Film Developing in the UK

Thanks Chris. (y) As for TIFF files, I agree with you and I don't bother with them; I've never noticed any obviously significant loss of image quality with JPEGs so I'll stick with those until something significantly better turns up. :)
 
Mr Badger said:
Looking at Flimdev's order form it doesn't give an indicative file size for their 35mm scans, just 'small', 'medium' and 'large'. Does anyone know what the typical file sizes are for their medium and large Noritsu scans?
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The size of the large scan was mentioned upthread by Ste_S, in the discussion after ChrisR's earlier post:

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/film-developing-in-the-uk.341566/page-33#post-7966495

A 16 bit tiff of a large 30.4MP scan would be 174MB uncompressed, which is probably why FilmDev doesn't do it even if the Noritsu allows 16 bit scanning.
 
Thank you for your advice

I've just been looking at the films I have to send off one of them is slide film is there anywhere I can send that to? I'm on my phone at them moment otherwise I'd try the links in the first post
 
AG Photolab develop E6 slide film, but I've not tried this service from them yet, however, I've been happy enough with what they have developed and scanned for me so far with print film (both colour and B&W) so I'll most likely give them a try when I finally get round to shooting some E6 slide film.
 
AG and Peak both look good, I think Peak's cheaper for dev only, AG cheaper for dev plus medium scan. Peak is very quick; AG used to have some turnaround problems but I believe has sorted its act out these days. Quality from both is good. Look on the first post for the nifty price comparator (though it's a little out of date with some prices and I must upload a correction).
 
I've not had an appreciable turnaround delay from AG in the last couple of years of using them (touch wood!). Last week I posted a C41 film for develop and medium scan to them on Tuesday and got the negs and CD back on Friday and this has been pretty typical of my experience with them, with the results mailed back to me within two to three days of posting.

I think the times for E6 might be a bit longer though if they need to wait for a batch to process to make it financially (and environmentally) worthwhile, but I'm sure they'd confirm the usual turn-around time for E6 if asked for this via email (if it's not stated on their website)?
 
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Cheers Guys I did look at AG's website on my phone but found it difficult to navigate I'll have a look need to finsih the fil in my Trip 35 and will need the 4 film I have to AG save sending 1 film off to one place and then 3 to another!
 
You could always try The Darkroom I used to use them a lot and was always happy with their service and prices. Although they did increase their prices a little while ago so I haven’t used them for a about 18 months as I’ve been trying other places.

http://www.the-darkroom.co.uk/
 
I've used The Darkroom quite a few times, and was always more than happy with their service. I remember the turnaround time from post box back to my letterbox being really fast. I never got scans from them though (just dev) and I haven't used them for a couple of years now.

edit- wow ok, my last order with them was three years ago yesterday! :eek:
 
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Thanks guys now ready to send them off having finished the roll of XP2 I had in the Trip 35 the slide film is Kodachrome 64!

I also have a unexposed roll at home too!
 
Retune said:
The size of the large scan was mentioned upthread by Ste_S, in the discussion after ChrisR's earlier post:


A 16 bit tiff of a large 30.4MP scan would be 174MB uncompressed, which is probably why FilmDev doesn't do it even if the Noritsu allows 16 bit scanning.
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Thanks for your info
 
Downton Mini said:
Thanks guys now ready to send them off having finished the roll of XP2 I had in the Trip 35 the slide film is Kodachrome 64!

I also have a unexposed roll at home too!
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You won't be able to get the Kodachrome developed as colour film now, as the K14 process died off a few years ago. You can get it developed as black and white though.
 
Carl Hall said:
You won't be able to get the Kodachrome developed as colour film now, as the K14 process died off a few years ago. You can get it developed as black and white though.
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I've just been reading that on AG Website can Peak or The Darkroom process this or is it just AG? I only ask As AG's website specifically mentions it but the other just mention E6 slides
 
Westend Cameras has ceased trading as of the last few months; which is a massive shame as it was a good local to any in Central London. They still have a website, but I don't know if this is live or not.

Going to give Rapideye in Shoreditch a try next time I have some MF to develop.
 
Downton Mini said:
I've just been reading that on AG Website can Peak or The Darkroom process this or is it just AG? I only ask As AG's website specifically mentions it but the other just mention E6 slides
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No one in the world can process Kodachrome for colour slides.

You should be able to find someone willing to crossprocess as black and white, although you may need to email/phone.
 
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skysh4rk said:
No one in the world can process Kodachrome for colour slides.

You should be able to find someone willing to crossprocess as black and white, although you may need to email/phone.
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Thank you I will speak to a few people although AG look the best on price.
 
