aad
Not so new now.
As a general, consumer format, anyway, is the execrable quality of prints from your local Wal Mart etc.
In fact, not so much the printing or developing as the way scans from negatives are handled.
I recently decided to start selling photos after getting some requests, and decided to try printing my own on an Epson R2400. I've long used the 4x6 prints from my C41 film as proofs, rescanning and having prints made from the ones that passed muster, at one of the local shops.
The last roll I had developed started me thinking, so I ran prints and compared. Yikes, sez I, maybe these don't suck so bad after all!
Tonight I was playing with the scanner and on a whim did a big print from a roll I pretty much discarded last summer. It's going on the wall.
Some of it may be just "auto correction", but maybe some is just bad chemicals or technique. Any ideas?
In fact, not so much the printing or developing as the way scans from negatives are handled.
I recently decided to start selling photos after getting some requests, and decided to try printing my own on an Epson R2400. I've long used the 4x6 prints from my C41 film as proofs, rescanning and having prints made from the ones that passed muster, at one of the local shops.
The last roll I had developed started me thinking, so I ran prints and compared. Yikes, sez I, maybe these don't suck so bad after all!
Tonight I was playing with the scanner and on a whim did a big print from a roll I pretty much discarded last summer. It's going on the wall.
Some of it may be just "auto correction", but maybe some is just bad chemicals or technique. Any ideas?
Ororaro
Well-known
Film is so great but yeah, the Walmarts of this world are helping killing film Big time!
FrankS
Registered User
If you aren't doing your own printing, (either digital or wet,) or if you're not paying for premium pro service, you're letting a machine set on "average" run by an underpaid under-trained and disinterested employee, mess up your images.
T
tedwhite
Guest
I'm a bit confused here. Are you scanning the negs with a dedicated film scanner?
Or are you using proofs from Walmart to select the ones you like and then sending those negs to a pro lab for enlarging.
Or are you using proofs from Walmart to select the ones you like and then sending those negs to a pro lab for enlarging.
BrianPhotog
Well-known
I started doing my own a *long* time ago. Average is good for family snaps, but that's it.
dazedgonebye
Veteran
Scans from Target and Ritz (the ones I've tried) are only good enough to see if you want to scan the negative yourself. They've got the dust/scratch correction turned up so high that they really supress detail.
Since the target use for those cheap scans is a 4x6 print, it doesn't matter much to them.
Since the target use for those cheap scans is a 4x6 print, it doesn't matter much to them.
aad
Not so new now.
Ted White-I do my own scans, ut use the prints from the lab to decide which ones I'll scan and print.
Shutterflower-I don't think my 2400 will kill film either. It's the folks who get their prints back from whomever and then see the results from someone else's digital and decide that film just ain't no good.
Shutterflower-I don't think my 2400 will kill film either. It's the folks who get their prints back from whomever and then see the results from someone else's digital and decide that film just ain't no good.
mw_uio
Well-known
When someone mentions the word Wal-mart, the first thing that comes to mind is: "opium for the masses" 
If you give your film to Wal-mart, then you are just takening chances, and since you are shooting film and you want the best, why bother, go to a pro-lab.
Mark
Quito, EC
If you give your film to Wal-mart, then you are just takening chances, and since you are shooting film and you want the best, why bother, go to a pro-lab.
Mark
Quito, EC
mc_vancouver
Established
What's not only killing film prints but killing AMERICA, CANADA and the rest of the world is Wal Mart. It is irony to the nth degree that this so-called all-American company is throwing thousands of merchants and their employees and small manufacturers out of work in favor of cheap Chinese imports. I don't blame the Chinese, I blame everyone who shops at Wal Mart. There are plenty of fine labs still around which do excellent work. You pay a little more, you support a local business, and you get a better product.
