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Difference between Kodak 200T and 250D?


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Hey guys, anyone know the difference between the 200T and the 250D? I understand the 250D is for daylight. But for the 200T, its shot alot in daylight, so whats the advantage - AND its tungsten balanced....so it would make sense to shoot at night...with slow speed??? Doesnt make sense. Anyway, hopefully you guys will be able to explain. And please dumb down the technical lingo a tad lol Im not a cinematographer - just someone who wants to learn. I do storyboards, and i might direct in the future and knowing this may come in handy. Thanks!

 

Also, how far can I underexpose with the 200T?? And the 250D? I know with 500T you can go under to EI 1600. But what about these faster stocks?

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I could just be making this up, so other's please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

My understanding is that 200T is frequently shot outdoors in cases with mixed lighting or where a scene will go back and forth between indoors and outdoors. The DP just wants the grain structure and "feel" to be the same. It's much easier to take 200T outdoors with an 85B filter (bringing it down to about a 125 stock) and maybe an ND than to bring 250D indoors and add an 80A filter, which is 2 full stops and now you're down to a 60 or 65 stock... indoors... that's a lot of lighting.

 

I have no idea about the over or under characteristics of 200T or 250D. I always aim for over with all my stocks since I'm shooting mostly Super 8 so going under bumps up the grain considerably. I'll sacrifice a bit of bright highlight detail (even in a wedding dress, etc) before chancing excessive grain and/or dark facial features.

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There is no right or wrong choice. 200T is slightly slower and thus slightly finer-grained than 250D but the 250D has a slower blue layer (because it can, since daylight has an abundance of blue) so that layer is finer-grained. But there isn't a lot of difference.

 

The advantage of 200T is when you have to use it for some tungsten-balanced scenes, and if you have some blue-toned dusk or day-for-night scenes planned. When shooting in 35mm, some people get 250D and 500T for daylight and tungsten scenes respectively, some people get 200T and 500T so that the 200T can be used both for daytime and for tungsten when you have more light and want less grain than with 500T. But if you are shooting in Super-8, you may want to consider 50D for daylight exteriors and 200T for interiors if you just want two stocks. On the other hand, you may need 250D if you are using a lot of available daylight inside.

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One of the main reasons I use 200T is when I need to save some money on a low budget shoot by just carrying one stock-- less waste normally. with 200T I know I can shoot it inside and get by ok with some supplemental or outside through a filter (personally I use an 81EF filter for a 1/2 correction which I can then color how is needed later on).

 

Personally, I rate 200T and 250D as 200 and 250, maybe 125 and 160 respectively, but I feel they're about true to speed. I'd say not too many people really push them as it makes more sense to just swap over to a 500T instead of a 1 stop push on either, and while I've not tested this I would think that the grain would be slightly better on a 500T -v- a 200T pushed but it's all a matter of taste.

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One of the main reasons I use 200T is when I need to save some money on a low budget shoot by just carrying one stock-- less waste normally. with 200T I know I can shoot it inside and get by ok with some supplemental or outside through a filter (personally I use an 81EF filter for a 1/2 correction which I can then color how is needed later on).

 

 

So Adrian,

 

You pretty much confirm my reply and personal use for 200T vs 250D?

 

Dave

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I've shot with both, and I used 250D for sunset and sunrise shots, wide open at f1.3 to get the right sky color and ratio between street lights, I needed the extra speed it had over 200T (especially if I had to put 85 of it). But for regular outdoors during the day I would use 200T with 85.

 

If the budget would have allowed me I would even have gotten 50D so I wouldn't have had to stop down with NDs on 200T to shoot outdoors, but for the shoot where I mixed the two I had to settle for 200T because it is really good for going back and forth between daylight and tungsten. Heck, you can even shot it without 85 outdoors and still get great results. I believe that's what Lubezki did on Tree of Life, because he didn't like how filters "homogenizes" shots.

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