Film Development Options For Busy People?

[kxl]

First of all, let me warn you--this may sound a little off-kilter:

My typical workflow is to:

1. Develop 35mm B&W film (2- and 5-reel Patterson tanks)
2. Scan the entire roll
3. Adjust in Photoshop as needed
4. Display/Print selected ones.

For the past year however, the demands on my time have been such that I just do not have the time for Step 1, which happens to be the only non-digital step in the workflow. I can fit in the subsequent (digital) steps into my schedule. I do not see any change to this any time in the foreseeable future. So, my conundrum:

I miss shooting my ZI and ZM lenses, but I just cannot find the time to develop film. I currently have a backlog of approx 300 rolls to be developed and they've been aging for almost 18 months now. Sending them out at $7-$8 per roll for development is too expensive.

What options do I have? Forsaking film to go 100% digital is not an option. Someone had mentioned had mentioned a eBay seller who was offering a development service for $2/roll, so that may be an option AFTER I catch up on my backlog, but in the meantime, does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Film isn't for busy people, film is for those who loves it.
Love and Busy doesn't exist together.
Take on film what you love, take "busy" things digitally.

Developing in less diluted Rodinal and HC-110, instead of D-76, fixing in solution from concentrate instead of powder and using water saving solution on washing gives ten or so minutes per tank in total. You'll spend more time in postage exercise if you want regular results.

 

[codester80]

How about not scanning the entire roll but only the images you're interested in after viewing on a light table? The time saved from scanning and adjusting an entire roll of images could be used to develop rolls of film instead. This is my workflow:
1. Develop 35mm B&W film (2 roll steel tank)
2. Review negatives and select frames to scan
3. Scan select frames
4. Adjust in PS
5. Display/Send files to printer

I have two toddlers and a small business to run along with pursuing my photography so I also have difficulties finding time to develop but by cutting down on the post-processing end I can get more film into the soup. Ultimately, if you are passionate about your photography, you'll find the time.

 

[Godfrey]

There's really no way around it: you either have to develop the film or send it out to have someone else develop it if you intend to stick with a film workflow. Same for the scanning. 300 rolls of film is a mountain of exposures to go through no matter what ... that's daunting at the best of times, even after all the film is processed and scanned.

The trick is not to let such a backlog build up in the first place, of course, but you have to get back to that point.

I would approach such a backlog in the most expedient way possible, and pay for it. Find a credible, reliable lab to have all the film processed and scanned, and pay for the service. That way at least you have the image files for the editing work ... with 10,000 plus images to curate, that would be the big time investment for me, the tedium of processing and scanning that much film means I would never get to it. (That is of course another option, but having made 10,000 plus exposures on film that cost $1500+ it doesn't seem sensible to just bin it all and start over.)

In the future, process whatever film you shoot immediately, before you shoot another session whenever possible. If you have film hanging about that isn't processed, shoot with a digital camera in the meanwhile and don't build up the processing/scanning backlog. That's pretty much what I do ... when there are more than two rolls of film waiting to be developed and scanned for more than a week, I stop shooting film until I have them scanned and ready to curate. Two rolls of film take orders of magnitude more time to work with than 100 digital exposures, so you can continue to do a lot of photography while building the discipline to stay on top of things and not let a backlog build up.

G

 

[Godfrey]

How about not scanning the entire roll but only the images you're interested in after viewing on a light table? The time saved from scanning and adjusting an entire roll of images could be used to develop rolls of film instead. ...

The way I have my scanning workflow set up, it is far more time-efficient to scan everything at standardized settings for the film than to pick and choose, scan each frame with optimized settings for the frame. I can scan 36 exposures in about an hour and some, where picking four or five good frames and optimizing scans for those might take me an entire day. I'd rather do the curating and adjustments after the tedium of scanning.

