Cinestill 800 Tests

These photos are from the first roll of Cinestill 800 I shot. I was interested in the film because it is for artificial light, and some people were raving about the halos. It’s motion picture film and the anti halation coat is stripped so it can be processed using C-41. The creative possibilities, taking pictures indoors and with odd effects, seem to tickle a lot of people.

I hate it. The halos just look like shit. The colors are not particularly good, either. I’m sure I could do as well with Portra 800. A few I took in natural light do have that 70s movie look to them, but considering this film stock costs twice as much as anything else I use, I’d rather shoot slides for the price. Or just shoot Portra for high speed. I guess it was the sort of thing you might try once, but not something I expect to do regularly from here on out.1

From what I read, you’re supposed to take a picture of a gas station first 2. So, here we go:

I also took some shots of a band that plays on a trailor in the parking lot behind the ice cream place. Somebody Guitar Somebody… dude has guitar in his name so he must be good at guitar, right? Been stoking the Duane look pretty hard, too. God bless ’em for finding a way to gig, even if they have to drag the stage and bubble machine along with them. They had a dozen happy people watching them, and one obnoxious narcissistic girl who kept trying to pretend she was playing the bass and begging her boyfriend to take insta toks, so everyone would look at her. That’s what a fun band is supposed to do.

And a couple of daylight shots, just to see what colors I could pull out with the light streaming in the window.


  1. That’s what she said
  2. Actually, the In-n-Out was first, but we’re splitting hairs here

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