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I've spoken to Film Dev and they've said they should be able to do it in B&W so I'll send them to them.

ETA: I very nearly slipped up by sending the form off with out telling them what I size scans I wanted!:rolleyes:
 
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Mr Badger said:
Snip:

I remember seeing this last year but I don't know if they got any further with it: https://www.popphoto.com/someone-figured-out-process-for-developing-kodachrome-film-in-color

At the moment it looks like you've only got the B&W option, unless you give it another year and see if there are any further, erm... for want of a better word... developments!
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I should have specified that there is currently no one offering a K14 development service commercially.

In addition to the one you've linked to, there has been at least one other person that has managed to colour develop Kodachrome. That said, I can't really see Kodachrome coming back in any meaningful way unless reimagined as an E6 or C41 film.
 
skysh4rk said:
I should have specified that there is currently no one offering a K14 development service commercially.

In addition to the one you've linked to, there has been at least one other person that has managed to colour develop Kodachrome. That said, I can't really see Kodachrome coming back in any meaningful way unless reimagined as an E6 or C41 film.
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Sadly, I think you're probably right, I think cost would be the main factor. With inflation I bet what we used to pay for it in the 80s and 90s would currently be the equivalent of around £30 per roll plus postage. These days, production and processing volumes would be much less than in they were in the 1970s or 80s, so I'd imagine it would be nearer £40 a roll process paid if they brought it back, plus postage cost to perhaps one central lab outside the UK (if they retained the K14 or other such Kodak only development process). At that sort of price I think take-up might be somewhat limited after the initial novelty wore off. It'll be interesting to see how much they charge per roll for Ektachrome when it's re-released.

Talking of slide film, I do like the results you've had from that Cinestill film you've been using. (y)
 
Mr Badger said:
Sadly, I think you're probably right, I think cost would be the main factor.
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I think that the industry needs to be careful not to stretch itself too thin and to maintain critical mass. The user base is smaller than in the past, so to bring in another film processing method in addition to the black and white, C41, and E6 processes already in place could be problematic.

Mr Badger said:
Talking of slide film, I do like the results you've had from that Cinestill film you've been using. (y)
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Thanks. The Cinestill 800T is a negative film, although I guess it's going through a small cross processing of sorts (i.e., from ECN-2 to C-41). The reds from it tend to render in a pretty funky fashion due to the lack of rem jet, but I do like using it in nighttime city situations. I have made my share of mistakes with it though (mostly overexposure, as it is much faster than my normal nighttime film Fuji 160NS).

I still have three rolls in the fridge so I'll experiment with it more of the coming months.
 
I'd always envisaged Cinestill as being a slide film, probably owing to its name. :facepalm: I'll have to read up about it. I usually use Portra 800 if I'm wanting a fast negative film these days, in the old days it was Ektar 1000 or Fuji 1600, which were both reasonably fine grained for their speed as long as they weren't underexposed. Mind you, if I wanted anything faster than 800 these days I'd probably just use my Canon 6D instead, sorry to use the 'D word' in the F&C section! :whistle:
 
Mr Badger said:
I'd always envisaged Cinestill as being a slide film, probably owing to its name. :facepalm: I'll have to read up about it. I usually use Portra 800 if I'm wanting a fast negative film these days, in the old days it was Ektar 1000 or Fuji 1600, which were both reasonably fine grained for their speed as long as they weren't underexposed. Mind you, if I wanted anything faster than 800 these days I'd probably just use my Canon 6D instead, sorry to use the 'D word' in the F&C section! :whistle:
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I like Portra 800 too, but it's only about a 100 ISO film under artificial lighting in my experience (and really requires a blue filter too), whereas I can shoot Cinestill 800T at 400 to 800 with no filter because it is tungsten balanced. The Cinestill also has much better reciprocity characteristics.

I don't own a digital cameras besides my iPhone, so I need different films to account for changing lighting situations.
 
£30 a roll process paid compares favourably with the cost per shot of the reimagined Polaroid film from Impossible Project which works out £2.30 a pop.

Kodachrome was never cheap and would be pricey now with inflation so I’d happily pay £2 a shot process paid to have genuine Kodachrome back again. I wouldn’t be using it every day but for special shoots I’d invest. 4x5 colour is significantly more expensive and I wasted a lot of 4x5 film :lol:
 
RaglanSurf said:
£30 a roll process paid compares favourably with the cost per shot of the reimagined Polaroid film from Impossible Project which works out £2.30 a pop.

