Another one bites the dust ....

[ASA 32]

Many years ago, my local community college offered me their DEC PDP-11 minicomputer (size of a refrigerator). I declined and glad I am that I did so, although at the time I was unsure.

I haven't thought about DEC PDP's for years. We had a PDP-8 in our lab once upon a time, and we thought the future was now.

 

[Darthfeeble]

Doesn't one of our sponsors develop film??? Precision Camera. As long as you have to send out film why not support one of the folks who support this site/

 

[bobby_novatron]

If you can home develop B&W film then doing C-41 at home is quite straightforward. I was surprised how easy it is to do in practice, in many ways there are fewer variables than with B&W and therefore arguably simpler. It's cheap too.

I regularly do my own C-41 at home, I agree with you 100%. It's faster and easier than doing B+W. I bought some NOS minilab chemicals off eBay (of course) and now I have enough C-41 supplies to last me for a long time.

Of course, I'd like to support the two still-operating C-41 minilabs in my city, but they charge about $8.00 for one roll of developing, negatives only -- no prints or CD ROM. My cost for C-41 at home is about $0.30, so I couldn't justify the time / driving / expense of taking my film to the lab.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

Doesn't one of our sponsors develop film??? Precision Camera. As long as you have to send out film why not support one of the folks who support this site/

And, they'll develop your C-41 for free. Their scans are very good. I can do a little better with my Coolscan V, but only with quite a bit of work. Give 'em a try.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

We had a stable market for photo shops dev+print film for regular citizens. That's gone now.

There might be a stable market for specialty photo shops developing film for photo aficionados like us, but we haven't yet seen where that settles out.

I always thought that photographers would get together in collaboratives, buy the unwanted Fuji Frontier, and share the cost of running it. The kind of thing FrankS talked about in #2 above. Who wants to do this with me in Hanover/Lebanon NH? Or Concord? #worthADrive

 

[John Bragg]

I have been developing my own Black and White for close on 30 years so its just business as usual for me. Not relied on anyone else to dev my film in forever. It is however a great shame to see these firms close up for good. The future it seems is in mail order or DIY.

 

[Kenzie]

I get my C-41 35mm/110 processed by my local Asda (US I guess would be Walmart) for £2.50 a roll. I do my own scanning. I process my own B&W 35/120. They have said that they have noticed a huge increase in the amount of film they are processing.

 

[pvdhaar]

I was shocked to walk into the local shopping centre and discover that the smallish photography outlet that has been there for as long as I can remember has closed it's doors. They used to do one hour processing until about three years ago when the owner got rid of his C41 machine due to maintenance costs and lack of turnover but you were still able to drop film off and it would be sent out for lab processing with about a three day turn around.

Happens here too.. small outlets and 1hr labs are disappearing fast. There's only one 1hr lab remaining in a nearby city of ca 250,000. They seem to be doing fine, but that impression can be deceptive, as it may be that they draw the left over customers from all outlets that closed down over the years.

Even a reasonably sized outlet locally (city of 40,000) has now gone virtually completely digital and removed all the films from the displays and hid them under the counter. You've got to know they still have film and explicitly ask; and yes, I know, that smells like something illegitimate is going on..