Leica MP with CineStill 800T

I never thought that I’d become a Leica person in my life, but conspicuous consumption and idle curiosity about what could possibly demand the premium for the cameras over their equivalents led to the inevitable. That said, I’m not really sure that the equivalent of a Leica MP would be in 2024: I don’t think anyone else is making 35mm rangefinders anymore. I think the overriding feeling here is that it’s a nice camera: there’s an awful lot to recommend the MP over the Petri 7s, but how much of that is the passage of 60 years and newer optics is something I’m unsure of.

CineStill 800T has a bit of a reputation of being the fashionable film of the moment and I probably was a victim of the hype cycle for it when I picked it up. Given that it’s respooled Kodak Vision3 500T cinema film with the remjet removed so that it can be processed in C-41 chemistry rather than ECN2, it obviously has the pedigree of having the look of Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness among 373 other films: there’s going to be an appeal to a certain kind of person and I am that kind of person.

The most defining feature of CineStill 800T is its characteristic halation. It is missing an anti-halation layer that leads to this very red secondary exposure from bright lights, particularly in scenes that are otherwise dark. Neons look wonderful on this film, with the halation serving to accentuate their breadth in photos. Knowing this led me to want to use the film more in dark scenes with lots of artificial light.

The Voigtländer Ultron 28mm f/2 that I shot most of this roll on is no slouch either: as well as being sharp and relatively fast, the focus tab makes it a pleasure to use and makes sure that you don’t accidentally adjust the aperture when trying to focus as I’m prone to do with other M mount lenses I own. It’s also a fairly small lens that helps quite a bit in not attracting attention in public: the MP skips the Leica red dot, a lens that doesn’t paint a target on me is also grateful.