G

 

[Spanik]

I cannot afford Zeiss Zi and Zm lenses, nor the body to mount them on. But from time to time dropping 10 films at a time at the lab is affordable and manageable. Even those 300 rolls are not much more than a single of the lenses you probably use if done in a single batch. (not that any lab worth its money will do this as a single bach)

Think you got your priorities wrong. I do not have time for 2, 3 and 4, those are far more expensive in time than your first point.

 

[BCMielke]

This is slightly off-topic, but how do you mark the negatives that you want to scan? I could use a sharpie, but then I risk marking the negative itself.

I struggle with a similar problem and I have just bit the bullet and spent the money to have them all developed and scan. It was painful, but I used it as a learning opportunity.

I then scan two at a time either color or B&W and don't get behind.

 

[kxl]

In the future, process whatever film you shoot immediately, before you shoot another session whenever possible. If you have film hanging about that isn't processed, shoot with a digital camera in the meanwhile and don't build up the processing/scanning backlog. That's pretty much what I do ... when there are more than two rolls of film waiting to be developed and scanned for more than a week, I stop shooting film until I have them scanned and ready to curate. Two rolls of film take orders of magnitude more time to work with than 100 digital exposures, so you can continue to do a lot of photography while building the discipline to stay on top of things and not let a backlog build up.

G

Sage advice... I just dug too deep of a hole and looking for a more expedient way out. Highlighted in RED is unfortunately oh so true...

BTW, I have a Nikon Coolscan 5000, which I modified to accept entire rolls. Once the initial frame is aligned, I can feed the entire roll using Vuescan's batch scan feature and just walk away. The scanned images are saved as TIFF files that I can adjust at a later date when my schedule allows.

 

[ferider]

I were you, I would take two days vacations, and do the development myself; use HC110 for speed.

In any case: for the rare times that I have somebody else develop my roles, I use Henry's Foto Express in San Jose. Small store, does a great job also for B+W development (http://www.yelp.com/biz/foto-express-san-jose). I don't let them scan though, not good enough for my purposes normally.

Call him and tell him your problem; I'm sure he'll be open to negotiate a good overall price for developing your 300 rolls.

Roland.

 

[kxl]

This is slightly off-topic, but how do you mark the negatives that you want to scan? I could use a sharpie, but then I risk marking the negative itself.

I struggle with a similar problem and I have just bit the bullet and spent the money to have them all developed and scan. It was painful, but I used it as a learning opportunity.

I then scan two at a time either color or B&W and don't get behind.

I have a Nikon 5000, which I modified to accept an entire roll. I use Vuescan's batch scan feature and save the scanned images as TIFF files.I only adjust the ones I want and bypass or delete the one I don't.

 

[kxl]

I were you, I would take two days vacations, and do the development myself; use HC110 for speed.

In any case: for the rare times that I have somebody else develop my roles, I use Henry's Foto Express in San Jose. Small store, does a great job also for B+W development (http://www.yelp.com/biz/foto-express-san-jose). I don't let them scan though, not good enough for my purposes normally.

Call him and tell him your problem; I'm sure he'll be open to negotiate a good overall price for developing your 300 rolls.

Roland.

Yup, I was thinking along the same lines re: HC-110, which is one of my primary developers anyway (the other one being XTOL). Thanks for the tip: Henry's Foto Express.

 

[Godfrey]

Sage advice... I just dug too deep of a hole and looking for a more expedient way out. Highlighted in RED is unfortunately oh so true...

BTW, I have a Nikon Coolscan 5000, which I modified to accept entire rolls. Once the initial frame is aligned, I can feed the entire roll using Vuescan's batch scan feature and just walk away. The scanned images are saved as TIFF files that I can adjust at a later date when my schedule allows.

Glad to help.

I have both Nikon Coolscan V and Super Coolscan 9000. Unfortunately, there's no hack to make the Coolscan V blow through an entire roll, so I either have to scan 6 or 12 at a time.

I output both TIFF and DNG raw files from VueScan. About half the time I use the TIFFs, but there are always some frames I want the greater processing latitude afforded by the raw files.

