15 Frames: Cinestill 50D on Nikon F60 in Vietnam

Before the pandemic, my spouse and I used to travel a lot. It wasn’t for vacations, necessarily; traveling was our way of life. Our families are spread out all over the world. Hers in half a dozen states, mine across the border in Canada.

We also try to see our closest friends as often as we can, many of whom are all over the place, too. Atlanta, Charlotte, Toronto, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Ulsan… the list goes on.

So, this is my long way of getting to my point. I’ve been reliving our travels through scanned film photos in my hard drive.

We took a trip to Vietnam back in March of 2019 for her 30th birthday. A year before, she surprised me with a trip to Hong Kong (several rolls were shot there and blog posts are coming) and arranged for all my friends to be there. Vietnam we organized together, since I could never pull off a surprise quite like she did. It was the first of three trips we took to Asia in 2019, followed by South Korea in September for the wedding of our friends and Thailand in December to use some of our paid time off.

Shooting Cinestill 50D in Vietnam

A grainy phone shot of all my film and gear on the Vietnam trip. I used the Nikon F60 for all the shots below.

I had never shot this film before and wasn’t sure what to expect. This film is different from Cinestill’s other popular emulsion, the 800T which is a tungsten balanced film with a higher ISO, or sensitivity.

Here’s what I knew about the basics of Cinestill 50D:

• It was rerolled motion picture film (Kodak VISION3 50D) that was chemically treated for processing in standard C-41 development

• It was balanced for daylight at a 50 ISO

• Shot “correctly,” it would look like a still from a movie

The little blue canister felt a bit narrower than 35mm film that I had shot, but maybe it was just my brain playing tricks on me. I loaded it into my Nikon F60 with a 50mm f/1.8 lens in between shooting more standard rolls like Kodak Ultramax 400 and Fuji Pro 400H.

I’m not sharing every frame because some of the shots were boring, poorly composed, or too blurry. That’s probably the biggest mistake that I made: shooting in low light without trying to push the film. The roll is DX coded, meaning that the camera will read the roll a barcode on the canister as a roll of ISO 50 film and adjust exposure accordingly. I shot all the frames on aperture priority mode.

These photos aren’t edited or cropped and are being shared after processing and scanning by Brooklyn’s Accurate Photo Shop.

Oh, before I get into it…

You can buy Cinestill 50D film here in 35mm format or here in 120mm format. It costs about $20 for the 35mm version and is far more expensive than standard film stocks like Kodak Ektar 100 or Lomography 100 which also have a low ISO, but won’t deliver the same look.

1/15 - I should have kept shooting this film outside.

2/15 - You can see the blurriness here, inside a dark temple lit by overhead halogen bulbs and candlelight.

3/15 - My spouse, Ashley, back outside for a much sharper and better exposed shot.

4/15 - I like how dreamy this shot looks, with the frame metered for shadows on the driver, everything around him is very light and shallow.

5/15 - Back inside, at a food market in Ho Chi Minh City where I tried to stay close to bright lights and shoot from the hip.

6/15 - But it’s still pretty blurry due to the dim lighting and trying to get the shot quickly to catch up to my spouse and friend who were leaving me behind.

7/15 - Much sharper inside the same market, where I stood perfectly still and managed to get a great result.

8/15 - It’s a busy shot, but it does look like a frame of b-roll from a movie’s establishing shot.

9/15 - Lots of detail in the shadows and highlights here, apart from the fence in the background.

10/15 - Fast food in Asian countries is not the same as back in the US or Canada, so be sure to try some KFC or McDonald’s in Asia if you can.

11/15 - I missed the focus here, putting it on the driver’s feet instead of his farce, but I still like this shot.

12/15 - Lots of life in the alleys of Ho Chi Minh.

13/15 - The pink color really stood out to me, but we were walking quickly and this was not well composed at all. Would have been more effective as a 6x6.

14/15 - My best friend was living in Cambodia at the time and came to hang out with us for a couple of days. Here he is with my spouse in a cafe, about to peel some mangosteen.

15/15 - Last shot and more evidence that I should have kept the film to outdoor use only, or pushed it instead.

I would definitely try shooting the Cinestill 50D again, knowing more about the final result. But it was admittedly expensive for an experimental roll of film. The next time I bring it on my travels, I’ll shoot it outside again and aim for a fully manual exposure, as opposed to aperture priority.

You can find me on Instagram here and my film photography Instagram here. I also have a podcast about immigrant stories that you can check out here.