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Kodak Vision3 250D 16mm latitude


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Shooting next week with Kodak Vision3 250D standard 16mm format inside a beautiful, historic banquet hall (see attached image).................at last! I was scheduled to shoot last spring 2018 but.....em......they took the roof off the place to repair it. This place was originally built in 1531 by the way!!!!!

 

The client is Gibraltar Crystal and I'm filming what they produce laid out beautifully on the table with some coverage placement shots of the room to cut in on the edit for interest. This is all part of a glassblowing film thing Im doing to display within their factory on a TV screen.

 

Now.....I want to go more Barry Lyndon and have the candles burning and darken the room down shafting diffused light down the table perhaps to create loads of interest and do a dolly track move alongside it....all obvious stuff.....it is what it is......

 

So....my question is......what latitude have you all found with Vision3 250D stock. I've used 500T and it sees into the dark beautifully in my experience rating it at 500 asa.....I love the grain so no comments on that.....but I have no more 500T and have 2 x 100ft rolls of 250D to get this done.

 

Will do light readings with ambient and spot meter to see what the candles are giving out but likely I'll take ambient down to f2 or thereabouts (i can close shutters and make the room dark)......

 

Shooting with a beautiful Cooke 9-50mm Varokinetal T2.5 standard 16mm lens on aaron XTR XC (the no electronics one...doesnt even say how much film has run through other than the mechanical 'indicator' on the magazine which for 100ft rolls means i have to think in my head how many secs I've done hahaha)

 

 

post-72573-0-88289600-1547819419_thumb.jpg

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Hello,

Have you used 100' rolls in the Aaton before?

I understand you can get the rolls in the feed side, but the take up is going to be on a core, so you won't be able to store the exposed film back in the boxes. Maybe not a huge problem, but is it that hard to find a 400' roll of 7219?

How many candles are you going to have?

Barry Lyndon used (I think) triple wicks to boost the flame and a bunch of them.

I think you're going to want more light either way.

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I mean the latitude is around 4 stops +/- because your stuck to whatever the scanner can deliver you in post production. I personally have pushed 250D pretty hard and also underexposed it pretty badly, with decent results both ways. If ya want a flatter more noisy image, under expose. If you want a more contrasty, less noisy image, over expose. It's the same with pretty much any of the modern vision stocks as they're meant to work together in harmony with one another.

 

In terms of running the Aaton with 100ft loads, they will fit in the black boxes IF you can pop the core out. If you can't pop the core out, then usually they won't fit. Also remember, the 100ft loads are very well protected on the spool and without that spool they aren't protected at all. So its wise to put the film to be processed in a 400ft can with a black bag.

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Shoot done and it was EXCELLENT FUN......brought in my ole timer 'maestro' and another old school photographer friend to enjoy playing about with the set up and lighting....we had our light metres out and compared notes as one does.....discussing the implications of being half to one stop one way or the other with the film stock (and we've never even used 250D before!)......you don't know the fun you're missing you 'false colour' and 'scopes' lovers

 

Day one the sun came in off the huge windows and looked fantastic on the glassware.......so went for that look and then day 2 cloudy....so went for a candlelit vibe.....nowhere near as cool as Kubrick did it needless to say but we liked what we saw!!!! we lit to get base exposure up to lens aperture T2.2 and then let the small candle flames do their thing all the stops over.......

 

100ft rolls? they work great on Aatons......when done I stick them back in the black case as is WITH the white take-up core on them......the film is nice and tightly wound and I've found it travels well with no issues as I do it.....the edges of the film are not scanned so no need to be so paranoid with the few mm play inside the box.....I've handled and processed film for 35 years in still photography and its hardy stuff......

 

BTW - Film will be done on an Arriscan at Cinelab London at 2K full gate

Edited by Stephen Perera
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Kodak put a big effort in making all the Vision-3 stocks match each other in terms of contrast, latitude, saturation, etc. And even the differences in graininess are not as pronounced, but the slower films are definitely finer-grained (I can usually spot 50D photography). I did a feature years ago where I tested all of the Vision-3 stocks and then showed the director a print at the lab, and his response was "What am I looking at? Everything looks the same!" And I had to admit that the differences were pretty subtle.

 

Back in the days of EXR, the daylight stocks were definitely more contrasty.

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...thanks for the feedback Mr Mullen....I'm mixing 16mm 50D, 250D and 500T personally......

 

....it's interesting how everyone goes on about how democratising digital is well I think film is just as democratising in another way cos we buy exactly the same film as big budget Hollywood does from Kodak - they don't run 'special' film stocks for them.....AND we can use the same labs.....I send my film to Cinelab London....e.g. they did Mission Impossible - Fallout AND my 16mm footage at around the same time last year using the same machines.......

 

 

 

Kodak put a big effort in making all the Vision-3 stocks match each other in terms of contrast, latitude, saturation, etc. And even the differences in graininess are not as pronounced, but the slower films are definitely finer-grained (I can usually spot 50D photography). I did a feature years ago where I tested all of the Vision-3 stocks and then showed the director a print at the lab, and his response was "What am I looking at? Everything looks the same!" And I had to admit that the differences were pretty subtle.

 

Back in the days of EXR, the daylight stocks were definitely more contrasty.

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