grain. Kodak’s datasheet lists it as “exceptionally low” — which remains true even when the film is cross-processed in C-41 chemicals.

Film grain isn’t constant — it can vary depending on exposure and development techniques. But from my personal experience shooting this film for six years and others’ recollections, the 800T appears to be the finest-grained ISO 800 film, likely surpassing Kodak Portra 800.

CineStill 800T exposure guide and dynamic range.

CineStill 800T has a wide dynamic range of about 10+ stops. This implies that it can forgive some exposure mistakes and is perfectly suitable for photographing high-contrast scenes. The shadows and highlights will retain more detail than most colour films, and the results maintain medium contrast across the frame.

From the datasheet:

You may have also noticed that CineStill’s flagship product, 800T, uses a different box-speed rating than the Kodak film it is repackaging (Vision 3 500T). This is because the ECN-2 colour development process, which yields even less contrast for more post-processing flexibility, requires about 2/3 more stops of exposure than C-41 to produce similar results with this film.

Because of its wide dynamic range and medium contrast, CineStill 800T does not need special considerations when metering and exposing the scenes. You can simply set your light meter to ISO 800 and get good results.

Scenes with low contrast, such as foggy weather, may benefit from a contrast bump during post-processing (more on that below). Thankfully, this film handles digital colour correction and contrast adjustment extremely well, whereas many other films may start looking grainy or muddy as the result of edits.

Pushing and pulling CineStill 800T.

CineStill 800T is often used at night or indoors due to its tungsten colour balance and relatively high ISO rating. However, it can also be reliably pushed up to EI 3200 and pulled to EI 200. The overall contrast of the film will be affected but still acceptable, and the grain remains fine in all those scenarios.

I managed to push this film to EI 6400, about a stop more (total +3) than the recommendation, to get what I thought were good results — see below. I’ve also pulled CineStill 800T to EI 320 (-1⅓ stops), which yielded scans that were virtually indistinguishable from the box speed in terms of colours, contrast, and grain structure. This is a very flexible film.

CineStill 800T colours & halation.

In daylight, without a filter or colour correction, CineStill 800T may render a teal cast, which may or may not be a desirable effect for you. At night, especially under warm lighting, the 800T produces realistic, colour-accurate images.

Intended for indoor lighting at 3000~3200K, the 800T renders scenes exceptionally well in orange and yellow light. In these conditions, the film produces natural contrast and well-controlled colour temperature but with a slight tendency to oversaturate the reds. Very bright white surfaces may occasionally get a slight orange cast (this may be in part due to the halation effect — see below).

You may also notice that the film renders distinct red halos around bright light sources and specular highlights. This is due to the absence of the remjet backing (removed by CineStill so that the film can be safely processed in standard chemicals).

There’s no way to prevent halation other than to avoid bright light sources. It may be reduced if you pull-process the film, but it can’t be eliminated completely. Your modern fast colour film alternative without halation would be Kodak Portra 800 or bulk-loaded/rebranded Kodak Vision 3 film with the remjet layer intact (but not every lab will take this film and you’ll need to follow these steps to process it at home).

Tungsten vs. daylight colour balance.

Indoor lighting, particularly tungsten light bulbs, produces an orange glow that our eyes can adjust to. However, this presents a challenge for colour film as the lack of blue light throws its sensitivity out of balance. Some solutions, such as an additional magenta layer implemented in Fuji Pro 400H films, were designed to overcome this issue, but a simpler and more practical method has been to rebalance the emulsion.

Tungsten-balanced colour-negative films had their blue-light sensitivity boosted, which allowed them to render whites, greys, blacks, and all the colours properly in warm light.

If you are shooting in unusually warm light, such as certain indoor scenes, tungsten-balanced film is your best option to preserve the colour balance. Your other option would be to use a blue filter on your lens, but that will cut the incoming light, which may not be ideal in a low-light situation.

In contrast, colour-correcting daylight-balanced (i.e., typical) film shot in yellow light is a lot more difficult than it may seem. Though modern editing software may make the task appear simple with the convenient sliders, you will soon discover that changing the colour balance has to be done at different levels for various image brightnesses and locations. To be done perfectly, this job would require masking and will very likely cost a lot of spent time and cause a noticeable loss of quality.

Shooting CineStill 800T in daylight.

The reverse is also true: tungsten-balanced colour films will require an 85C warming lens filter to render daylight scenes accurately.

Thankfully, colour-correcting CineStill 800T for daylight scenes isn’t nearly as challenging as fixing the green cast you may get from shooting your typical colour-negative film under artificial lighting. You will notice that some photographers will leave it in — and it can look good in some cases. However, certain scenes may still prove to be challenging to colour-correct.

 ☝︎ Further reading: “How to Shoot CineStill 800T in Daylight.”

Scanning CineStill 800T.

CineStill 800T/Kodak Vision 3 500T films dry flat, which makes them easy to scan and develop. The film works well with most scanners and scanning software, including my personal workflow.