sherm
Well-known
It's always entertaining to read through the various responses when we talk about the demise and or death of film. George nailed it, an Epson printer isn't going to kill film. No doubt that quality suffers when processing is done at big box retailers, but one must ask why we use these retailers in the first place? In my opinion it's that old "money" thing. Target or Wal-Mart gets the business because they're the most cost competitive. The average consumer isn't as demanding when it comes to image or print quality like we are here at RFF. Sometimes I feel we start these threads to try and convince ourselves that film is here to stay. I think if we're really honest with ourselves we know that film will continue to fade out (no pun intended) and that the "D" word is the future. Film is great and I have a freezer full of it here at my house in Austin. It's really all about economics, there will come a time when film is too cost prohibitive for all of us and I for one am not looking forward to that day.
Long and short of it............. shoot film and enjoy it while we all can.
Best,
Sherm
Long and short of it............. shoot film and enjoy it while we all can.
Best,
Sherm
sherm
Well-known
mc_vancouver said:
I'm going to try and stay on topic and not stray into global economics, but I must comment that like it or not and I already know what your feelings are on the subject there is nothing more all-American than a free market economy where you lead follow or get out of the way. In my opinion there's nothing romantic about the shop keeper down the street that sells the same items that the Walton's do for 30%-40% more. Wal-Mart definitely has it's share of issues, but at the same time they provide buying opportunities to consumers who might otherwise not be able to. There, I told you I was going to stay out of this debate.
Sherm
SolaresLarrave
My M5s need red dots!
aad, try another lab. I have been very lucky at Walgreens, at least locally, for my C-41 stuff.
Now, the best scanning you can do is from the negatives, not the prints. Is that what you do?
Now, the best scanning you can do is from the negatives, not the prints. Is that what you do?
aad
Not so new now.
SolaresLarrave said:
Yep, negatives/slides. My scans are fine, my printer is fine, heck, often Wal Mart prints from my scans are fine if the beastie is set for "no corrections", but dropping a roll there for 1 hour gets loust prints often as not (same as some Ritz places) though the negs are fine.
By the way, amazing how the point gets lost, eh? Sure do like my printer, AND my film.
iml
Well-known
It's already dead as a general consumer format, in the industrialised West anyway. It's only a matter of time before Walmart and the like will no longer develop it at all, and it becomes an entirely specialist/enthusiast format.aad said:
Ian
DavidH
Overweight and over here
aad said:
As a general consumer format I would imagine it's already dead...I don't think I know of anyone who isn't an enthusiast photographer who still uses film.
What would kill film for me is having a reasonably priced digital camera that can handle some damn latitude...don't know why it hasnt been invented yet...my digital video camera can handle up to 13 stops...
aad
Not so new now.
I make a habit of polling shop owners on film sales. It's still a major force in consumer photography, probably more in the US than overseas I think. Walgreens and Walmart are a big reason. The small enthusiast shops are more didgital oriented. Frankly, I get better results from Wal Mart and Walgreens than many Ritz Camera shops.
ElrodCod
Established
mc_vancouver said:
Why pick on Wal-Mart? Chinese made products are sold everywhere. Sears, Target, K-Mart, Big Lots, Family Dollar, Dollar General, Macy's, J.C. Penney, Walgreens, CVS, Harbor Freight, and many other stores sell Chinese made goods and you never hear a "peep" about them. When the blame gets dished out it's always dumped the shoppers..... no mention of Bill Clinton's role in the matter. Well here's a news flash.....there are a lot of folks out there that are on a much lower economic level than you are. For them, Wal-Mart is a blessing so get off your high horse.
40oz
...
iml said:
You should really try and get out more. In the US, every gas station, grocery store, and drug store has a decent range of C41, both color and B&W. Every drug store and discount department store has a one hour set-up, and every grocery store has at least a bin for film drop-off. There are disposable film cameras in every check-out aisle, and a very popular party favor for weddings, group travel events, and cruises are disposable film cameras. Even the small town I grew up in has a dedicated photography store, selling film, paper, developer, lenses, and even the occasional camera. The very medium-to-small city I live in has three competing camera shops with rather extensive film inventory, one of which has five branches all over the area.
