Stills Stocks Film Stocks Equivalence

Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos · March 22, 2018

Is there somewhere that I can find perhaps a table which would give me which still-photography stocks correspond,closely resemble, or are equivalent to certain film stocks used for motion pictures?

Or perhaps you could tell me some well-documented facts or your impressions.

:)

Mark Dunn · March 22, 2018

They don't correspond. The two disciplines are very different. Stills are printed, films are projected. You're more likely to get close with an emulation filter for digital images.

Stuart Brereton · March 22, 2018

Years ago, I was told by a Kodak trainer that Kodacolor Gold was pretty close to their motion picture stocks. This was back in the late 90's, so we would have been using the last of the EXR stocks and Vision 1. He wasn't suggesting that they were identical, but that they were close enough for casual tests. These days, I'd probably use Kodak Portra, even though it doesn't come in equivalent speeds.

Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos · March 22, 2018

I remember finding out about these “approximate equivalences”, to put it that way, around here.

For example, here:

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=59454&view=findpost&p=386059

Daniel Klockenkemper said that “Ektar 100 is probably the closest equivalent to 50D”.

Anthony Schilling said the same here

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=73026&view=findpost&p=467070

The new Ektar 100 still film was derived from Vison3 I believe, real nice colors, finest grain film ever

I think I’ve also bumped onto certain mentions of Portra in this regard, and now I’m a bit surprised by Mark’s comments.

Edited March 22, 2018 by Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos

Stuart Brereton · March 22, 2018

You're not going to find an exact match. Portra and Ektar are both based on the same T grain technology as the Vision motion picture stocks, but they're not designed to be identical.

I assume you've heard of the CineStill line?

https://cinestillfilm.com/

Edgar Nyari · March 29, 2018

This is a really interesting topic. It seems to me that you can probably draw a parallel between various generations of technology they used, rather than actual emulsions. For example, when T-grain came out, it was probably use in the Kodacolor emulsions of the early 90s. Some of the advances in "Vision" stocks were probably also reflected in the Gold films of 2000s, and also Portra and Supra. Then came the two-electron sensitization inovation of Vision2. Some time after that Kodak came out with a brand new generation of Portra films and Ultra Color. I suspect they intergrated some of the advancements of V2 in those new still emulsions.

As far as the general "flavour" goes of each emulsion, I think they are quite different. Portra has an odd color palette, which renders skintones in a certain pleasing way, but looks a bit "thin" in the exteriors. Ultra Color is on the other end of the spectrum, and also has no parallel in MP world, except maybe Eterna Vivid. Gold was I guess "normal", but still more contrasty than a MP emulsion I think.

That all being said, I plan to play a bit with still films in my movie camera soon. I ran some tests last night (coincidentally), to see how still film behaves in a motion picture camera. I made some measurements, and concluded that I can get about two and a half seconds from a roll of 36 exposure still film. It could make for an interesting (and cheap) hobby. I suspect there might be some problems like pressure plate reflections due to the lack of rem-jet, but we'll see.

I do remember that someone used Kodak Gold 1600 in the early 90s for some nature documentary footage shot in low light. This is the only instance that I know of where someone used still film in a motion picture camera.

Edgar Nyari · April 21, 2018

Here is some Kodacolor 200, developed in the local photo minilab, and scanned on a really cheap flatbed. Hand-registered. Didn't use sharpening because of the noise. Makes for a really interesting hobby. :)