Kodachrome was never cheap and would be pricey now with inflation so I’d happily pay £2 a shot process paid to have genuine Kodachrome back again. I wouldn’t be using it every day but for special shoots I’d invest. 4x5 colour is significantly more expensive and I wasted a lot of 4x5 film :LOL:
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Well Nick there is more choice now i.e. digi so IMO there wouldn't be many people willing to pay £30-£40 for Kodachrome. When I was using it in the old days there was less choice and for colour was either acceptable colour prints (compared to today) or Kodachrome (and others)...without looking up colour film and the price of prints, it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't far off a roll of Kodachrome and buying a projector and screen was acceptable as it was fun seeing your shots about 5ft wide.
 
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skysh4rk said:
I think that the industry needs to be careful not to stretch itself too thin and to maintain critical mass. The user base is smaller than in the past, so to bring in another film processing method in addition to the black and white, C41, and E6 processes already in place could be problematic.
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I can see E6 going in the next few years to be honest. Fuji are killing off their stocks and I can't see Ektachrome (if it does ever get released) keeping the whole E6 business going by itself.
 
Well there is one thing digi can't compete and that is:- taking B\W shots and the fun of doing your own film developing.
 
I think the price issue Kodachrome faced was that you had to pay up front for both film and processing, but with print film you bought the film then paid for developing and printing some weeks (or several months, for the casual family snapshot taker) later, when you could afford it. This made photography more affordable to the average person, whereas the more dedicated hobby photographer usually had a budget to enjoy their main hobby so would gladly stump up the money for Kodachrome (if only just some of the time) for the image quality and colour saturation it gave over the colour negative film available at the time, bearing in mind that enthusiasts who developed and printed their own black and white film probably outnumbered those that did their own colour D&P by about 20 or 30 to 1 in the 1970s and 80s.

As Brian says, it was fun for people in those days to see their photos 5 feet wide; today that's not really a novelty as people can see their digital shots on their TV screen, which these days is probably about 5 feet wide! I know film photography is probably on the increase after hitting rock bottom, but it's still very much a niche market. In fact I'm amazed by the number of people who, when they realise I'm using a film camera, ask me with genuine surprise "Oh, can you still get film, where do you get it from?".

I really hope the popularity of film photography grows and the mainstream film industry can sustain a couple of new or re-released films (such as Ektachrome) as well as keeping existing E6 films in production, but I think there would have to be a significant increase in film use to sustain even modest production runs of a remanufactured Kodachrome, certainly in its traditional process paid form.
 
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Kodachrome was sold without processing in the US, though, which must have been its biggest market. An antitrust rulling had for several decades (up until the 90s?) prevented Kodak bundling film sales and developing services. Kodak still sold the chemicals to third party labs, though, and even developed a Kodachrome minilab. In the last days of Kodachrome, after Kodak's own European labs had closed, process-paid films were shipped out to the US at Kodak's expense for processing at Dwayne's, an independent lab that was the only remaining place certified to use Kodak's chemistry.
 
...and the only reason I stopped using Kodachrome in the late 70s was moving to medium format...I've always been a bright or sunny weather shooter and so using the original Kodachrome at 25 asa\iso wasn't too annoying. With everyone now owning teles and zooms up to 300mm many lenses down to f3.5 to f5.6, with Kodachrome @ 64asa\iso would be still annoying with camera shake problems on less than a bright day.
 
excalibur2 said:
...and the only reason I stopped using Kodachrome in the late 70s was moving to medium format...I've always been a bright or sunny weather shooter and so using the original Kodachrome at 25 asa\iso wasn't too annoying. With everyone now owning teles and zooms up to 300mm many lenses down to f3.5 to f5.6, with Kodachrome @ 64asa\iso would be still annoying with camera shake problems on less than a bright day.
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So nothing to do with price.:D
 
My Dad always bought a couple of rolls of Kodachrome to use when we went on holiday, so we've got a shoe-box full of memories in glorious 'technicolour'. :)
 
Mr Badger said:
My Dad always bought a couple of rolls of Kodachrome to use when we went on holiday, so we've got a shoe-box full of memories in glorious 'technicolour'. :)
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Well I think many people used to do this as it would be daft to use if for "everyday" film when B\W was so cheap in comparison (esp DIY).
 
excalibur2 said:
Well I think many people used to do this as it would be daft to use if for "everyday" film when B\W was so cheap in comparison (esp DIY).
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To be honest, Dad only really used his camera on high days and holidays and never to my knowledge shot B&W during my lifetime. He switched to print film from the late 70s onwards due to convenience of viewing as I don't think he could be bothered getting the projector and screen out anymore, which was probably only a once or twice a year thing anyway (if there was nothing on the 3 TV channels we had in those days!) Besides, I think print films had improved by that time, plus it had become faster than the 64 Kchrome. Usually Kodacolor II 100 ASA.
 
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