C-41 and E-6 labs in 2016

BetterSense · Jun 16, 2016

I'm not a color guy but I have a crisis. I have a big pile of color film that I need to send out soon. Probably 10 rolls. Half C-41, half E-6. I don't necessarily have to send them to the same place, but I need to send them out soon because some of the rolls are over a year exposed!

Once upon a time, I sent all my E-6 to Samy's in Santa Barbara. It was great. They closed, and I tried Dwaynes. I got back dirty slides a few times. Then I tried NCPS like Ken Rockwell raves about. They told me they couldn't mount my slides because they ran out of slide mounts and couldn't get any more. Where can I get E-6 developed and mounted, with good workmanship? A reasonable price would be good too.

Once upon a time, I did all my C-41 locally. I was happy to get 4x6's from my local drugstore. But all the good minilabs shut down, one-by-one. Or the quality went downhill. And Walmart stopped doing C-41, even send-out, too. So I need a send-out lab that will just develop and give me 4x6 prints--again, with good workmanship. I wouldn't mind scans either.

trythis · Jun 16, 2016

The darkroom? The FPP guys say good things but I am not sure about any other E6 shops.

Ektagraphic · Jun 16, 2016

For E-6, I have had a totally excellent experience with Mike at AgX Imaging. He handles only E-6, and takes the utmost care with the film, and he is extremely reasonable with his pricing. You can find him at http://www.agximaging.com. And for C-41, I have had an great experience with Miller's Professional Imaging. They offer free overnight shipping both ways, the film is very clean, and the proofs are excellent, and at $0.35 per print, including the film processing, it's a hard deal to beat.

Kirks518 · Jun 16, 2016

I use these guys, as they are local to me, and i've never been disappointed with their work. http://zebracolor.com/

Huss · Jun 16, 2016

trythis said:
The darkroom? The FPP guys say good things but I am not sure about any other E6 shops.

I've had bad experiences with them so I would not recommend them. Kept on getting scans with strange distortions (the slides were perfect) that they would not address when I asked them about it, nor would they correct. Also their prices are higher than most but the trade off is meant to be the speed of their turn around. They had a hardware failure that resulted in a week's extra delay, but would not offer anything to make up for that.

likemarlonbrando · Jun 19, 2016

Bushwick Community darkroom does E6 and C41 reasonably.

Sirius Glass · Jun 19, 2016

BetterSense said:
Once upon a time, I sent all my E-6 to Samy's in Santa Barbara. It was great. They closed, ...

There are still Samy's on Fairfax, in Culver City, Pasadena, in Santa Barbara, ... that still process film. I use the Culver City store. http://www.samys.com/g/Store-Locations-and-Directions/2220.html

pbromaghin · Jun 19, 2016

Sirius Glass said:
There are still Samy's on Fairfax, in Culver City, Pasadena, in Santa Barbara, ... that still process film. I use the Culver City store. http://www.samys.com/g/Store-Locations-and-Directions/2220.html

I think the store moved a couple blocks from it's old location. Maybe that's the cause of Better's confusion.

kxjiru · Jun 20, 2016

I use ProPhoto Connection in Irvine. Good quality on developing and scans plus they will mount if asked.

BetterSense · Jun 20, 2016

I was told that when Samys moved location, they had to leave behind their Refrema machine so they stopped doing E-6 processing.

Anyway, I didn't hear back from AgX before I had to leave on a trip, so I sent my whole batch to Zebra color. I will report back in a couple weeks.

BetterSense · Jul 2, 2016

Well, i can't recommend Zebracolor. I got back matte prints when I ordered glossy. The prints have very poor frankly unacceptable color balance, and flaws such as black dots all over them. I'm not sure they are even RA4 prints. Some of them say "Fuji dry color paper" and some of them have no back printing except digital plain text laser writing I can't decipher. The prints were returned in 3 big piles not even kept together with the negatives. I sincerely hope the film isn't screwed up or scratched.

With this, I am declaring casual color photography dead. I can no longer recommend anyone get into color film if they can't, practically, get it developed and printed. What's the point of paying for Portra? There's no way I could even tell a difference between any films.

MattKing · Jul 2, 2016

BetterSense said:
With this, I am declaring casual color photography dead. I can no longer recommend anyone get into color film if they can't, practically, get it developed and printed. What's the point of paying for Portra? There's no way I could even tell a difference between any films.

Kind of a sweeping statement.
I have excellent professional labs in my area, and a decent amateur lab within walking distance in the suburb I live in.
The amateur lab does digital prints only though.

Brian Puccio · Jul 2, 2016

I tried Samy's once a while ago and wasn't too thrilled. I tried CRC in NY since they're local but they ruined film and the film that wasn't ruined (wrong process) was filthy.

Since then I've been mailing my film upstate to Edgar Praus (4photolab) and couldn't be happier. If you care about it being done right, I can't think of anyone else I'd recommend.

BetterSense · Jul 3, 2016

I looked through the scans and they match the prints in color cast, bad contrast, and defects including black chunks and what looks like water spots, and black edges from bad cropping...all in the scans too. I could have done about as well with one of those $49 ccd usb scanners from sharperimage. I will be trying to get a partial refund because they bill as if the work will be professional quality, that's why I didn't shy away from the prices; at this point I will pay what I have to but it's starting to look like good consistent quality processing and printing is dead at any price.

Credit where due: the slides are nicely mounted in plastic mounts and packaged. Maybe I just need to use NCPS or someone else for C41.

Lee Rust · Jul 4, 2016

Another vote for Edgar Praus, who is local to me. While most of his business is mail order, he also does some work for local retailers.

Hatchetman · Nov 18, 2016

Ektagraphic said:
For E-6, I have had a totally excellent experience with Mike at AgX Imaging. He handles only E-6, and takes the utmost care with the film, and he is extremely reasonable with his pricing. You can find him at http://www.agximaging.com.

Just got my first box of slides back from AgX. He does a great job. Not a speck of dust on any of them. Perfect. $9/roll mounted plus shipping.

silentworld · Nov 18, 2016

I also got my slides processed by AgX and have been very happy with the quality of the work. Very clean slides, quick turnaround time and reasonable pricing.

thuggins · Nov 19, 2016

Since my local lab stopped processing E-6 (and then moved across town), I have been sending all my work to Dwayne's. Their prices are reasonable and the turnaround time is great. They did damage a couple of slides in the cutting/mounting but sent a free roll of Provia to make up for it. I thought this was fair, especially as the damaged slides were of nothing important. One advantage of Dwayne's is they will do both C-41 and E-6, and combine shipping.

They did not mount the Lomography slide film, claiming that the material could not be cut properly. I believe they charged the same for the unmounted as mounted. My cheap little film cutter (which has butchered its share of cuts) was able to cut the Lomography film as good as any other stuff, so I'm still not sure what was going on there.

I will have to try AgX. His prices are pretty much the same as Dwayne's for mounted 35mm, and for unmounted he has a significant discount. I'm planning on breaking out the Pen F for some exercise, and those are, of course, always unmounted.

Arctic amateur · Nov 19, 2016

The lomo film (i'm assuming it's the same as Digibase CR200) is on a polyester base, which is more difficult to cut than acetate. My cheap film cutter has problems with it.

C-41 and E-6 labs in 2016

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