Is the price of film processing making you rethink your digital photo use?

[Ming The Merciless]

I pay about $10.00 per roll of 36. That comes with a CD. So no, I won't be giving up film anytime soon.

 

[kshapero]

I have my Zeiss Ikon and my RD-1 in my day bag. Digital is easier to deal with almost everytime. So why do I use the ZI 90% of the time? Mysticism my friend, simply mysticism.

 

[hipTrip]

hiptrip, five rolls for $6 with a cd? Now, that is pretty darn cheap!

Yup, it wasn't always that cheap though. The trend started when one of the local online printing services needed to differentiate itself from all the corner kiosks that were sprouting up all over the city. This was primarily due to rising demand for prints from digital and phone camera users.

The people behind the online service eventually locked on to a large, untapped niche - lomographers who are (a) young (b) voracious shooters (c) analog by format choice but digital in pretty much everything else including their preference to upload rather than print.

They began to offer a "Color film-to-CD" 48-hour service that undercut everybody else plus came with free delivery up to the suburbs. That did it. The lomo masses migrated in droves fueling greater demand for toy and vintage cameras as well as expired film. Heck 10 year old http://lomomanila.ph/viewtopic.php?t=1539Kodak Tri-X Pan 400 from 1998 still sells for US$3.50 per roll here and kids still buy it up. 😱

 

[kuvvy]

I sometimes hate living in "rip-off" Britain.

The standard cost of a roll of BW or colour neg film here (from shops not internet) is around £4.50 - £6.00 per roll. Slide film is more expensive.

Processing (even by mail order) cannot be had for less than around £3.50 per roll.

Scanning to CD starts at around £3.50 per roll for c*** low rez scans going up to around £11 per roll for semi-decent scans at about 6MP resolution.

So just walking in to a photo shop and buying a roll of film and getting it processed runs around £15 per roll. After that you still have to have your own scanner to get the "keepers" scanned at a decent resolution.

£1 = $2 at the moment.

So all this talk of getting film processed for 50p per roll is making me want to puke from envy.

Toatlly agree with you peripatic. These moaners have nothing to moan about until they come to rip-off Britain. Top prices and not even top quality work most of the time.
I don't even know anywhere that will just dev only, or even dev and scan. If you take a roll of film in then you gotta have prints, but when it comes to digital they'll gladly put your images on CD and you don't have to have prints.
I've used my local Boots chemist many times over the years and they have done a decent job. But since they went more digital the film processing has suffered. Crappy prints (not always but sometimes) and scans look to be over-sharpened.
Having said that I've used the likes of Peak Imaging and had poor results from them on occaision and they are even more costly.
Only processor I have ever used that has never given me any problem and always superb results has been Leach Colour in Brighouse, West Yorkshire. I simply cannot fault them. I used them many times when I used to do weddings. Unfortunately I'm not in a position to afford them as they are more pricey.
Anyway, I'm hoping to do more b&w and looking to buy a scanner soon.

 

[amateriat]

For me, the advent of digital technology, by way of largely-affordable, high-quality film scanners and widebody inkjet printers, has in fact lowered the cost of shooting film. Prior to 1998/9, when I bought my first film scanner (a used Nikon LS-10) and 13" carriage inkjet printer (a new Epson SP 1200), I'd take my color neg and chromogenic b/w film in for developing and printing. Not counting the cost of the film itself, the tab was usually $14-18 a pop, not including scans/CDs. And I always ordered prints, ususally springing for duplicate sets; how in hell else could I see the results?

Talk about a sea-change: once I had the scanner and printer in place, and discovered I could produce better results (never mind "just as good") in printing than most any lab could offer, I was off to the races. From that point onward, I sent my film off for developing and nothing else–I don't even let 'em cut the stuff. This move alone has cut my costs by as much as two-thirds, and improved turnaround considerably, since all the lab has to do is run my film through the soup and spool it up to put in a bag. When I do occasional gigs, this helps in turning around work with dispatch; some clients wonder how I can turn around jobs so fast using "old-school" film.

As far as the need to scan each and every frame? As semi-automated as my setup is, it's hardly an issue; I can get through a roll of film for modest-sized scans quite quickly, and with little fuss (yes, a reasonably fast computer helps out here). On occasion, I'll simply make a digital contact sheet of one or two rolls (my tabloid flatbed can handle up to two rolls of 36-exposure film in one pass), and make enlarged prints of these contacts, up to 13 x 19" if need be. Depends on the situation.

So, the cost situation with film is working just fine for me. 🙂


- Barrett

 

[Dogman]

"I dunno. I just don't get it. We are willing to trust our lives to the technology in an airplane but unwilling to trust our vacation photos to the technology in a camera."

But flying commercial aircraft these days is about as pleasant as a root canal without a shot of Novacaine. 😱

If you start with a basic premise that one has to have a camera and the other equipment to take pictures (digital or film doesn't matter), the bottom line is that digital costs less, is more expedient and generally does what most human beings want to do for photography. So, it's not a matter of economics to use film. It's a matter of preference.

I am using a DSLR for everything I want to do in color. I have several dozen rolls of color in the freezer that I don't expect will ever get used. Digital does everything I want to do in regard to color. And it's cheap.

I use my film cameras for black and white. I don't get the feeling from digital B&W I get from film although digital B&W prints look pretty darn good. It's fairly cheap to process film, a bit expensive to print the photos in the darkroom and it takes a lot of precious time. That's my preference though.

 

[giellaleafapmu]

What have your feelings been about this and what have you done?

/T

(1) Any hobby (by definition) is expensive, how much is too much is something each one can judge only for himself.

(2) As many have said 22US$/roll is bit on the expensive side you should be able to find something cheaper. Also learning to process your own B/W is not only cheaper but a lot of fun too I think you should try...

(3) As for me, if it is something related to work (I am NOT a pro but I tried to be for a while and I still shot stuff for clients, usually paintings for catalogues or products, from time to time) I definitively use digital or both digital and film in the very rear case I still feel that a 4x5" sheet is the way to go (it is just psycological, I rearly find them so much better than digital, but I sometimes just feel safer if I do).

(4) For my own pictures I use anything, it just depends on the mood of the day, but I never shot less for saving. The day I shall really need the extra penny I shall probably just sell some of my equipment (what is the point to have a lot of stuff if you are not going to shot whenever you feel to?) and use one camera and one lens.

(5) Just for the record, I usually go out with a black Nikon F (no Photomic) built the year I born, a 35mm F/1:2, grid focussing screen and tri-X.

GLF