Trying Cinestill 4ooD

My favorite color film, Kodak’s Portra 400, has been in short supply this year. And when I can find it, it is outrageously expensive. Kodak’s other color print films; ProImage 100 and ColorPlus have been out of stock quite a bit too. So I’ve been looking for an alternative. Recently, Cinestill released 400D. D stands for “dynamic.”

Cinestill’s website says that CineStill 400 is “a fine grain daylight balanced color negative film that delivers a soft color palette with natural saturation and rich, warm skin tones. The film has a wide dynamic range with a base sensitivity of ISO 400, but can be rated from 200 to 800 and pushed up to 3200. This makes the film highly versatile, usable both indoors or in the studio, under virtually any lighting conditions.”

400D is a completely new film and unlike Cinestill’s other color films, 50D and 800T, motion picture films with the remjet layer removed, 400D is a motion picture film that was produced without a remjet layer entirely, allowing it to be developed in C-41 chemistry.

I love shooting Portra 400 at 200 ISO. I find it produces nice saturated colors and pleasing grain. I was hoping to get the same results from Cinestill. Since it was my first time using this film, I shot it at box speed in my Nikon F100 and used my Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5 - 5.6 ED IF AF-S VR zoom. I took the Nikon with me for a walk around the neighborhood as the fall colors were at their peak in Northern California.

I finished off the roll getting a few shots of Rosie (our white Golden) and her friend Rosie (the black Lab) at the park.

Cinestill gave me impressive saturation and very warm tones. I think it has fine grain for a 400 speed film. Other than some cropping and contrast control, I did very little post processing of these images. It took me awhile to dial in Portra 400 and it’ll take me a few more rolls of this film before I am satisfied with my results. To that end, four more rolls are on order from B&H.