Friend want to start a film development lab

A friend want to start a film development lab in my city, he is currently seeking for film processors options, he found and old Noritsu v30 and I wanted to ask you what are the most used and best film processors for a small lab still available with parts and chemistry.

Thanks!

moshin said:

A friend want to start a film development lab in my city, he is currently seeking for film processors options, he found and old Noritsu v30 and I wanted to ask you what are the most used and best film processors for a small lab still available with parts and chemistry.

Thanks!

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Color or B/W? I looked a few days ago, and there is a fairly brisk market for used color mini-labs. I am NOT an expert here, so have a look.

Has your friend considered a completely hands on approach? That is tanks, reels and such? There might be a market for high quality black and white processing, done by hand.

Good luck,

Bob

Color 35mm film, C41 process.

He´s already doing it manually, using a small tank for two rolls at a time. We are seeing an increased interest on analog photography and he is getting lots of request for film development so I want to start looking into it, look at the options, the prices and if it makes sense for the scale we currently at.

For low volume film processing, Wing Lynch is your best bet. The disadvantage of these machines is you have to load film on to reels. I used to go to a lab that had a high volume machine and they used Hosterts. When you use film processing machines, you have to have the volume of film to process or else it's a waste of money.

Mainecoonmaniac said:

For low volume film processing, Wing Lynch is your best bet. The disadvantage of these machines is you have to load film on to reels. I used to go to a lab that had a high volume machine and they used Hosterts. When you use film processing machines, you have to have the volume of film to process or else it's a waste of money.

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Thanks for the info, what about the jobos?

moshin said:

Thanks for the info, what about the jobos?

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I've used Jobos it's along the same lines as Wing Lynch. You still have to load film on to reels. If your lab is starting out, maybe just do everything manually until you get the volume to justify getting film processors? With the Wing Lynch, I think it has a nitrogen chemical delivery system. The Jobo system I used only used Jobo drums. I forgot the name of the system, but it used nitrogen to pump chemicals into pots to get the chemicals heated then it would automatically dump the chemicals into the drum. It's been over 30 years ago when I used the system.

A few words of caution here, lads.

Call me the Devil's Advocate if you like - a group of us looked into this in Melbourne not long ago, and decided not to do it.

Do a business plan and a marketing plan before you go into anything else. What you discover may open your eyes... to reality in film land in the 21st century.

Remember you will be dropping AT LEAST $20,000 into this venture before you even open your doors. Not only in equipment, but also in bureaucracy fees, rent and insurance. Setting up as a business venture, and this you absolutely must do, will eat up a lot of cash.

Trying to cut corners in film processing is a sure recipe for disaster. Ruin a batch of film, and you will be in trouble up to your armpits if not your earlobes. A (very small) B&W lab operated by two friends of mine on a shoestring budget in Melbourne wrecked one process job of film some years ago, and got sued. They settled out of court, but one had to float a remortgage on his house to pay the damages plus legal fees.

An At Home business won't generate enough to do more than cover your costs and, if you are really lucky, give you pocket money.

All this said, if you decide to go ahead anyway, may I wish you the very best of luck - but get that insurance.

ozmoose said:

A few words of caution here, lads.


Ruin a batch of film, and you will be in trouble up to your armpits if not your earlobes. A (very small) B&W lab operated by two friends of mine on a shoestring budget in Melbourne wrecked one process job of film some years ago, and got sued. They settled out of court, but one had to float a remortgage on his house to pay the damages plus legal fees.

An At Home business won't generate enough to do more than cover your costs and, if you are really lucky, give you pocket money.

All this said, if you decide to go ahead anyway, may I wish you the very best of luck - but get that insurance.

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That’s a sad story. Back in the day I recall having to sign a waiver when I dropped off film that limited the lab’s responsibility to replacement of film (raw stock) only. It seemed to work. The motion picture labs had the same policy and a reshoot could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (of course they had insurance to cover such a loss). If your friends didn’t have that waiver -wow- that would brutal. Even with the waiver they could get sued of course and have to defend their position. Best to have insurance!!! In any commercial venture.
Yea, and a business plan. It’s been a long time since I had a lab do film processing only and it was just a few dollars a roll- pretty rough to make any sustainable coin on that. But who knows- maybe film labs will make a resurgence just like film manufacturing has?

btaylor said:

Back in the day I recall having to sign a waiver when I dropped off film that limited the lab’s responsibility to replacement of film (raw stock) only. It seemed to work.

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It still works for the film manufacturers...

The Noritsu V30 is a good machine, ideally suited to low volume processing through put.
You can use the low-volume Funi Hunt C41RA chemistry and you can get away with a minimum of 5 films per day (although I wouldn't recommend it)
The ideal situation is to turn over the volume of the dev tank every month. That means that the Noritsu has 7.6L dev tank so you should go through 7.6L of dev replenisher.
According to the standard LR 21ml per film replenishment (Fuji Hunt C41RA) this would mean you would need 362 films processed per month.

