Costco film processing RIP

[Aristophanes]

A RFF sponsor, Precision Camera and Video, Austin TX, provided me with excellent film development and scanning services.

They do a great job.

The Darkroom is another.

This Forum should have a mini-lab sticky thread.

Industrial film production requires industrial film processing.

 

[Huss]

They do a great job.

The Darkroom is another.

I have found The Darkroom to be very substandard, definitely not up to pro standards. I cannot sell prints from scans they made for me as they have scanning lines (looks like fine linen-like line patterns, especially noticeable in sky areas). I wrote to them several times to ask for an explanation, and they did not reply.
Costco was better than them, as well as 1/4 of the price.

For hig rez stuff I use NCPS.

But that is the tragedy of Costco exiting this market. They were so cheap and quick, and their scans matched up to most of the far more expensive competitors at the same resolution level. Which is not surprising as they use the same Noritsu scanners (you can see this from the exif data).

 

[hipsterdufus]

I've got to say that I think that mail order film processing is often not the best solution. I had a roll get lost in the mail a couple of years ago and I was done with that for good. It just takes one time.

Luckily, I found a great place (Express Photo in Livonia, MI) that does the best developing/scanning for the money I've ever experienced. I've been shooting tons more color film just because I have an easy/cheap way to get it developed and scanned. If they ever go away, so will my desire to shoot color film.

I don't know how, but I would love to see more retail labs across America. It's probably an unrealistic dream, but it's a worthy one.