Lab Scans?

[sepiareverb]

I used to shoot a lot of C-41 film, and had a deal with one of the big Pro Labs – who I'd used for everything when I shot stock daily – for a good discount on a develop, proofsheet and 'budget scan'. Sent them about a dozen rolls a month. And I used the scans in Blurb books, plenty good resolution at 180ppi.

I've recently been shooting a little bit of my favorite Fuji Industrial 100, and have been sending films out to different labs, and in an attempt to save some money I've been doing the develop and scan only. I've been disappointed with many of the 'budget' or 'basic' scans I've gotten back. Noisy for the most part, or looking vastly over-sharpened. This latest outfit in California the worst yet.

Any suggestions on who to use? Not looking for a 16x20 print here, but something I could print at 5x7 to evaluate for a proper scan would be nice.

This is the best of the latest batch:

 

[nhorween]

I've tried a few and I've landed on Indie Film Lab. Noritsu and Frontier are the same price.

 

[Huss]

Who was that lab in CA that you were not happy with? And can you post an example of the worst from that batch? On my monitor that pic you show looks fine, but then again judging an image on a monitor is not the best thing.

 

[Huss]

FYI I use northcoast photo and thefindlab and have been happy with both. I do not recommend thedarkroom who have given me terrible results.

 

[hap]

I use the Darkroom...but like Huss I am not happy. They just changed to their own in house server for image downloading and printing. I should give Northcoast a try.

 

[brennanphotoguy]

I've been using Indie Film Lab since day 1. Great crew down there. Just so you know, basic scans are non-corrected scans coming from a scanner set on auto with digital ICE on. If you want good scans then you'll have to get corrected scans. The labs only do basic scans on Noritsus as well because they have auto feeders and C41 only for ICE.

 

[sepiareverb]

Yes, the Darkroom was this last batch. Not seen the films yet, hope they are better than the scans. I had better results with Blue Moon, who I've used a bunch in the past but found their quality slipped a bit about a year or so ago. The Find Lab was my other option with this batch, so they will definitely be next. Will add Indie Film Lab to the list. Appreciate the recommendations.

Here is one from a 6x7 negative. I've done some color correction, but that's it.



Doesn't look as bad coming through Flickr, perhaps they've optimized their process for Flickrs algorithm...