Sick of film

It's a horrible predicament and I can understand your frustration and your desire to have guaranteed, quality output. You must, however, make the choice alone as you are the one who must decide whether you want to learn / relearn film developing or to go down the digital route.

In my opinion, the questions to ask yourself are whether digital can provide the same joy in using the camera, processing the images in software and (possibly most importantly) will you be satisfied with the digital output? If the answer to these questions is "yes" then the answer is right in front of you.

I trod this path a few years ago and bought a digital SLR. I had a great time for a while but I really missed film as I'd used it since the early 1970s and its imperfections and idiosyncrasies were (and remain) part of its charm and appeal. Now I'm back shooting film 95% of the time - though I still like digital and will never understand why we should feel we HAVE to choose one over the other.
 
I use film because i have such great cameras with real viewfinders..The RF boxes a joy. The SLR all have bright, full sized and the actual ability to use the screen, called the focusing screen.
My Leica M are getting all older.The results are more than OK. Film is a problem. My first scans are less than acceptable. The time wasted may be better used actually printing, in darkroom and scanning after.
B/W Film developing is really easy! Easier than shaving. Less blood..
If you can afford a M9 or whatever is newer, go with it. I have very short fingers and extremely deep pockets. In vest a few dollars in a tank, 2 reels and a few chemicals, if available..
 
I love film but hate labs who screw up. I'm sure that the quality is deteriorating from what it was even 2-3 years ago now.🙁

I have the equipment to soup my own film (no darkroom though 🙁) but no space to really dry dust free, and my time is so precious now that I usually just take the 'easy' option of using a lab.

For cost reasons (and I like to have the control) I do my own scanning, but it can be a real PITA when negs begin to stack up (after a holiday for example) and you just do not have any free time to scan them.....

Sometimes I even think of moving over to digital! 😱
 
The only way I would do film these days is if I processed it myself and printed in a wet darkroom. Everything else, based on what I got back from many, many "pro" labs, is a compromise. Digital is just a better workflow for me.
 
Workable hybrid workflows for U.S. photogs shooting film.

Black and White Hybrid Film/Digital workflow:

Develop your own BW; start with a 2 reel Hewes stainless tank, a cloth changing bag, Tmax 400 film, Tmax Dev. Or Tri-X film, DDX dev. I know others will suggest other combos, but these are easy combinations that produce fast, good results. Don't squeegee; do drip dry after a final wash in photo-flo. No scratches. Ask anyone in town who develops their own to come over and help you the first time you do it. They will say yes and you'll be off to the races after that.

Take the uncut, dry negs to Sams or Costco, have them scan and sleeve. I roll them up and take them in the film canisters. <$5 roll for the CD. Scans usable for the web.

Color Hybrid Film/Digital workflow for C-41:

Take it to Costco or Sams, pay for CD only, negs cut and sleeved. Both places still have 1 hour turn around.

If you can wait, or don't have a Costco or Sams, drop it off at any Walmart in the "film box" by the photo stuff; it will go to a real lab and come back after a week or two. Wally world will also process 120 film with the drop off method (no scans). <$5 roll for either 35mm or 120.

Color Hybrid Film/Digital Workflow for E-6:

Buy Fuji pre-paid mailers. Shoot the roll, drop it in the mail. $8.49 per roll, perfect dev every time from a pro lab. No scans. Grade them on a lightbox or any backlit surface, keep the good ones for later scanning at a pro lab. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/18646-REG/Fujifilm_Slide_Processing_Mailer_for.html

With all three workflows:

Grade your work; any scale will do but be consistent. For the winners - the 1's and 2's if that is the top of your scale - you can either pay for pro scans, archive them for when you want pro scans, or scan them yourself.

Scans

With all of the above you'll have 1.5 megapixel (sometimes less) images from the lab (except slide and boy do I love slide).