No automated feed helps when I'm working with Superpan 200, which NONE of my cameras feeds without a good deal of frame spacing variance...!! It's a tetchy film, although I like the rendering it provides.

It is what it is.

G

 

[taemo]

Buy a Uniroller on ebay for $30-50 on ebay.
Buy a Jobo 2551 or Multi Tank 5 Drum
Buy 5x Jobo 2502 reels

This will allow you to develop up to 5x 35mm rolls without having to manually agitate the film.
124G071 by Earl Dieta, on Flickr

my developr of choice now a days is HC-110 with a small drop of Rodinal.
5-8 min depending on the film I'm developing.

Let the film dry over night, then off to the Pakon scanner the next day.

 

[Godfrey]

Yup, I was thinking along the same lines re: HC-110, which is one of my primary developers anyway (the other one being XTOL). Thanks for the tip: Henry's Foto Express.

Two days to process 300 rolls of film? I'm not sure that's possible without a continous-run processing machine ... !
When I worked for a mid-size photofinishing lab, 100 rolls a day was a good achievement with fully automated processing machines.

G

 

[kxl]

I output both TIFF and DNG raw files from VueScan. About half the time I use the TIFFs, but there are always some frames I want the greater processing latitude afforded by the raw files.

G

Thanks G - you're a great help as always. Quick question:

Are you seeing any discernible difference between TIFF and DNG output from Vuescan for properly exposed B&W film? I get it that the difference may be noticeable to significant for color C41 or E-6, but B&W?

I've not seen any significant differences in the few times that I've compared output. In any case, the reason the out to TIFF is not because of quality but because my website's host allows unlimited TIFF storage but charges for storing RAW files (after you reach a certain threshold).
So if I switched to DNG, I'd have to store them locally.

 

[kxl]

Two days to process 300 rolls of film? I'm not sure that's possible without a continous-run processing machine ... !
When I worked for a mid-size photofinishing lab, 100 rolls a day was a good achievement with fully automated processing machines.

G

Sorry, should have been clearer... I was thinking of ways to streamline the processing, e.g., use HC-110 instead of XTOL for reduced developer times, etc... in the hopes that an accumulation of time saved here and there would add up. But no, 300 would still take a while--definitely more than 2 days for me.

 

[ferider]

B+H carries 8 reel Paterson tanks. Just saying

 

[Godfrey]

Thanks G - you're a great help as always. Quick question:

Are you seeing any discernible difference between TIFF and DNG output from Vuescan for properly exposed B&W film? I get it that the difference may be noticeable to significant for color C41 or E-6, but B&W?

I've not seen any significant differences in the few times that I've compared output. In any case, the reason the out to TIFF is not because of quality but because my website's host allows unlimited TIFF storage but charges for storing RAW files (after you reach a certain threshold).
So if I switched to DNG, I'd have to store them locally.

My VueScan settings produce a near fully rendered TIFF image. The raw (DNG) files are typically a bit flat, have a linear gamma. You can create DNG encapsulated TIFF, that might be what you're thinking of, that's in the TIFF section of the output panel. Those DNGs will look identical to TIFF output.

To get raw-DNG output, you enable VueScan raw output and enable the option output them as DNG files instead of TIFF. I enable the option to invert the negatives in the raw files as well, makes it easier than doing that in LR. (Just in case: You need the pro version of VueScan to output VueScan raw files.)

G

 

[judsonzhao]

Mailer lab can develop them @ $2-3 per roll, try blackriverimage on eBay

The other chance is to rent a darkroom with automation stuff, they will charge you some money hourly based, but still quite cheaper than single roll based develop service.

Judson

 

[Corran]

Acufine.

4-5 minutes for most films at box speed (70F temperature). With a big tank and a vat of fixer you could probably chew through 50 rolls in an evening. Assuming you have somewhere to hang them. Very forgiving developer.