If you’ve shot CineStill 800T at night, there’s likely little or no work left to be done after scanning other than adjusting the black point and cleaning up dust/scratches.

Due to the film’s medium-low contrast and fine grain, your scans will accept significant edits before showing any quality loss. Kodak’s original design of this emulsion was meant for maximum post-processing flexibility, which enabled film directors a whole range of looks to their footage. Developing Vision 3 in the standard C-41 chemicals slightly reduces y, which is why some photographers prefer to develop their CineStill films in ECN-2 chemistry . This produces “flatter” images that can take more contrast alterations.

How Kodak motion picture film is processed and packaged for still photographers.

CineStill 800T is a repackaged Kodak Vision 3 500T film with its remjet layer removed.

Remjet is a temporary black carbon layer fixed to the back of the emulsion. It’s designed to prevent halations — an effect of bright light bouncing off a film pressure plate back into the red-sensitive layer of the film — reduce friction at fast transport speeds in movie cameras, and prevent static discharges.

However, the remjet can flake off during development and contaminate the chemicals. It can also cause many issues during the scanning process. Thus, it needs to be removed before development.

The ECN-2 development process designed for Kodak Vision 3 films uses a pre-bath step to remove the remjet. This can also be done at home with ECN-2 and C-41 development kits. However, most photo development labs are not equipped to do this. This is why removing the remjet layer prior to spooling it into film cartridges is so convenient for photographers. Note that removing remjet before the film is packaged for camera use is a lot more difficult than during development, which is why CineStill has had no competition for many years.

There are downsides to not having the remjet layer. One is static discharges that may occur in dry climates or if you advance your film a little too quickly. The halation may also manifest in areas of your image you may not have expected, like bright, overcast skies, where it can produce a slight orange cast, which can be difficult to correct.

CineStill has since corrected the static discharge issue on one of its newest films, 400D (Dynamic).

 ☝︎ Further reading: “How to Shoot CineStill 800T in Daylight.”

The 2023 CineStill controversy.

A new brand, Reflex Labs (along with a few others), has figured out how to remove the remjet layer before spooling film into a canister — the same as CineStill. They began selling their film as “800T” and marketing it as such widely on the internet.

As their postings began to take over the search results, CineStill made a controversial decision to trademark the “800T.” Despite Kodak not having trademarked their 500T film (or even the discontinued 800T film they also produced some years ago), CineStill was granted the TM on the second try.

CineStill is allowed to use this trademark because they’ve eventually proven to the authority that their product is widely recognized as “800T” or “800 Tungsten.” It’s been marketed and sold as such for the past decade to a wide audience of still film photographers, whereas Kodak’s films (while bought in larger quantities) are either specialized to the smaller audience of movie producers or simply do not need that protection.

As part of the trademarking agreement, CineStill must police and enforce the TM on its own, which it recently did by reaching out to sellers and producers of other re-spooled remjet-less “800T” films. Reflex Labs complied by renaming their film, and many sellers agreed to remove or relist the competing products under a different name. (The trademark has no claim over the process, just the name.)

But days ago, I learned about CatLABS’s experience, who posted a lengthy public complaint about being “sued” by CineStill. To myself and others, this felt unnecessarily strict and unfriendly. Thousands of photographers went online to complain and trash CineStill, often (erroneously) exclaiming that their product is nothing but a rebranded Kodak film.

Two days later, CineStill’s response was quoted in the PetaPixel article explaining that they’ve never sued CatLABS; instead, they’ve sent a cease and desist letter to CatLABS’ layers in response to their direct request for that letter. They also clarified that that letter is neither a lawsuit nor legally binding.

It was upsetting to learn that CatLABS published a post that was deliberately misleading and unfairly damaging to CineStill. We are yet to learn what the fallout will be for CineStill and film photography as a whole.

Other CineStill colour cinema films.

The difference between CineStill and other producers who found a way to remove the remjet layer is their relationship with Kodak. For CineStill, this likely means preferential pricing and a consistent supply, but when it comes to their newest film, CineStill 400D, it is an additional customization to the base layer that certainly can’t be replicated without such a collaboration.

CineStill 400D is made much the same way as the 800T, with the exception of the new anti-static layer on the film (the remjet is still removed). This film can produce halation, but the blurry red lightning bolts can no longer damage the photos.

CineStill 50D is the brand’s other daylight-balanced low-speed film based on Kodak Vision 50D. It’s made the same way as CineStill 800T but suffers much less from static discharges thanks to its low ISO.

How much does CineStill 800T cost, and where to buy it.

As of this writing (updated on October 10, 2024), CineStill 800T film sells for about $17-25 per single roll of 36exp. in 35mm. In 120, it costs between $16 and $20.

CineStill film has always been in high demand, even in the face of controversy and new competition. During the height of the pandemic, it was difficult to find anywhere. Thankfully, the company managed to up its supplies again in late 2023/early 2024 and even stabilize or, in some cases, lower the prices.

❤ By the way: Please consider making your CineStill 800T film purchase using this link  so that this website may get a small percentage of that sale — at no extra charge for you — thanks!