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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Film and Analog

Film Emulsion Review: CineStill 50D Film (35mm and 120)

Chris Gampat
No Comments
05/24/2015
3 Mins read
CineStill50D120-sq

Last Updated on 11/18/2017 by Chris Gampat

Update: This review of CineStill 50D now includes both 35mm and 120

CineStill popped up a couple of years ago as a special company repackaging Kodak movie film into a still film format. They exploded in growth, and are currently flourishing along with many of the other newer film-based companies. One of their newest emulsions is CineStill 50D–an ISO 50 film that is daylight balanced. Obviously at ISO 50 you’ll generally need a flash or lots of natural light to get the best photos. For the past couple of months, we’ve been testing the film along with lights that have come in for review and also along trips.

Trust me when I say that very few films want me to get back into film shooting and ditch digital cameras completely; Kodak Portra is currently my favorite and king of them all. But CineStill 50D is doing a great job and is almost as good.

Pros and Cons

Model: Melissa Perry
Model: Melissa Perry

Pros

– Very high detail

– That beautiful film look that you crave

Cons

– Can deliver not so great results in certain cloudy situations.

Gear Used

We tested CineStill 50D with the Canon EOS Elan 7, Sigma 85mm f1.4, Olympus OM4 Ti and the Olympus Zuiko 24mm f2.8 lens.

Ease of Use

CineStill 50D film is set and fixed to ISO 50, so you’ll need to shoot with lots of light. We recommend using diffused flash, lots of natural sunlight, or a lens that opens up really wide. In addition to that, you’ll need to realize that this film is also daylight balanced. For the record, most films are daylight balanced for shooting in direct sunlight (approx. 5000K). That means that when the sun starts to go down a bit or you’re shooting in overcast situations, you’ll need to use a slight warming filter to balance it out because the color temperature is cooler as a result.

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (16 of 29)

Of course, you can also try to balance it out in the processing or when you’ve scanned the images as TIFFs in digital post-production. During our tests, we also borrowed an Olympus 16mm f3.5 fisheye lens that included a yellow filter. This helped during shooting in Canada during very overcast days.

For the most part though, the process is to just straight shoot and not worry about the rest. In general though, we recommend overexposing your scenes by a full stop and giving this film lots of light to soak up.

Image Quality

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (11 of 29)

 

Considering that this is essentially Kodak film, there isn’t a problem with the looks. In fact, I’m very much in love here after being pretty much nothing else but a Kodak Portra lover and before that a Kodak Ektachrome lover. This film looks beautiful and renders colors in a slightly muted way. The scene a couple of images down of a green lake was much greener in real life, but that’s how this film works. It can be used to your advantage when photographing people since it makes skin tones look great.

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (12 of 29)

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (13 of 29)

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (14 of 29)

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (15 of 29)

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (17 of 29)

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (18 of 29)

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (19 of 29)

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (20 of 29)

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (21 of 29)

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (22 of 29)

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (23 of 29)

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (24 of 29)

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (29 of 29)

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (28 of 29)

 

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (2 of 29)

 

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (27 of 29)

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (26 of 29)

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Cinestill 50D sample photos (25 of 29)

In 120

Many photographers have always preferred CineStill 800T over 50D. And personally, I have to agree. Though if I were to compare it to other low ISO negative films, I’d prefer CineStill 50D to Kodak Ektar and Portra 160. CineStill 50D gives off the same warm effect to skin tones that Kodak Portra does yet is capable of also delivering some very saturated tones in certain situations. In brighter situations involving lots of sunlight, I recommend underexposing CineStill 50D. In darker situations, give it more light. Either way, you should know that it will deliver some beautiful looks; though it is sometimes unpredictable. Of any color negative film that I’ve used, I have to say that CineStill 50D is perhaps the most unpredictable. But that’s part of its charm in some ways.

Conclusions

CineStill 50D is a result of some great work and ideas from the Brothers Wright, who run CineStill. They need to remove a layer from these films first in order to be developed with normal C-41 processing, so we don’t really recommend doing this by yourself. The film is great for normal, everyday use and we encourage you to get into it and try it out.

Our film was developed by the good folks over at Lomography; who also have loads of other image samples available.

four-star-Phoblographer-Star-rating

We rate CineStill 50D at four out of five stars. Want a roll? Check out Lomography for availability.

cinestill CineStill 50D film ISO 50 lomography
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Written by

Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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