Silbersalz35 full review & examples - the best film for photography?

[@triplex8338]

Silbersalz is a GameChanger!

[@ReneSebastian]

Sure is! Made cinefilm accessible for me without the quality loss of Cinestill.

[@nicksucio]

I love the comparison of 4 rolls of portra cinestill & silbersalz35 cost at the end that was great!

[@ReneSebastian]

Nick Pirro thanks, hope it helps 😎

[@sonkenqin]

you can always buy the kodak 5203/07/13/19/22 bulk and split yourself, self-processing is also possible with ecn2, which is much more cheaper.

[@erichstocker8358]

Nicely done and I appreciated the organization of the presentation. You covered all the areas both logistical and using that are important to know before purchasing the film

[@ReneSebastian]

Happy to provide the info! ☺️

[@84nomas]

Great review man. Vid request: Pushing this film stock.

[@suivezlemir]

cool review :) thanks mate

[@sebastiantitze3017]

Nice trick to load the film!

[@sednasix6608]

Thank you for making this video! Just found out about this company and the excitement is through the roof to experiment with true cinefilm.

[@sednasix6608]

Shot my first Vision3 500T roll that I got off eBay and got it developed with ECN2 at ColorLab in Rockville, MD earlier this week. Scanned at home using my DSLR setup and Kaiser Litepanel... honestly a much more viable option for those living in the US than Silbersalz. I'd love to try their service one day when I can justify all the cost added up with shipping. It is definitely something you invest in when you're about to work on a true project rather than "testing" a few stocks. The images I shot, got developed, and scanned myself blew me away. I used NegativeLabPro to convert them and I was an instant fan. There wasn't even that much tweaking I had to do with my shots as this video suggested. Shooting this stock however gave me a good understanding of why they shoot on film and how filmmakers essentially use it as a RAW/LOG image. There definitely is some processing going on. For instance, Dunkirk was shot with Vision3 yet the entire film has a certain look that Vision3 won't give you when you shoot in overcast weather - like the film was - I tried a few shots and there was no greenish/yellowish tint like in the film. It came out more even and beautiful across the board. So there's definite editing involved in post when film is shot. These are just some observations of mine. However the film stock is beautiful in rendering true colors. It really renders the color RED in a very powerful way.

[@ReneSebastian]

Thanks for the indept comment @iggy! I totally get that for some countries it's just doesn't make any sense to order Silbersalz. But looking at your comment you found a perfect solution!

[@alberte58]

Prima introductie in Silbersalz35. Had al iets gezien via Analog Insights en de RealSirRobin KZbin kanalen. Heb intussen de vier verschillende film set gekocht en aan het uit proberen.

[@ReneSebastian]

Veel plezier ermee!

[@zborowskileon]

great video, it was really nice to watch it and the shots are really pleasing too

[@Maxfahrer]

Definetly want to try this film. It is also one of if not the cheapest possibility to get the film, developing and quality scan if you buy it in a batch of 4 rolls. For comparison, take a Kodak Gold, which comes at 2 € per roll (DM pack of 3 films), you have to send it to a lab, which offers you a similar quality to silbersalz35's processes. So you pay the shipping (~ 2,60 €) and the processing with scanning in tif and then you are quickly in the range of 30 € per roll. Ok, if you are willing to compromise, the you can get your photos on CD (jpg res. 1.538 x 1.024 px) and the film developed for ~ 10 € in total (incl. Gold 200) but don't expect any possibility to edit your photo in lightroom or camera raw.

[@ReneSebastian]

Yes it is a relatively cheap solution. Check out my price comparison at 12:10 . And thats with Cinestill and Portra. Kodak Gold is almost the cheapest you can get. Keep in mind that you need to ship your rolls of film to Silbersalz too though. For me it's inexpensive because it's a neighbouring country, but I can imagine it could get pricy.

