Jbennett68
Established
Does anyone develop their own film but still send negatives out for scanning? Developing sounds fun but scanning sounds tedious.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Both development processing and scanning are the tedious parts of film photography.
I scan my own most of the time, but in the past I had some large jobs from clients that needed scanning and I just wasn't up to the volumes required. So I used scancafe.com and they did a very very good job.
G
I scan my own most of the time, but in the past I had some large jobs from clients that needed scanning and I just wasn't up to the volumes required. So I used scancafe.com and they did a very very good job.
G
Dan
Let's Sway
Nancy scans and Praus Productions.
cjgreenberg
Newbie
I've been using Film Processing & Scanning | First Roll Free | Mail in & Drop-Off for my C41 with great results. Packing up some film to ship as we speak
WoodallP
Pragmatist Barnack lover
More likely to do the opposite if colour. Mixing up fresh colour chemicals (C-41, ECN2 or E6) for one film is a pain and expensive. Better take it round the corner to a shop then scan it yourself. BW is different of course as a bucket of ID-11/D-76 lasts ages.
Of course this presupposes a shop round the corner! I'm lucky.
Jbennett68
Established
It wi
ll be black and white but trying to figure out if it’s just a waste of time in the money saved off if I still send the negatives out for scanning. It doesn’t seem to be a popular option other than for people who have a backlog of old negatives or slides.
WoodallP
Pragmatist Barnack lover
I think it depends where you find your fun and how much you trust other people to do what you could do. Also what scanning kit you have of course, and which format. There are a lot of variables.
Bob Michaels
nobody special
Scanning is not tedious if you simply edit before you scan. And, editing the negs on a light table is easier than editing from a proof sheet since you will be working with a first generation (the neg) instead of second generation (contact sheet) The only people who have problems editing from a negative image are those who have convinced themselves that it cannot be done before they ever tried.
DownUnder
Nikon Nomad
This is entirely to the point. Good common-sense advice. Yet so few do it. Ask me, I know.
As for the OP's post, the inevitable answer is all of it is tedious.
If you do send out your films to be scanned, I suggest you get a 'sampler' done first, to check for scan quality. Which I failed to do on the one occasion I used a so-called professional scanning service a few years ago, for film negatives I urgently needed to work with but didn't have the time to even sit down and scan.
The results were disappointing. And expensive. The agency used the lame excuse that someone had to sit and scan my negs one by one (hadn't they heard of batch mounts on scanners?), so they charged accordingly - yeh, at 10x what they paid the (obviously inexperienced) staff to do the work, as many 'niche' small businesses do.
A few simple fixes might help. I recently discovered my scanning software can do computer contact sheets. I will test this out today to see if it eases my pre-scanning woes. I do most of my photography digitally, but my archives have tens of thousands of film negatives and slides yet to be looked at, let alone sorted and scanned.
For many of us who are Of A Certain Age, life isn't long enough for this. So any small tips others may have to help us out, will greatly assist.
Last edited:
Bob Michaels
nobody special
I learned this developing E-6 and mounting 35mm slides at home. Mounting multiple batches of 36 slides became tedious, so I learned to edit and only mount the 2-3-4 frames that were worthwhile.
TenEleven
Well-known
I scan every single frame I shoot, for filing and also archival reasons.
Each roll gets a number and has "data" attached - I also write this number on the negative sleeve, so I can easily pull out films for darkroom printing later by simply looking at the roll number in Lightroom for example.
Yes, I generally do not enjoy messing around in front of the computer and would much rather be in the darkroom printing - or sequencing, editing or whatever. But, as others have said, it's just a necessary step in the process for me. Just like development. I try to stay ahead and scan whenever I have 2-3 rolls ready - that way it becomes a sporadic, if still boring, activity than something resembling outright torture.
Edit: I generally find lab scans to be underwhelming unless I pay serious bucks for them and this hobby is already expensive enough. That said I am also lucky to be blessed with two of the best film scanners (plus spares) and the ability to perform maintenance on these old devices.
Each roll gets a number and has "data" attached - I also write this number on the negative sleeve, so I can easily pull out films for darkroom printing later by simply looking at the roll number in Lightroom for example.
Yes, I generally do not enjoy messing around in front of the computer and would much rather be in the darkroom printing - or sequencing, editing or whatever. But, as others have said, it's just a necessary step in the process for me. Just like development. I try to stay ahead and scan whenever I have 2-3 rolls ready - that way it becomes a sporadic, if still boring, activity than something resembling outright torture.
Edit: I generally find lab scans to be underwhelming unless I pay serious bucks for them and this hobby is already expensive enough. That said I am also lucky to be blessed with two of the best film scanners (plus spares) and the ability to perform maintenance on these old devices.
Last edited:
stephen_lumsden
Well-known
I agree with you about this. I try to scan them myself, but looking at the backlog I think will be sending them off for scanning. 6*6 is much easier that 35mm though so will always scan them.
wlewisiii
Just another hotel clerk
Thankfully I have a local lab for both C41 & classic B&W. I have them scan them for me.