BW prints in 1 hour labs?

[M like Leica M6]

Folks, I have a problem... I don't have enough time to work in the darkroom or with my scanner.

I have some 1,000 BW negs developed waiting to be printed, not my usual kind of photos worth an exhibition at MOMA but just so many images that I took when I traveled, photos of my family, colleagues etc.

What could be a good option to have so many images well printed at reasonable costs in reasonable time in small formats between 4x5" and 8x10"?

What about 1 hour labs? I am afraid they are specialized on C41 films and can not create good results from unmasked traditional BW films.

What about Fuji Frontier labs?

Other options?

 

[erikhaugsby]

There is a reason I only used a 1-hour lab to make prints in the time before I had a film scanner. The lab I used took B&W negs all right, but churned out prints with hues varying from off green to purple to muddy brown, with extremely low contrast. They were dirty as well, though this is much my fault for not cleaning the negatives properly.

Bottom line is: they'll make you prints on the quick and cheap, but don't expect to turn heads with them.

 

[ibcrewin]

why don't you get index prints first.. they are about $1 or so..Then pick the ones you want to make 4x6 and 8x10's.. Otherwise, you get get them all printed for .14 a print for a 4x6. The ones you think really have potential can be sent to a prolab...

The only problem with this method is that you might get back scratched negs.. 🙁

 

[shadowfox]

Definitely do contact-sheets (same as index print said above) first.

Either send it to pro labs (I wouldn't trust 1-hour labs) or do it yourself. I don't know what your time constraints, though, so I'm speaking from my perspective, just to give you some food for thought.

I am currently learning how to make contact sheets. While I am planning to do 4x5 films, the same procedure, chemical, and amount of time applies to 35mm strips on a single 8x10 (for example) paper.

If I did my research correctly, doing wet contact sheet is fun and actually faster than scanning and you can do batches easily.

Let's say you can line up 25 frames of negs on a sheet of paper, so for 1000 frames, you're looking at 40 pages of contact print.

 

[skibeerr]

Over my head

Over my head

Contacts is the word.

I am right now making the contact prints of the walk i did in januari. I started to scan the lot but this was so time consuming I decided to make contacts first and then select the ones for scanning/enlarging. If this system works ok I will start on the rols from the februari march trip.
I also am in need of a good filing system.:bang:

If only I did not check RFF every Half hour I would have finished by now. 😉

Cheers,
Wim