Unable to Develop My Own Prints, Recommendations?

[brians]

I am unable to develop my prints due to the lack of space and equipment, so I take my photos to developers. I was wondering if there were any mail services that were cheap and trustworthy. I'm willing to try out some BW photography for the first time, and all of the photolabs in my area (maybe I do not know that many) but they're all machine-C41 processed.

Any experience with this?

Thanks!

(Also, I'm planning to buy some Arista BW film from freestyle. Any suggestions and rules of thumb?)

 

[FrankS]

If you cannot make your own prints, the best way to learn photography skills is to use slide film. If you use colour negative film or B+W (neg) film, there is always a step in the process (printmaking) that you have no control over, and mistakes/problems can be corrected without your knowledge and therefore without your learning to correct them.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Is it just your prints or is it both the negatives and the prints from the negatives? I know that there are mailers that you can buy from B&H, that is, a pre-paid developing and print service for each roll of film. I believe this is for C-41 (read: "color film"), but you can also find Agfa's Scala B&W slide film mailers.

Just thought that may cover another side of your question that wasn't quite clear (at least to me). Good luck!

 

[rovnguy]

You actually have a couple of options available to you. I gather that you can develop the film, but not the prints. If this is the case, scan or have someone else scan your negatives, then do the post processing in your computer and print via ink jet printer. Or shoot C-41 B&W film and have the processor scan the negatives on to a CD/DVD and process as above. I think FrankS' idea about shooting slide film is great. Then you can have your slides scanned as above