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
 
Precision Camera. Mention your RFF membership for special pricing. Very good service, excellent scans.
 
Oh yeah Precision! Does Robert Jagitsch still work there?? (Is he still on this forum, for that matter?) I believe I bought my dearly departed M9 from them.
 
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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