Negative scanning

Eugene T

Suspended / Banned
Messages
104
Name
eugene
Edit My Images
No
I am looking for some help on having 35mm Negatives scanned for placement onto USB or Disc , i am film only not digital .
Can people offer up some names of some good reputable film scanning services in London that i can look at.

Many thanks
 
Hoping this will get transferred to the Film & Conventional sub-forum, where you'll get some input, I'm sure. Look at the stickies in that sub-forum for some starters...
 
Hi Eugene,

How much film do you shoot?
Do you develop yourself?
Do you need the scans on USB/Disc or would you be ok with file transfer?
What formats do you shoot? (some labs give you the same size scan, so a 35mm scanned neg would be (for example) 3000x2000 pixels, and a 6x9 120 scanned neg would be... 3000x2000 pixels)
What ratio of B&W to Colour do you generally use?
What are you intending to do with the scans? (social media/online, and/or prints - if so, what sizes?)
Do you have a large back catalogue of negs you need doing?
Is London a dealbreaker?
Do you have a budget?

I think folks will be able to help you better if you can answer these questions.
 
Last edited:
I am looking for some help on having 35mm Negatives scanned for placement onto USB or Disc , i am film only not digital .
Can people offer up some names of some good reputable film scanning services in London that i can look at.

Many thanks
Most of us now send our film away to be developed, sometimes scanned as well. I send all my colour film to Filmdev, and get scans from them, as neither developing nor scanning colour films are within my competence! I do mostly dev and scan my own black and white, unless there's a big backlog, in which case it goes to one of the labs, maybe AG Photolab, or The Darkroom in Cheltenham.

I'm wondering if you mean a retro-scanning operation, which could have different answers.
 
Most of us now send our film away to be developed, sometimes scanned as well. I send all my colour film to Filmdev, and get scans from them, as neither developing nor scanning colour films are within my competence! I do mostly dev and scan my own black and white, unless there's a big backlog, in which case it goes to one of the labs, maybe AG Photolab, or The Darkroom in Cheltenham.

I'm wondering if you mean a retro-scanning operation, which could have different answers.
Chris, I’m interested to see that you don’t appear to use FilmDev for black and white. I have only recently returned to film and have been quite impressed with Filmdev’s efficiency and pricing, but since I only shoot black and white I’m wondering if you get better scans from AG Photolab and The Darkroom. My ambition is to do my own developing (again) and to invest in a scanner, but for now I’m content with using labs.
 
Chris, I’m interested to see that you don’t appear to use FilmDev for black and white. I have only recently returned to film and have been quite impressed with Filmdev’s efficiency and pricing, but since I only shoot black and white I’m wondering if you get better scans from AG Photolab and The Darkroom. My ambition is to do my own developing (again) and to invest in a scanner, but for now I’m content with using labs.
If I've several colour and maybe one or two black and white, I'd send them to Filmdev. However, if you can scan your own, dev-only is a lot cheaper at some of the other labs, some of which also have pre-paid postage to the lab. Scans from AG are quite expensive, so if you want scans as well, Filmdev is probably the best bet. Look at the nifty dev/scan price estimator mentioned in post 5 for an idea of costs.

If you care about the chemicals used, AG, Filmdev and Harman labs all used Ilfotec DD last time I tried them (last year), while The Darkroom used XTOL (which I do like a bit more). Filmdev is really good at getting your scans back quickly via WeTransfer, while AG was about the best for turnaround of negatives dev/only, IIRC.
 
If I've several colour and maybe one or two black and white, I'd send them to Filmdev. However, if you can scan your own, dev-only is a lot cheaper at some of the other labs, some of which also have pre-paid postage to the lab. Scans from AG are quite expensive, so if you want scans as well, Filmdev is probably the best bet. Look at the nifty dev/scan price estimator mentioned in post 5 for an idea of costs.

If you care about the chemicals used, AG, Filmdev and Harman labs all used Ilfotec DD last time I tried them (last year), while The Darkroom used XTOL (which I do like a bit more). Filmdev is really good at getting your scans back quickly via WeTransfer, while AG was about the best for turnaround of negatives dev/only, IIRC.
Very helpful, thank you.
 
Back
Top