4x5 Labs?

I live in the Northern California area and I am wondering where, and how do I sent negatives to be developed? I will develope the BW myself eventually but what about the color, or even slides? Where would be the closest place to me or does that even matter? I have sent 35mm through the mail but not 4x5, to me, it seems like a risk. I don't know why I think that, maybe the size.:rolleyes:
Any help would be helpfull.
Thanks.
Dave

The color is no harder to process than the B&W, just different chemicals. 4x5 slides are a rewarding way to go as no printing is necessary. Do a little research if you havn't already. As far as mailing the film, the boxes the film comes in do fine, just tape them well and for best safety put them in an outer corrugated box to survive the rigors of post office bashes and drops.

Any labs I should stay away from?

For 4 X 5 transparencies many people use and recommend Calypso in California.

Rich

The color is no harder to process than the B&W, just different chemicals

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True theoretically, but in fact many labs have much less pro experience with b&w as opposed to trans and color negatives. It is much easier to find a good professional color lab than a real professional b&w lab.

They don't do C-41 anymore but, I still send all of my E-6 to Calypso. I highly recommend them.

Kirk Gittings said:

True theoretically, but in fact many labs have much less pro experience with b&w as opposed to trans and color negatives. It is much easier to find a good professional color lab than a real professional b&w lab.

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You are right on that point but I was referring to DIY options. Gotta wonder if there are many good B&W labs left.

Gary,

Actually I don't think there were ever very many black and white labs around and of course fewer now. Back in the day, 20 years ago, when Kodak had there Q Lab designation for E6 labs (Q=highest quality designation), they thought about doing something similar for b&w and found so few labs doing quality consistent work that they did not bother with it.

Glad I happened across this forum topic...does anyone have the website and/or the physical address of Calypso in California. Good film labs "in general" are disappearing, and I want to locate as many survivors as possible. I do lots of 6x7 and 4x5, mostly chrome.Many thanks.

Richard
Everett, WA
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Digital photography is about as creative as turning on the radio!

Kirk Gittings said:

True theoretically, but in fact many labs have much less pro experience with b&w as opposed to trans and color negatives. It is much easier to find a good professional color lab than a real professional b&w lab.

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Also there was never enough work to run a full out bw lab. Most commercial work is color and shot on trans (well now its diggy). You need quanity to make a lab survive and its not there in bw. Beyond that you tend to limit bw if you narrow the process to specific parameters and strictly follow them. Everyone does bw differently and a lab just cant accomodate all the nuances in processing to be viable and profitable.

What I mean is all c41 is run the same and e6 is the same chemicals wether you push the +1 or +2 button. BW requires many different developers to work with each type film etc. In a commercial setting this is not viable to run one roll of film at a time and switch developers for the next type film.

dickie vaara said:

Glad I happened across this forum topic...does anyone have the website and/or the physical address of Calypso in California. Good film labs "in general" are disappearing, and I want to locate as many survivors as possible. I do lots of 6x7 and 4x5, mostly chrome.Many thanks.

Richard
Everett, WA
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Digital photography is about as creative as turning on the radio!

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The word "Calypso" in Brad S.'s last post is a link to the Calypso website, which has address, toll free phone number, work order forms, etc.

Lee

Calypso is a good lab but in my experience is neither better nor worse than many, many labs out there.

As far as B&W there are still a few good labs but they are few and far between. A couple that come to mind are:

Prauss in Rochester Dead Link Removed

Black& White in Arlington, VA Dead Link Removed

There is also one in in the Claremont, CA area I have used but can't remember more

These are just three I have used and can recommend ... there are others.

Back in the day (15 - 20 years ago) I had a multitude of local B&W independent labs to choose from (Greater Los Angeles area). Few were any good. But I did use one for most of my work and was quite pleased 85% of the time. Now they are all gone.

http://www.darkroomlab.com/index.html (The Darkroom, Northridge CA) still does B&W and E-6 LF. They do a good and consistent job with good turn-around times. I don't know if they do mailorder or not, but call and ask for Curt - he's the manager and he tries to accommodate all reasonable requests.

C-41 LF is a real problem - in Los Angeles I believe A&I is the last shop processing it. Check them out too... I know they do E-6 and maybe they do B&W. I can't vouch for them becasue I haven't used them for a long, long time.

p.s. I use old film boxes to transport all of my film. Tape them shut, CLEARLY mark what the contents REALLY are, and you'll have no problems.

Harrigan said:

Also there was never enough work to run a full out bw lab. (snip) BW requires many different developers to work with each type film etc. In a commercial setting this is not viable to run one roll of film at a time and switch developers for the next type film.

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Interesting comments with a lot of truth in them

The B&W labs I once used had very little traffic and I never understood how they stayed open. One was run by a guy who painted model trains all day and processed film by night. I once asked him if I was his only customer; he never really answered. He mumbled some nonsense about working for a civilian organization back in the 1960s who did "business" in SouthEast Asia and how he made enough money to allow him and two generations of descendents to "live the good life". He did good processing work for years, and then the quality turned lousy. He never did good printing... even his proofs were bad quality. He closed shop shortly thereafter. The other shop didn't process film worth a darn, but the kid sure could print. He could follow a printing spec "to the T" and put out a print quality that few commercial shops could even dream of. Often he'd print to my spec, but then offer additional alternatives that were terrific. But then he went out of business - not enough customers.

None of the labs are going to cater to B&W film by matching specific developers. They will use what they use... and it will either work "OK" or it won't. I've had reasonable success with the old standards - Kodak and Ilford emulsons. I started using Bergger and had some quite mediocre results. It got better over time, but nowhere as consistent as when I use Kodak/Ilford products. Anyone following "a system" or expecting absolute perfection/consistency will likely be severely disappointed. Workable negs/prints can be obtained using commercial resources... but that's about all one can reasonably expect.

For reasons I choose not to discuss in this thread, I have never developed my own B&W (even though I've been shooting since the 1980's). But it is becoming so difficult to get quality (or even consistently mediocre) commercial darkroom services for B&W that I'm buying film processing equipment and I'll be processing my own film soon. Even getting "workable negs/prints " is getting difficult!

For C41 4x5, I use http://www.thelabsantarosa.com by mail. Very fast turnaround on my last batch.

Jon

Anybody have experience with Gamma Photo Labs San Francisco (BW only)?

They do 35 all the way up thru the big stuff, and appear very competent.

Bruce

I have been running One Shot custom black and white processing from 35mm up to 16x20 format for 16years here in Toronto. We only develop with Jobo Processors and main devs are Tmax, Pyro, D76 . *we will consider any developer for major projects.**time/ temp/agitation is critical for black and white film and all the large dip tank machines are not being used to maximise these factors.
In the day we would process up to 200 rolls per day on two machines double shifts.
Today we still process at least twice a week and our volumes are way down but we find that since all the other labs in our area have stopped doing quality black and white processing, the flow of work is decent.
We are considered pricey and we will only do full Jobo Tank runs rather than one roll at a time.
Personally we will process Black and White until the day I stop printing because I absolutely hate film processed in deep tank replenished lines, and today clients are made aware of this at our front counter. I have no problem if the photographer processes the film themselves in small tanks as the quality is present with fresh chemistry.
We basically refuse to print the C41black and white crap , unless someone can convince me the merits of this choice of film and process for their project.* the reasons are various and any professional black and white printer will attest to this*.
So for photographers in the Toronto GTA there is a source of black and white process. I hope to live another 40 years and if Jobo still makes parts we will process for others.