For good scans to make real prints from, scanning at home. It means some equipment, but $20 scans go fast and can make the equipment an easy decision - a used Nikon Coolscan or a flatbed like the Epson v500 and v700. The v500 is $150 new and works well enough to beat most run-of-the-mill scans; for the 120 film it's magic considering the price.

So, to summarize, if you want to shoot film, put stuff on the web, and make an occasional print, all you need is the right workflow. Let others do the work for you with the color films and save your effort for your best images.

Think of the cheap scans as great proof sheets.

Best wishes.
 
EdwardKaraa said:
I think I reached already my limit. I got back the films of my last vacation from the only "pro" lab left in this metropolis. The usual nightmare. Two B&W rolls over developed by around 2 stops and scratched beyond repair. I think the guy at the lab used a dirty squeegee. Luckily 13 Velvia and Provia rolls are correctly developed but the scratches and drying marks are so bad, I have to use very aggressive infra red filtering that it kills a lot of detail, and does not remove entirely the deepest of them. So the frustration continues.

It is even more annoying that the colors are so great and the ruined B&W rolls show such a beautiful tonality. Well, now I have to find a nice used M9 and say goodbye to film, this time for good.
Click to expand...

Simple, develop yourself. What you're saying is kind of like somebody selling their car because the chauffeur is a bad driver.

You can also rewash those rolls to get rid of the drying spots, so I wouldn't despair over those.
 
I recently had the lab that processes all my slides accidently cross-process a roll of E-6 in C-41 soup, because an ill-trained employee mis-labelled the envelope.
I had them scan the "negatives" onto a disk so I can view them in photoshop and try to save any worthwhile shots as black and white.
As fewer and fewer people continue to shoot film, the level of ignorance by photo store staff about film continues to grow.
More often than not when I drop off a roll of slide film I'm asked if I want glossy or matte finish and whether I want an extra set of prints.
It can be annoying and frustrating when things go wrong or the quality of the developing is poor, but because we few film shooters seem to be urinating into the Digital Jetstream, it is what it is.
I'm just grateful that I can still get my slides developed locally.
 
mackigator said:
drop it off at any Walmart in the "film box" by the photo stuff; it will go to a real lab and come back after a week or two.
Click to expand...

I haven't seen this myself, but I read in another thread that Walmart will not return your negatives without indicating on the envelope you want them back. YMMV.
 
tunalegs said:
Simple, develop yourself. What you're saying is kind of like somebody selling their car because the chauffeur is a bad driver.

You can also rewash those rolls to get rid of the drying spots, so I wouldn't despair over those.
Click to expand...

Exactly, I fully agree!

I think all this "I have to go digital because my local lab is bad" complaints are quite stupid.
If my car repair man is bad then will I stop driving my car??
Of course not!
I will go to to someone who is better. Problem solved.

There are enough very good labs. If there is no local lab, then simply mail order is the way to go. It is the most convenient and cost effective solution. Just put your film in an envelope and send it to the lab. Some days later your film is back.
Driving to a local lab costs much more time for me, it is lost time, because I cannot do useful things during this time. I have to pay for fuel for my car and parking fees in the city.

We all use mail order for buying film. We can also use it for developing film. And so use the best labs in our country.
 
Entertainment can not be finished from the life and film is a best part of entertainment which is a need of human beings.Let me tell you that it can be possible that you have become very choosy otherwise a man can not avoid from entertainment or movies.
 
jsrockit said:
The only way I would do film these days is if I processed it myself and printed in a wet darkroom. Everything else, based on what I got back from many, many "pro" labs, is a compromise. Digital is just a better workflow for me.
Click to expand...

Just sold off a bunch of film cameras for an M9.

But scanned film sent to a prolab is satisfying . Just resize it, and sharpen so it looks ok in print. Then keep using the same lab.

I will say the PS work to clean a neg is high. Dust is not the issue, small emulsion defects are. I run a hEPA air filter and a 3 micron water filter. Spots are still there. BUT optical printing hides most all of them. Digi makes them pop. I have the same neg done both ways.
 
