Chrome Shooters - Is it getting better?

[celluloidprop]

Costco charges $4.95 in the US, I think. My local pro lab (farmed out through an even more local camera store) comes to $7 unmounted.

I always shot color negative (when not shooting B&W) before, as I often had access to an RA4 machine and could do my own c-prints 24 hours a day. Nowadays it's reversal film to be viewed on a lightbox and scanned without having to pay for contact prints or (crappy) machine proofs.

 

[yossarian]

George, I think the situation varies with region. The nearest walk-in for me to have
E6 done is 30 miles away (we launch space shuttles here, ya know). Consequently,
I use Fuji mailers for the lab in Nevada, with an average 2 week turn around.
When Kodak had all their original regional labs going the one in Atlanta did the best
work, period. But along came mergers, acquisitions, Qualex, and it all took a big fat
dump. I won't use any Drugstore or Discount store services, partly out of principle,
but largely because I've SEEN the results.

Better? Not here.

Fred

 

[ch1]

Interesting that your Fuji mailers are going to NV. Mine go to Phoenix which I figured was pretty good since that means I can shoot 'chrome when in Tucson and it just goes up I-10 for processing before being mailed to me back in NYC!

But my mailers are about a year and a half old (or at least that's when I bought them) so I wonder if they moved processing to NV (not that it's all that much further from either Tucson or NY!

Although my Kodak mailers still have the Fair Lawn, NJ address, I'm told that they actually are now processed down near Baltimore (still not THAT far away).

I always used mailers for 'chrome processing - so cannot comment on local shops or labs.

 

[yossarian]

George--I had a brain fart (my bad)--I was thinking of my old 3D mailers. My Fuji
mailers are, like yours, for Phoenix. Isn't it crazy they don't have the East coast
covered?

Fred

 

[StuartR]

I think it is getting better. I shoot mostly slides and black and white negative film. Slides are indeed something special. I have a local lab that will process them and sleeve them (uncut) for me in about 2 hours. There is a great variety of films, from super saturated to natural to tungsten, infrared, even black and white with Scala or dr5. Chromes are easier to scan than negative film, particularly because you have a reference image directly in front of you. One of the best things about them (beyond projection, which is a revelation when done correctly) is printing. I have set up a color managed workflow, and I can now scan my slide at maximum resolution on my scanner, get the color absolutely perfect, save it to a CD and get an amazing 11x16.5 printed on a Chromira print on Fuji Crystal Archive from my local lab. Since I do all the prep work, it only costs 15 dollars for an exhibition quality 11x16.5. This is more reliable, consistent and cheaper than a Cibachrome, and it has the same brilliance. Things are getting better for me because printing color used to be a crapshoot, but now by using a hybrid film/digital workflow I get the best of both worlds.

 

[ch1]

It's interesting how many here get their slides developed but not mounted. I always have gotten them mounted because in the past I would view them via the projector.

But now I scan.

Hmmm...maybe I'll try getting 'chrome "D.O." from the local lab.

Is there any advantage to doing that instead of just shooting color print film with D.O. processing?

I guess I'm thinking color because I really want Spring to come! 🙂

 

[StuartR]

Slides are just better man...it is that simple. But the real advantage is if you have good technique and good exposures, you have the best possible image sitting there in front of you to look at. It makes it vastly easier to correct color balance when you have the way it should look right in front of you. As for developed but not mounted -- I would prefer to just mount them, but my scanner (flextight 646) can't scan mounted slides, and to take them out of the slide one by one is a pain. I can just slide them in 6 at a time if I have them unmounted...I can get full frame that way too. It also makes it easier to know what type of film it was. If I need to project them, I can just slap them in some gepe mounts.