Here: List of recommended E6 labs

[Skiff]

Yes, it is. There is not a single pro lab left in the entire state of Indiana, not even in Indianapolis, which is the 12th largest city in the United States. The city I live in, a city of 250,000 people, used to have three pro labs doing same day E-6 processing. The last one closed 7 years ago.

Dear US-American friends, please stop crying. Get over it.

You only have three important mail order film distributors: B&H, Adorama, Freestyle.
Nevertheless you don't complain about that fact.

But you have more than 10 excellent E6 labs doing mail order business nationwide.
Just choose one of them and be happy.
Or use the Tetenal or Fuji Hunt E6 kits for home development.
You have enough options to get your reversal films developed in excellent quality.
Just use it and keep the wonderful colour reversal films alive.
Do your part to maintain this very important part of the photographic culture.
Thanks.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Dear US-American friends, please stop crying. Get over it.

You only have three important mail order film distributors: B&H, Adorama, Freestyle.
Nevertheless you don't complain about that fact.

But you have more than 10 excellent E6 labs doing mail order business nationwide.
Just choose one of them and be happy.
Or use the Tetenal or Fuji Hunt E6 kits for home development.
You have enough options to get your reversal films developed in excellent quality.
Just use it and keep the wonderful colour reversal films alive.
Do your part to maintain this very important part of the photographic culture.
Thanks.

You are neither my mother nor my boss. Don't like what we're talking about here? You know where the door is.

For those of us who do photography professionally, sending off film for processing is an unacceptable risk. The post office and the package carriers like FedEx will not insure film they lose or damage in transit, even if it represents thousands of dollars in travel expenses to redo the photos, plus angry clients. So, no, we won't 'get over it'. What most of us have done is gone digital for our color work, because when there is money and reputation on the line, you do what it takes to be sure the images don't get lost because of someone else's carelessness.

 

[Skiff]

Dear Christopher,

I am a professional photographer. I need colour reversal film for my work. My subjects cannot be done digitally, and not with CN film.

I am using mail order film processing for my professional work for about 30 years now. Never lost a package on the way to the lab. Never.

Our whole economy is dependant on transport and mail ordering. If we all would have the fear that maybe one of a thousand of the packages may get damaged or lost, and because of that fear we all would avoid transport and mail order, our whole economy would collapse immediately.

Maybe sometime in the future I will have bad luck and one package my get damaged.
Then it will be only one against thousands which have been fine.
I can easily live with that: 99,999999% fine results against 0,00000001 bad results.

 

[mooge]

Here in Ottawa we've got a lab downtown-- GPC Labworks-- that does E6 and also C-41 and B&W developing and printing. Really cool that I can drop off some slides and get them back like three days later.

Last time I checked (like two years ago?) Blacks (nation-wide photo chain) also could send E6 away for developing (I think their lab is in Toronto?) but for some strange reason they don't do any sort of 120. turn-around is about two weeks.

It's a little amazing to me that we've got a local lab; I was in Singapore a while ago and their last lab E-6 lab just packed up. And they've got about 5x our population.

 

[Texsport]

I highly recommend Aker Imaging in Houston, Texas.

www.akerimaging.com



Texsport

 

[mob81]

Other option is to use tetenal, it yields good result. I only send the reversal B&W but I do my E-6 at home, it's easy once one can control the temperature of the chemicals.

 

[charjohncarter]

I have used Walmart in Pleasanton, CA, they send to Oregon. I've been worried, because someone here said they scanned and didn't return the positives or negatives.

 

[schlops]

For everyone in Austria especially Vienna. Fayer at the opera is the only lab in Vienna left developing E6 !

 

[HHPhoto]

Thanks to all who so far have added their recommendations!
Keep it going!

