Cheap E6 processing?

[Brennotdan]

I have just shot my first couple rolls of color transparency film (35mm) and I was wondering if anyone knows a good cheap place to get it processed.

I tried a pro lab once for color print film and they botched the whole 10 rolls and then mangled the remains. 😡 I would be willing to "put all my eggs..." again but I would like a referance first.

Also, I don't intend on processing it myself.

Thanks in advance for anyone willing to point me in the right direction

 

[MartinP]

Look for a kodak Q-Lab in your area. They will possibly not be the cheapest in terms of cash, but could be cheapest in terms of value. Badly maintained E6 lines can affect the colour-balance, the density and the longevity of the results - the Q-Labs have the constant quality controls and adjustment required in order to keep the test-strips within the close limits required by Kodak. There is probably a Fuji equivalent scheme too ??

 

[kully]

7dayshop.com are consistently good and the cheapest for mail-order if you buy the processing vouchers in advance (£3/roll mounted).

Although feck knows where you are, so no applicable if you're not in the UK.

Look for a kodak Q-Lab in your area. They will possibly not be the cheapest in terms of cash, but could be cheapest in terms of value. Badly maintained E6 lines can affect the colour-balance, the density and the longevity of the results - the Q-Labs have the constant quality controls and adjustment required in order to keep the test-strips within the close limits required by Kodak. There is probably a Fuji equivalent scheme too ??

 

[Brennotdan]

I updated my profile. I am way up north east in the good ol U S of A, and the only place I know of is ritz. They are expensive and from what I hear, not very good.

 

[mackigator]

Fuji pre-paid mailers now go to Dwayne's in Parson's Kansas. This is the cheapest route I've found. Hate the rounded corners though. I think you can also send stuff directly to Dwayne's and they have a good reputation.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...arch=yes&O=productlist.jsp&A=search&Q=*&bhs=t

 

[Brennotdan]

Please excuse my ignorance on the subject, but the mailers would cover the cost of shipping and processing/mounting? That's about $5.50 a roll, which is by far the cheapest I've seen. What do you mean by rounded corners? Also, for scanning are sleeves better than mounted?

 

[mackigator]

No excusing needed. These mailers include the price of developing, mounting, and return shipping to you. You pay shipping - 3 stamps - for your exposed film en route to them.

The last of these mailers I used was in the summer of 2007 - found a local lab after that, which has been great but pricey - and the slide mounts used were cardboard with the interior rounded corners. This is bad for scanning, because in order to crop to a square you have to either include the little round corner or shrink your scan area. The next mailer I use i'm going to stick a little note inside asking nicely for a real square mount and see what that gets me.

Sleeves (or uncut) vs mounts? I prefer mounts - room for notes on the mount, ease of handling, they'll work in a projector, and I end up tweaking images one at a time anyway.

Two other companies, Kodak and A&I, also sell pre-paid mailers. I have used the A&I as well and saw no advantage (well, they did use square cornered mounts) over Fuji, who are the cheapest.

Here's some Kodak and A&I mailers:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?shs=prepaid+mailer&ci=0&sb=ps&pn=1&sq=desc&InitialSearch=yes&O=productlist.jsp&A=search&Q=*&bhs=t

Here's Dwayne's web site and pricing. You pay less if you buy the Fuji mailer, which goes to Dwayne's, than if you send it there yourself.

http://dwaynesphoto.com/newsite2006/slide-film.html

 

[Brennotdan]

3 stamps good gosh!😱 thats another 1.23 per roll!!!! Still the cheapest I've heard, and I'm not about to look through every lab on the photo.net list. (although I did start, I'm just that cheap)

Thanks for all the info. The rounded corners sound terrible. I'm going to ask for sleeves if they can't do square corners, and let you know how it works out.

 

[amateriat]

Well, we're in the same state, but you're way the hell North of me.

Down here (NYC), my favorite pro lab, Manhattan Color Lab (4 W. 20th Street in Chelsea), charges $6.50 per 36-exposure roll for E-6 processing, with 90-minute turnaround, and no push/pull charge. Yes, mounting appears to be extra, but they offer a choice of standard paper mounts at 10 cents a frame, a nickel more for plastic (recommended), and two bucks for imprinting mounts on an entire roll. I forget if they're Kodak Q-Lab certified (I worked in a lab that was, years ago, and it was no cakewalk to qualify), but I can say they run a pretty tight ship.


- Barrett

 

[lZr]

I already read about same price mount/unmount development of E6, but I think better to develop only and apply mounting only for selected frames. So, you will need a box of frames choosen by you.

Finally, slide shooting is so delicate, that hard to know who is doing his work bad.
Good exposure will work good with Q labs and Jobo self develoment. Only my thoughts, of course

 

[Tuolumne]

Not only do round corner mounts require you to crop the image when scanning, they are also made of cardboard which leaves little paper residue around the edges of the slide, which requires even more cropping and also usually leaves paper shreds on the slide. I now get my slides unmounted since I no longer use a projector.

/T

 

[ibcrewin]

Barrett.. Thanks for the tip! I was going to sunshine color labs on 31st near Penn station. They were charging me 8 bucks mounted and imprinted with the date.
I got 4 rolls here waiting to get processed!!

 

[TEZillman]

I'd be careful with what I sent to Dwayne's. I've been quite disappointed with the results I've gotten, namely having slides coming back with tiny flecks of some sort of matter embedded in the emulsion. There have been a couple threads about Dwayne's on APUG that you might want to read.

Tom

 

[fbf]

fuji mailers is the cheapest I found around NY area. There might be some pro-labs in NYC that can do it at simliar price range but with less time. So far, the result from fujimailer is acceptable.

 

[ibcrewin]

On Dwaynes. I've had mixed results. Sometimes, I'll drop off a roll at the local shop and they send it out to D's. Once they came back with a ton of dusty flecks from the slide mounts. and another time they were flawless. Go figure