Another factor at play is the lab techs themselves, all the good ones are out of work leaving the minimum wage/entry level folks to take over for three months then go elsewhere. You probably have a new trainee developing your film ever three/six months.


I agree with most posters in that developing your own B+W film is easy and gives you so much control over the final negatives quality. I'm always surprised that anyone who shoots B+W doesn't.
 
The closest good lab closed. Fortunately there are others but the better lab is more expensive and another is five miles (one hour drive + toll bridge) away. I called the local Costco which is supposed to be good but I wasn't sure if they were still processing film. I asked for the photo department. Here is how the conversation went:
Me: Do you develop C-41 color film? (I could tell right away t was a mistake to say "C-41".)
- She said, "C-41.... hmm.... I.... don't.... know.... what that is."
I told her it was a common color film.
- She replied, "Hmm.... I think we develop film."
How much would it cost?
- "Hmm.... I'll check.... This paper I have says it costs $1.67 I think."
 
Chris101 said:
Develop it yourself dude. I had plenty of labs do horrible things to my film back in the 80s. C41 is the easiest, followed by black and white, and finally E6. But they can all be learned and done with a minimum of fuss. All my film developing gear fits in a single box, takes an hour or two in the bathroom, then it's back into the box.

Of course you could always get one of those fancy digi-Ms. I hear folks like 'em.
Click to expand...

You know, I do my own E6 and B+W developing but I've never tried C41. I must say that I'm enthused to hear someone say C41 is easier to do than B&W! Wow! I'll have to try it then.
 
What we really need is a list of excellent, mail-order labs where quality and value drives continued demand.

Ironically some of the labs I used recently did mostly good work on the prints (I still love a stack of 4x6's) but made errors in either the developing or scanning (scratches, dust). Error correction in printing made up the difference, but it was still annoying.

Poor QC will kill film developing at labs as fast as Perez did as Kodak CEO.
 
Skiff said:
Exactly, I fully agree!

I think all this "I have to go digital because my local lab is bad" complaints are quite stupid.
If my car repair man is bad then will I stop driving my car??
Of course not!
I will go to to someone who is better. Problem solved.

There are enough very good labs. If there is no local lab, then simply mail order is the way to go. It is the most convenient and cost effective solution. Just put your film in an envelope and send it to the lab. Some days later your film is back.
Driving to a local lab costs much more time for me, it is lost time, because I cannot do useful things during this time. I have to pay for fuel for my car and parking fees in the city.

We all use mail order for buying film. We can also use it for developing film. And so use the best labs in our country.
Click to expand...
Speaking of stupid, I think it's stupid to pontificate that people should develop their own film or to send it halfway round the world for mailorder processing. For a variety of reasons it is not conventient or viable for many people to develop their own film. As for sending film for proceesing from Bangkok to, say, L.A., I won't even comment on that.

Another issue is scanning film and printing digitally: I don't see the point of photographing a scene on film and then re-photogarphing a film frame using a scanner — I won't use the word stupid, but if I am going to shoot film I want it printed using an enlarger on silver halide paper. It is with that in mind that one year ago I bought a camera on impulse in Paris: it was a beautiful, black 903-SWC. My intention was to have the film developed and silver prints made by the best B&W printer in Bangkok, but when I got back to Bangkok I found that, tragically, this printer — one of the nicest people I had ever met — died in a car accident when his car crashed into the pack of a truck carrying long steel pipes or beams that extended far behind a truck itself. Very sad. Then I found that the second best B&W printer had taken off for Laos, following a girl friend, and nobody knew where to find him.

So, I had the film developed and had an experience similar to that of Edward. No scratches, but the film was had not been develped either to the time or temperature that I had specified and the results were bad. End of story for my attemot at a partial return to film. Not viable in Bangkok unless you can develop and print your own film — at least is wasn't viable for me.



Summicron-28 | ISO 1250

Bangkok




Elmarit-21 ASPH | ISO 1250

Chiang Mai



—Mitch/Pak Nam Pran
Gods for Sale
 
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