A friend of mine currently living in Singapore recommends a new E6 lab run by very passionate photographers in Singapore.
They have even just invested in a new dip-and-dunk E6 processing machine:

https://www.facebook.com/analogfilmlab

Cheers, Jan

 

[schlops]

Dear Jan,
Thank you for the kind words. I use Macodirect for my films as it's cheaper for me to buy from them than other US distributers (once the price is without VAT and Saudi doesn't charge taxes for personal use 😀 ) I stacked my Provia 400X from them (Thaks for suggestion to use this great film)

Provia 400X Stack-2 by Mohammed Basamh, on Flickr

and your help regarding picking a lab to develop my B&W Reversal is appreciated and this is very helpful thread.

wow I would love to have that many of the Provia. Such a good film

 

[HHPhoto]

wow I would love to have that many of the Provia. Such a good film

If you love to have such an amount of Provia 400X then just buy it!
It is still available, fresh stock, and even at the former, much lower prices. Just order here for example:

http://www.macodirect.de/farbdiafilme-c-746_747.html?osCsid=52879aff2aa09c97486b3307cca954d8

Provia 400X is one of the best colour films ever made.
And it is the ISO 400 colour film with the finest grain and best sharpness on the market.
Therefore I've filled my freezer with this wonderful film. I can keep shooting it for the next 10 years.

Cheers, Jan

 

[mob81]

wow I would love to have that many of the Provia. Such a good film

It's wonderful film. I didn't use it before except once or twice and didn't care for it much. Then Jan (HHPhoto) recommended for me and I tried it again more carefully and was hooked. I bought enough quantity to last as long as I can. in Saudi it's sunny most of the year if not all year round, so 100 iso slide with fast lens is still manageable 🙂 but provia 400x has beautiful skin tone that got me and extra 2 stops. I actually pushed it to 1600 and 800 and it handles it great.

 

[Skiff]

Another addition to the list of excellent recommended labs:

E6 developing in Singapore:
https://www.facebook.com/analogfilmlab

They are doing also mail order business.
I've used them on my recent Asia trip.
Top-notch quality, highly recommended.

 

[Noll]

For E6 I can recommend Barry Burne at

Burne Photo Imaging Inc.
4289 W Beltline Hwy
Madison, WI 53711
(608) 277-0802

http://www.burne.com/film.html

They have always done a great job developing my E-6 and C-41 film, though I have not used their print or scanning services. From what I can tell the costs of having that done by them would be prohibitive... But they provide great developing services.

EDIT - they have shut down their E-6 line as of August 2014.

 

[kanzlr]

For everyone in Austria especially Vienna. Fayer at the opera is the only lab in Vienna left developing E6 !

but a good one, nonetheless 🙂

 

[taemo]

when I was in LA for a couple of days, I dropped my Velvia 50 and Provia 100 at The Icon, that way I didn't have to wait for long when I was back in Canada
http://www.iconla.com
Only used them for developing but was happy with the service.

In Calgary, I just drop off my slides to London Drugs, they still develop 35mm E-6 locally but 120 they ship it to Custom Color in Vancouver, BC
http://www.customcolorprolab.com/

 

[HHPhoto]

Some very good news:
Another international professional lab is adding E6 development to their service:

http://carmencitafilmlab.com/

Cheers, Jan

 

[Takkun]

Here in Seattle, I take all my work to Panda Lab on Warren in the shadow of the space needle ( pandalab.com ). I've got word that they're the only operable custom film lab in the city (most Bartells chains do color in-house) until Moon Photo in Greenwood gets new equipment up and running.
I also used to work at Robis Camera (Robis.com) down about 50 miles south. When I was living in Boston, they did a few mail-order jobs for me.
Speaking of Boston, also while I was living there, Hunts Photo did good work but they sent it out to Melrose, and Colortek downtown does E6 in house.

 

[Brian Puccio]

http://4photolab.com is Edgar Praus's lab in Rochester, New York. He does mail order processing and printing for photographers around the world. We've been friends for years and he does a full range of professional quality work, C41, B&W, and custom processes, RA4 and B&W RC/Fiber printing. He also tests/consults for Kodak.

I've been super happy since I found Praus Productions/4 Photo Lab/Edgar Praus.

 

[djhurley92]

I would recommend Genie Imaging in the UK for developing (although their included scanning option is less good if the idea is to exceed the quality of digital). Process only comes out at £3.35 for a single roll of E6, plus £1.86 p&p. By comparison Peak Imaging is £4.90 per roll scanned plus £1.75 p&p. Genie generally takes a couple of days.

Genie is also located right next to Wandsworth train station if you happen to live in that part of London...