Eastman Tri-X Reversal 7266

Tri-X Reversal 7266 is a motion picture stock, not a stills film. Kodak sells it in 16mm and Super 8 cartridges for filmmakers who want B&W footage they can project directly off the camera reel. Same Tri-X family name as the 35mm stills emulsion, different beast: this one is panchromatic reversal with an anti-halation undercoat, rated EI 200 in daylight and EI 160 under tungsten.

The proper processing path is Kodak D-94A first developer followed by an R-10 bleach and a second developer. That kit is hard to find outside specialty labs. You can also cross-process 7266 in D-76 as a negative if you do not need the projection-ready positive, though you lose roughly half a stop and pick up grain. Most hobbyist Super 8 shooters take that route and scan the resulting negatives.

Compared with Double-X 5222, which is also a Kodak cine stock, 7266 has a tighter grain structure and a slightly compressed tonal range because reversal films have to be designed for direct viewing rather than printing. The latitude is narrower. Kodak rates it at about three stops of usable range. That tracks with how reversal stocks behaved in the Kodachrome era: meter incident, expose carefully, accept that bracketing matters.

Filmmakers chasing the home-movie or vintage documentary look load 7266 because it gives a B&W image that reads as period footage without much grading work. The reversal positive has deep blacks and clean whites that are hard to fake in post from a digital source.

Available in 16mm 100ft and 400ft spools and Super 8 50ft cartridges. CineStill carries it in their store under the Kodak label. No 35mm or sheet versions exist; this has always been a small-gauge cinema stock.

Reciprocity exponent is 1.31. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second. A metered 30-second exposure becomes about 90 seconds at the film, though for a reversal cine stock you will rarely meter past a quarter second in normal use. The correction matters most for single-frame animation and time-lapse work.