I’ve shot all sorts of colour film… Actually, I quite enjoy shooting colour – but I loathe the costs usually associated with it unless you’re shooting Fujicolor C200, Kodak Gold 200, or other little consumer emulsions (which I have to say, I love Gold 200).

I had yet to jump into the “cinema emulsions” realm. I really liked the look based on what I had seen online – and being a bit of a cinephile, I loved the idea of picking a stock from my favourite movie and running it through a stills camera. I bought an assortment of short ends (leftovers from productions) through a local production house. I was nervous about developing with the remjet at first… not to mention bulk loading from reels that didn’t fit into my LPL Dayroll loader.

These frames are from that test spool – I literally just went into a dark bag with a 400ft reel and taped the end to a cassette and rolled by hand until I figured I had enough for about 10-12 shots. I thought it was important to just figure out a way to test the reel, before going through the pain of spooling the 400ft reels down to 100ft sections so that I could bulk load from.

By doing all this – I was able to get the cost per roll (36 exposures) down to under a buck a roll. The daylight images were shot through an 85B corrective warming filter. The evening shots are unfiltered.

I shot the using in my Leica M4-2 and Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.2 developed the film in C-41, using a warm water baking soda mix to loosen the remjet layer. It was removed by hand with a microfibre cloth, prior to the final step of developing.

Since shooting this roll, I don’t think I’ve shot a regular C-41 emulsion in 35mm. I tend to keep a low ISO loaded in one camera and a higher ISO loaded in the other. It works perfectly with our fickle weather in the Pacific Northwest this time of year.

~ Ryan

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5 responses to “5 Frames… With Kodak VISION 500T 5279 (EI 400 / 35mm format / Leica M4-2)”

  1. I visited your website to check out your work. Really beautiful stuff, Ryan. Loved this writeup and viewing your other work!

    1. Cheers! Appreciate it. Hoping to do a few more of these with some less popular cinema emulsions.

  2. THANK GOD I LOVE FILM LETS GO BACK TO FILM FOR COLOR AND BLACK AND WHITE STEVEN

  3. Oh wow, the colours are fantastic! Respect for the home development too – we can’t get C41 chemicals here in Singapore.

    1. Thanks! I don’t think I wandered more than 500ft from the boat to crush that test roll. The developing on the boat can be a pain, but man is it cost effective. Is it a chemical restriction that prevents c-41 from being sold in Singapore?

 

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