[@twuuwttwu]

Great video with lots of infos! But, where do you get these prices? 9€ for portra 400 !? I can get it for about 12 online and almost 15 in my local shop. Same with cinestill 800, its around 18€ in shops here in paris 😅

[@walterkort]

whaah, wonderfull video René, really like this! Although I'm not ready for shooting this kind of film, I'm definitely inspired to get some fresh batteries and film for my analog camera's!

[@ReneSebastian]

Yesssss, go shoot! 😎

[@ai-man212]

I appreciate your zeal. Even though we both know it's just a matter of time...mathematical scale and artistry...before digital does everything film does and far far beyond. If you know the mathematics of any analog film, it's toast. On the other hand, film is fun and I know because I'm old. I remember when film made me brave. Digital can make you hesitant. I've switched my artistry into printing my photos huge myself.

[@TheMadLinguist]

Hi Rene, Silbersalz recommends to overexpose their film by one stop. Do you know if they expect you to write „-1“ when sending the exposed film back?

[@ReneSebastian]

I personally would over exposes by one stop and just send them in without any notice. But of you want to make sure, just send them a message :)

[@nicksucio]

I just got mine back from USA. Did you say it didn't have a dx code? I shot some through a Olympus stylus and some came back under exposed, well all 4 rolls did. Not sure if its due to heat, x rays at customs, or dx code reading.

[@ReneSebastian]

The older rolls didn't have DX coding, the new ones do! But strange though, which film did you shoot? The Mju II has a default ISO setting of 100, so maybe you could tape of the DX coding next time so you get over exposed photos? Like I mention in the videos, some photos came back underexposed but I could work with those while editing. I think the main lesson for Silbersalz is overexposing...

[@michelesolmi244]

Thank you, super informative!

[@Honkonlong]

Thank you so much for making this and I love all your images!!

[@erichstocker8358]

Shipment to the USA better be pretty fast. The cost of shipping is 33 euro. So, more than half the price of multiple rolls of film. I'm assuming that they must be using DHL for delivery rather than the postal service. So, there ought to be 3 day service to the USA for that price. I'd be intrigued to try but I don't think the shipping costs warrant a try at this point. The entire process of processing, scanning, etc. appears really good and really efficient. The scans I've seen look really good for further processing in Lightroom to get the individual look. Certainly for European film shooters this is something to try.

[@612morrison]

I would love to see the difference between service and the same film or fuji eterna either home spooled or bought ready spooled, devolved properly at-home or a local lab with ECN2 chemistry (and not C41 after using remjet remover) then scanned just to see how good their laser scanning is.

[@AlexSmith-ln1tv]

Excellent video thank you

[@jamesnolan3831]

This is great! Thanks for making such a comprehensive review. Do you have a lightroom preset you'd be willing to share for this film at all?

[@ReneSebastian]

Thanks for the feedback! And about the presets, not really. I mostly grade every photo in a different way, suiting the photo.

[@ai-man212]

Darkroom. ;-)

[@derfilmfuzzide]

Nice Clip! Thank you!

[@ReneSebastian]

Thanks for watching!

[@w.t.5136]

I almost always edit my photos to get the look I wanted. Any darkroom color printer knows you have tons of filterpacks and adjustments to do!

[@ReneSebastian]

I maybe spend 30 seconds on an average film scan at max. But once again, in hindsight I really like the "flatter" photos

[@Irnbruist]

how do you work with the jo2 files in LR? Do you convert them to tiff‘s first? They get crazy big in size when converted to tiffs…

[@ReneSebastian]

As far as I know you cant edit jo2 files in LR, so you must :)

[@Irnbruist]

@@ReneSebastian thanks for you‘re replay! With which program are you doing the conversion? I‘m a bit paranoid of loosing some quality in the conversion…

[@ReneSebastian]

@@Irnbruist Opened them in Photoshop, saved them as tiffs

[@nopunintended5096]

Nice overview, thanks! But where do you get Portra for 9€?

