Current best place to send film for developing and scanning?

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squirrel$$$bandit

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Hey all—I haven't been around for years, mostly because I stopped having time to process my own film. Got out of Leica, only shot occasionally, mostly with Fuji X or the iPhone. But I've missed film photography, so I'm dipping a toe back in. I bought my old favorite SLR, the Pentax MX with an M 50/1.4, from KEH, and I'm just going to send my film out for processing for now.

So what's the current go-to place for fast, good quality developing and scanning? No one does it in my town, unfortunately. I'll be starting out with Tri-X and Velvia. (I can't believe the latter is still available—good news.) A student of mine recommended this place, which looks good, but is on the other side of the country from me.

Thoughts?
 
I have been using Precision Camera and Video, one of our sponsors and been very happy with their work. I have a friend that uses The Darkroom and is happy with them. I finally got motivated to do this by one of our members who said anyone shooting a Leica should not be sending film to Walgreens. He was right. Lots of other good places too. Good Luck, Joe
 
I can highly recommend Richard Photo Lab in CA also. I had them do a batch of 120 film developing and scanning and the results were excellent. Wouldn't hesitate to use them again or recommend to anyone else looking for a quality lab.
 
Ah, Dwayne's as in the final bastion of Kodachrome developing? I think I actually cried when I sent them my last roll.

Am I dreaming, or has the film processing industry actually improved in the two and a half years I've been away?
 
If you would like Black and White transparencies (you do still have a projector, right?) how about dr5.com, in Denver? He also does E6. I have been happy with the results of the dozen rolls that I have sent there.
 
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Another vote for Dwayne in KS. After years of using my local Walgreen's, the pencil pushers decided to close it so I had to go both, the darkroom and mail order ways. I do my own B&W, but for color and transparency, I send the stuff to Dwayne's. Their prices may have gone up a little, but their service remains tops.

BTW, good to see you back!!
 
barnwulf said:
I have used NCPS, North Coast Photographic Service in Carlsbad, CA for several years and have been very satisfied with their work. http://www.northcoastphoto.com/
Click to expand...


I've been very happy with NorthCoast.

I do NOT recommend thedarkroom.com
You get your scans back from them with very fine, but noticeable, scan lines which makes your images look like they have been printed on linen. I questioned them about this, but they never responded so they lost my business. They gave me poor quality results in other ways (weird drip marks) which they did correct after I complained, but it seemed to me that for that to go through to the customer they do not have much quality control.

Disclaimer - I only used them for 120 film.
 
A 3rd vote for Dwayne's. I started sending my film there when Kodachrome was still a thing, and didn't stop. Although now that I'm back in Denver (Houston was a film-desert, one E-6 shop and they charged obscene rates) I may go back to one of our local labs and save on shipping.

I didn't realize that dr5 was based out of Denver. What a resource- they were even doing E-4 and C-22 up until a few years ago!
 
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