Red Onion Lover

Did you know there are other groups de-remjetting and re-spooling Kodak Vision3 250D besides CineStill? Well you might have known that, but if you didn't: it's true! And one of them is Reflx Lab.

Based out of Shenzen, Reflx has a bunch of re-spooled stocks (250D with and without remjet, 500T, Ektachrome, Aerocolor, Fomapan 400...) as well as some accessories that might be useful and some that are kind of confusing.

My primary reason for getting an order was that they sell Aerocolor in 120 (and 220!?) and my secondary reason was because they re-branded to "Reflx Lab 800 Tungsten" and "Reflx Lab 400 Daylight" after CineStill big-dicked them out of using 800T last year.

It's kind of insane to me the USPTO granted the 800T trademark, considering the examiner's original (and correct, imo) response to the filing was essentially This is an 800 ISO speed film that is Tungsten balanced. The mark 800T therefore is merely descriptive. We will not grant it trademark protection. and then for some reason reversed that decision when CineStill's outside counsel just sent a response saying "nuh uh."

There's a lot of talk about how CineStill has "reached out" to other vendors directly rather than send C&Ds or initiate litigation—and as far as I can tell from the public records that's true—but I think a big reason is they know their trademark standing is really soft. The fact that no 3rd party filed an opposition back in 2022 when 800T was published in the gazette means it would be more of a pain in the ass to object to it now that it has been registered, but it's certainly wouldn't be impossible.

They got lucky with 800T, so what about 400D? Haven't even submitted that one to the USPTO for consideration. They display that name on packaging but they actually refer to the stock as 400Dynamic whenever it's written out. The 400D claim would be even harder to make in light of Kodak's existing use of 100D, 250D, etc. as elements not just in their Vision3 film family, but also other lines like Ektachrome. Or, though retired now, Fuji's Reala 500D and so on. It's literally a descriptive element in cinefilm. Demonstrably. And they couldn't make the "ohhh we've got years of reputation built on it!" argument because...they just started selling it last year.

Where were we? Uhhhhh, film. Right.

Definitely more than 36 shots in the metal cassette these get spooled into, though I stopped at 35. The light-block seal on the can is generously thick but feels a bit goopy to the touch, no impact on results as far as I can tell. Initial leader wasn't as dark after development as I'm used to seeing on CineStil, but I didn't see any signs of sensitivity loss in the actual shots. Rebate strips only have small print on one side which makes orienting negatives a bit harder at a glance.

I've never seen any missing specks of emulsion in a CineStill roll, and there were about three total here (some in the rebate area) but I'm not sure that's in Reflx's process—more likely a result of how aggressively I was drying this roll (like, imagine hanging your film out the car window while you're driving.)

All said for the price difference of US$13/roll to US$16/roll it's not that big of a deal to stick with CineStill for low to moderate volumes. In other markets though, my understanding is the price gap is much wider, and I plan to be very careful in handling my next roll to see if the only real downside (the emulsion chipping) was my fault like I suspect it was.