[@ReneSebastian]

At the time of recording I could buy it for around €9 in the Netherlands. Now it’s roughly €12!

[@nopunintended5096]

@@ReneSebastian Thanks! I just started getting into film photography and find the price difference between film stocks somewhat crazy. As soon as the lockdown ends, I’m going to check out the prices at our small lokal camera store.. Prices on amazon seem to be pretty steep, right?

[@stevecrawford3551]

How do you do your post processing? Lightroom or photoshop?

[@ReneSebastian]

Always lightroom

[@ManofTones]

Chille video en foto's Rene! subd!

[@ReneSebastian]

Visualluuks - thanks!

[@buchsg]

Great idea but a bit overpriced... just buy vision 3 400ft rolls and bulk load them at home, nowadays cinestill have a great ecn-2 kit as well as Bellini photo for self dev at home, cost you only 1 or 2 € per 30exp, film + dev, if you go that way... Another thing to consider, you shoot 500T in daylight with no filter, I suggest you to put a 85b filter on and shoot your roll at 250 asa, you will have natural colors and maybe less post processing that way.

[@ReneSebastian]

A couple of things: my time is worth something aswell. Bulkloading is cool and all, but takes allot of time. Same with ecn2 developing. I love shooting, but dont want the hassle of developing. If it’s your thing: go for it! All shots during this video where made with 250D / daylight film. I do use a filter for tungsten film during daytime :)

[@KateToastStar]

How long did shipping take?

[@ReneSebastian]

For me it took 2 days, but I live 'pretty close' to their office.

[@frenkvanroy271]

Vet

[@tomscameras]

Great review. Thanks for going so much into detail. Price and performance ratio seems to be good even though I'm not yet 100% convinced that Silbersalz film really gives you a very different look to other color neg films. (Apart from that 500T is corrected for Tungsten light of course)

[@ReneSebastian]

Don't agree on the "I'm not yet 100% convinced that Silbersalz film really gives you a very different look" part, but I get it :)

[@tomscameras]

@@ReneSebastian My point is: if you get the raw scans from Silbersalz, and you have to edit them heavily to get the color / contrast etc. that you want, do they THEN after all these adjustments still give you a unique "cinema film" look? But of course I don't know the answer, it's just a question based on watching reviews / sample images online ... I did not try out the film so far for myself!

[@ReneSebastian]

@@tomscameras I get it, but as a film maker (moving images) I rather prefer to have a flatter looking image than a contrasty looking image. Because you can easily turn that flat image into whatever you want, but a contrasty image is hard to adjust. The example I give in 9:53 is the best example I can give :)

[@DavidBrown-zp5br]

I can’t say I really like Silbersalz business model or how they’re deploying themselves into the market. It’s great that they’re offering a more “professional” experience and all but I fail to see any difference in just buying a bulk loaded roll of 500D and having any old lab develop it in ECN-2. It’s more expensive and makes film out to be a niche/rich mans game when it’s really for everyone.

[@DavidBrown-zp5br]

Also, CineStill stocks are all true Kodak Vision stocks with the ramjet layer removed before processing/shooting, so you can just develop them in C41. The removal of the remjet is the cause to the weird light halation, and also leads to the weird water spots on the negatives. This is due to the remjet removal process and then redrying of the film before loading it into canisters.

[@ReneSebastian]

Thanks for sharing your vision and opinion. Personally I’m do not want all the hassle with respooling and finding a lab that can develop ecn2. My time is worth something and for the price they are offering their full service, it’s really a no brainer for me. Also way cheaper then Cinestill :)

[@runinair12]

The issue is this though: While I can use any old C-41 kit and cobble together a color negative, can I do it perfectly at home? Most labs give a shit about quality control, motion picture labs don´t. Just because there are ECN-2 kits out there doesn't mean it will lead to a good process.

[@maxvanraamsdonk6543]

yo man shooting 500 t in daylight is not really the best use of the film. Tungsten based film is normally always used at night.