B&W lab that offers choice of developers?

Does anyone know of a black and white lab in the USA that does mail order and offers a choice of different developers for various film stocks? Thanks!

I have never used them, but Photolaboratory in Berkeley, CA has a pricelist <here> which says "Our standard developer is Kokak Xtol, standard processing method dip N dunk with nitrogen burst agitation. For special developers and film processed by hand see: Special Film Processing"

Their <Special Film Processing page> says, "Special black & white developers include: Acufine, Rodinal and HC110. Other developers may be available by special order. We use the Photographers Formulary version of some developers."

Most of the b&w labs I have looked at don't even mention what chemistry they use, but Process One in Kansas City does mention: "We use Kodak X-Tol film developer" (no other choices). Again, I've never used them.

I will also mention that it is quite easy to process your own b&w negatives at home with a minimal investment in equipment and a wide range of chemistries to choose from.

Praus Productions in Rochester, New York, can also offer different developers. The normal is Xtol, but others are available (write or call to inquire).

A related question would be do they offer a choice of development times? A local lab near where I live used to process all films for the same processing time, so it was somewhat the luck of the draw how your negatives would turn out unless your choice of film happened to match their processing time. I took some film there once but wouldn't do it again. It's a moot point anyway because that lab is no longer in business because the proprietor died a while back.

I am making this post not because I have a solution to the OP's question but more as a warning that sometimes it can be worse than you had feared.

We have offered free choice of developer formula at one price but professionalism had been absent during that time, 1999 to 2008. The company was Filmkunst Simon Wyss und Teilhaber. The house recipe for negatives and reversal films was a hydroquinone-phenidone formula. I could serve one single 35-mm. production in 2007. Maybe that there are more serious filmmakers active today but I doubt the volume is big enough to justify the stockkeeping of a variety of chemicals, if not ready-to-use preparations.

Thank you everyone for your input. Much appreciated!

Ten301 said:

Does anyone know of a black and white lab in the USA that does mail order and offers a choice of different developers for various film stocks? Thanks!

Click to expand...

I’m pretty loathe to plug my own services here, but if the other labs don’t work out to your satisfaction, feel free to send your film in to my lab. My standard dev is replenished xtol at 24C in a jobo, but I currently stock D-76, Xtol, Rodinal, HC-110, DD-X, Ilfosol, and microphen. On the downloadable order form, you can specify developer (and dilution), temperature, agitation scheme, and development time. If you don’t want rotary agitation I can put it in one of my Paterson tanks, or one of my bigger jobo tanks and do pretty much any other agitation scheme you want. My standard scans are DNG files, but can give you pretty much any format you want. Just google simple film lab. I’m based in north SF Bay California.