Capturing the Washington State Fair on CineStill 800T

A few weeks ago I made plans with friends to head down to Puyallup, Washington (Pew-Al-Up) to head to the Washington State Fair (formerly known as the Puyallup Fair). I ended up going twice this year once with my friends and another time with my photo club friends.

I took my Nikon F3 film camera with me with a few rolls of CineStill 800T. Previously, I wrote about taking a roll of CineStill 400D to Chinatown with me and shared those results. Ultimately, it was the wrong film stock for such a bright and sunny day.

This time, I took the 800 ISO film to a place where it could really shine. The more sensitive stock means that I could take better photos with lower light, and the halation around the highlights lent itself to all of the artificial light from the fair.

We got to the fair around 6:00 PM and left around 10:30 PM which mean that we had gotten there with just a little bit of daylight left (above) but the sun set shortly after we arrived.

In both of the photos above, you can still see the red glow around the lights but it feels more natural in this setting than it does during the harsh light of day. This film is supposed to have more of that cinematic look, and that's what I wanted to capture with my photos.

Even when the sun was completely gone, I was still able to get some amazing shots of the crowds using a mix of my 85mm and 28mm lenses. I did edit these photos slightly to exaggerate the colors, but I really didn't have to do too much to achieve this look.

I'll be honest, I was super nervous getting out and shooting in such lowlight for the first time. I am not comfortable enough shooting with my aperture wide open because I've gotten mixed results if I'm not focusing super carefully.

Also, when the scenes are this dark it's super hard to look through the lens and see the focus indicators that I'm looking for.

I was a little overwhelmed getting to the fair through the second time (going through security and just getting my things in order) and completely spaced when I went to swap rolls of film.

My heart sunk when I opened the back of the camera and saw film exposed. Thankfully, I didn't lose too much and the photos that I did get still came out kinda vibey.

This shot on the left would've been an excellent shot of two of my friends, but now it's just kind of a cool shot of one of them. The shot on the right clearly wasn't impacted nearly as much, but I think the light leak makes the film.

My whole goal for this roll of film was to walk away with a few shots that looked like they were taken from a movie and this shot below is exactly what I was looking for. In the foreground you've got 3 of my friends all looking in different directions and in the background you've got the perfect mix of fair rides, food, and merchandise. I could not have designed a better sunset with pink skies in the background with clouds overhead.