Cine film
Cine film is motion picture stock made for genuine movie cameras, Super 8, Standard 8 and 16mm, rather than for still photography. Shooting cine film means capturing moving images the same way film-makers did for most of the twentieth century, on physical strips of film that run through a projector once developed. Compare cine film prices from UK retailers on Filmproof.
About Cine film
What is cine film?
Cine film comes in small cartridges or spools designed for movie cameras rather than the 35mm cassettes and 120 rolls used for stills. Super 8, introduced by Kodak in 1965, is the most widely used amateur format today, loaded in an easy-to-use cartridge, while 16mm and the older Standard 8 formats use open spools and are aimed at more experienced or professional users.
Unlike still film, cine film is exposed as a continuous sequence of tiny frames, then developed and, in most cases, projected or digitised to view the finished footage rather than printed as individual photographs.
Popular cine film stocks
Kodak is the dominant manufacturer of genuine cine film, producing Super 8 and 16mm stock built on its professional Vision3 colour negative line, alongside black and white options such as Tri-X. These are the same underlying emulsions used in professional motion picture production, scaled down for amateur cameras.
Because cine film is a specialist, lower-volume product, choice is narrower than still photography formats, and most of what's available comes from Kodak, distributed and cut to size by a small number of specialist film suppliers.
Buying and shooting cine film
Cine film is priced and sold differently to still photography film, cartridges are rated in feet of footage rather than exposure count, and processing needs a lab that specifically handles motion picture film, which is less widely available than standard photo processing. It's worth confirming a lab can handle Super 8 or 16mm before buying stock.
Filmproof tracks cine film prices and stock across UK retailers, making it easier to find Super 8 and 16mm stock in one place rather than searching specialist suppliers individually.