How's that old phrase go? Film is Dead! Long live Film!
IMHO, digital hasn't displaced film at all. It merely gives the consumer yet another option, and added a lucrative revenue stream for the major film manufacturers. As long as I see little yellow boxes everywhere I go, I have to say the reports of film's demise are greatly exaggerated.
NickTrop
Veteran
iml said:
Nope. More film was sold in 2005 than in 1992, pre-digital. That's because the world-wide photography market has grown greatly. There are 6 places with C-41 machines in proximity to my house. There's three that I know of a stone's throw from where I work. Those A-Z bins look pretty big in each one. The C41 machines all seem to be humming. Anecdotally, at least in my area, I see more people dropping off film than standing in front of the kiosk. In my immediate family, there are no digital shooters. Dad loves his old Canon. Sis loves her point and shoot. Kodak came out with new super-8 movie film in 2006(!) and new black and white reveral 16mm movie film in 2005. There seems to be more film stock color and black and white than ever. But, yes, there has been some displacement. Disposable film cameras are huge sellers. I will never shoot digital... ever. I shot it, liked it a lot for a while, went back to film never to return to digital.
Digital can be convenient. But it typically requires an investment in computers, software, storage, and a learning curve for all of it. With a film camera - especially a point and shoot, you shoot and drop your film off at a lab and pic it up in an hour. Even kiosks intimidate and annoy some people. Digital too dependent on other stuff and - sorry, to my eye it simply doesn't look as good as film. Some claim digital has the best color. That seems to be the consensus. Eh - I didn't see it. My camera had difficulty with greens and sometimes reds. It clipped highlights, which I HATED. No latitude, dynamic range a joke, noise reduction algorythms "smeard" detail out of images and gave things an unnatural plactic-y look, which I HATED. I got moire patterns and other artifacts. I spent slightly less money for that camera than, literally, 5 decades old cameras (all of which work, and includes CLA costs) and "stuff" I needed to get a print - including ridiculously priced inks, and the digital was obsolete, again literally, a year later.
Again, this is why filmmakers still shot on film, even on TV, despite costs. With film, you chemically freeze a mirror of reality on paper. Digital images are computer-generated, computer "rendered" reproductions of reality. Don't let the fact that both digital and film cameras use a lens (or can use the same lenses, even) fool you. This is very apparent in a word digital images are fakes. They're unevocative, lifeless. Very apparent in moving images, less apparent in stills but the lifeless, personalityless, dullness of digital-rendered reality is still there. Engineers have been trying and trying to make "digital look like film" - p24, adding grain, shooting with telephoto lenses from across the street to emulate "bokeh" but they cant. Digital is a cheap capture medium, and more easily to manipulate but the computer-rendered sysnthesized baylor interpolated "drawing" don't capture reality, they make phony recreations of it using pixels, silicone chips, and 1's and 0's.
Again, when you want to "tell a story", when filmmakers want to evolk emotion, they use film. Nothing else will do. Same applies to still photography.
I'm sure there are millions like me who would give up his photographic hobby before ever considering some crappy overpriced digital camera that produces soulless, lifeless, computer-generated "pictures". When the digital camera market dies because the bulk of the camera market stops buying them after the electronics die in their camera in a few years and simply shoot with their 4 megapixel cell phones, I'll still be shooting film.
Football is the most popular sport. But there's plenty of interest in cycling. Neither will go away.
Film is dead nonsense is silly.
dazedgonebye
Veteran
40oz said:
No black and white in any of the department/grocery stores around here (Phoenix). You can find it at the chain photo stores though.
But yes, you can buy film in any grocery or drug store around and have it developed in all the discount department stores plus the Ritz sorts of places.
On the other hand...the Ritz manager tells me that some days they do no film at all and he thinks it unlikely they'll replace their film developing systems when they require it.