Atlanta Film Co. provides a solution for stills photographers to use cinema films as an affordable alternative to photographic color-negative films. Atlanta Film Co. works in collaboration with Dunwoody Photo who utilizes Kodak Motion Picture Film Lab Atlanta's ECN-2 processing services to provide a commercial solution to process cinema films for photographers in TRUE ECN-2 processing.
Rem-jet (or remjet) is a black carbon layer adhered to the back of the film to minimize halation and static discharge on the film. The rem-jet also acts as a layer of protection to reduce the risk of scratching to the film.
Motion Picture film passes through a camera at 24 frames per second (or more). This movement creates static build-up. The carbon backing displaces that static and minimizes the risk of an arc exposing the negative.
Halation is intense light passing through the film and bouncing back into the film from behind it creating a glow on your image. Because of the black carbon backing, much of that light is absorbed and reduces the effect of that glow.
When processed, the rem-jet goes through a "pre-bath," which removes the adhesive allowing the carbon backing to be washed off the film in the rinse steps before the development step. This is why most labs cannot accept this type of film.
If a motion picture film enters a C-41 machine, the rem-jet will result in contaminating the chemistry and costing the lab a significant loss in money and resources to dump the chemistry and clean out the machinery.
We purchase our fresh Kodak Vision3 film directly from Kodak. Atlanta Film Co. currently offers three color negative films in 35mm:
Most electronic film SLR cameras have a 250 or 500 ISO setting. Setting it to those ISO ratings is recommended. However, if your camera does not have a 250 or 500 ISO setting, you may set it to 200 (for 250D) or 400 (for 500T). These will slightly overexpose your image by 1/5 of a stop. This setting is entirely acceptable within the image latitude this film supports.
The "D" stands for daylight balanced. The film is balanced to capture images outside during the day. This comes out to 5500K lighting.
The "T" stands for tungsten balance. Images captured in soft yellow light (3200K lighting) will appear as white light. Images captured in daylight with a tungsten film will look "cooler" or with a blue hue. To correct this, you may use a warming filter like an 85B or W12 filter. Adding filters will decrease the amount of light passing through the lens and may require increasing your exposure by .5-1 stop.
You don't "need" a tungsten filter for daylight. If you use our commercial scanners, we will white balance the scan to daylight for you.
Similar. We do not modify the Atlanta Film Co films. CineStill Film modifies its color-negative films by removing the rem-jet in their manufacturing phase. This allows their films to go to your traditional film labs safely. However, removing the rem-jet leads to a red halation (red glow in areas of intense light) and an increased risk of static discharge on the film if advanced/rewound too quickly in dry environments.
This does not mean Atlanta Film Co films are "better" than CineStill Film, it is a film that creates an aesthetic that has grown popular in the stills community!