Cinefoil

What is Cenefoil and what is it used for? Cinefoil is known by many names.  Black wrap, Cinefoil, Black foil are some of the different names given to a product that is right up there for essentials in the photography and film industry. Yet, most photographers have never heard of this product. Although this product has many different names, I’m going to refer to it as Cinefoil but just understand that we’re talking about the same thing when we also referred to it as black wrap or black foil.

Probably the most common used for Cinefoil is the shape light. An example of this would be a snoot. If you needed to pop a little bit of light on one specific section of your scene, you could tear off a piece of Cinefoil and shape it into a tubelike shape and place it in front of your light. You could also make bundles by wrapping a piece of Cinefoil around your light, and tearing some of the sides. Because the material is not translucent, it is an excellent product for blocking light. Using Cinefoil you could make a flag to shield a section of your set from light spill. These are just two examples of what you can do with Cinefoil. You can also make things like light reflectors for your strobes as well as bounce cards that can be shaped in different ways. You can even paint it.

This product is quite cost efficient. Whilst it can seem expensive when you first buy it, the product can be reused many times. Once you finished using it, you can simply folder like a piece of paper and store it for the next time. I purchased my first roll of Cinefoil about four years ago and I’ve still not run out. It is a very niche product and there are limited alternatives to Cinefoil so you are best just picking up a roll.

If you want to know more about this product, cheque out the video I made about it a little while back that talks all about Cinefoil and Black Wrap.

If you have any questions about anything covered in this article, please let me know in the comments below.

Dan Cantero