Has your friend operated this sort of equipment before?
These machines need regular maintenance, not a "fix after it has gone wrong" because that's how customer's films get damaged/ruined.
Has your friend been in business or self-employed before?
Business logistics and acumen are just as important as film processing knowledge and customer service.

As has been suggested, make a proper business plan. Seek professional advice. Do lots and lots of research and when you think you have done enough..... do some more.
Maybe start with a small plan and see if it is financially viable.

Home processing vs commercial processing (customer paying) is a bit like home cooking vs restaurant standard.

btaylor said:

That’s a sad story. Back in the day I recall having to sign a waiver when I dropped off film that limited the lab’s responsibility to replacement of film (raw stock) only. It seemed to work. The motion picture labs had the same policy and a reshoot could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (of course they had insurance to cover such a loss). If your friends didn’t have that waiver -wow- that would brutal. Even with the waiver they could get sued of course and have to defend their position. Best to have insurance!!! In any commercial venture.
Yea, and a business plan. It’s been a long time since I had a lab do film processing only and it was just a few dollars a roll- pretty rough to make any sustainable coin on that. But who knows- maybe film labs will make a resurgence just like film manufacturing has?

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You can get an expansive insurance but,I doubt, they'll ever pay out.Insurances rare masters in waivers.

ozmoose said:

Trying to cut corners in film processing is a sure recipe for disaster. Ruin a batch of film, and you will be in trouble up to your armpits if not your earlobes. A (very small) B&W lab operated by two friends of mine on a shoestring budget in Melbourne wrecked one process job of film some years ago, and got sued. They settled out of court, but one had to float a remortgage on his house to pay the damages plus legal fees.

An At Home business won't generate enough to do more than cover your costs and, if you are really lucky, give you pocket money.

- but get that insurance.

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Just curiosity on my part but I can't recall signing any waiver anytime I had my film developed by a lab in the U.K. . Would a waiver have prevented your friend from what sounds like a financial disaster in Oz. Presumably the customer could show the very high-cost consequences of ruining the film/set of films? I had always presumed that "Uncle Albert's( he is from Birmingham in the U.K.) holiday snaps were not worth much in the eyes of the law but this may not be what a court takes into account. If its the cost of a re-shoot then even Uncle Albert's pics of the Parthenon and his family, that means several airfares, hotel cost etc back to Athens plus loss of wages etc, Does insurance cover you if you fail to get a customer to sign a waiver?

What counts presumably is what the laws says in the country in which you set up the business

I wonder what the laws says in Florida?

pentaxuser

ozmoose said:

A few words of caution here, lads.

Call me the Devil's Advocate if you like - a group of us looked into this in Melbourne not long ago, and decided not to do it.

Do a business plan and a marketing plan before you go into anything else. What you discover may open your eyes... to reality in film land in the 21st century.

Remember you will be dropping AT LEAST $20,000 into this venture before you even open your doors. Not only in equipment, but also in bureaucracy fees, rent and insurance. Setting up as a business venture, and this you absolutely must do, will eat up a lot of cash.

Trying to cut corners in film processing is a sure recipe for disaster. Ruin a batch of film, and you will be in trouble up to your armpits if not your earlobes. A (very small) B&W lab operated by two friends of mine on a shoestring budget in Melbourne wrecked one process job of film some years ago, and got sued. They settled out of court, but one had to float a remortgage on his house to pay the damages plus legal fees.

An At Home business won't generate enough to do more than cover your costs and, if you are really lucky, give you pocket money.

All this said, if you decide to go ahead anyway, may I wish you the very best of luck - but get that insurance.

Click to expand...

great info, thanks for the heads up! I was reading this reddit post about it and we are still looking into it. My city is small so I´m not interested in investing lots of money on it. There are lots of closed film labs here so we are asking for equipment and some of them wants to give them away, that´s why I´m asking.

foc said:

The Noritsu V30 is a good machine, ideally suited to low volume processing through put.
You can use the low-volume Funi Hunt C41RA chemistry and you can get away with a minimum of 5 films per day (although I wouldn't recommend it)
The ideal situation is to turn over the volume of the dev tank every month. That means that the Noritsu has 7.6L dev tank so you should go through 7.6L of dev replenisher.
According to the standard LR 21ml per film replenishment (Fuji Hunt C41RA) this would mean you would need 362 films processed per month.

Has your friend operated this sort of equipment before?
These machines need regular maintenance, not a "fix after it has gone wrong" because that's how customer's films get damaged/ruined.
Has your friend been in business or self-employed before?
Business logistics and acumen are just as important as film processing knowledge and customer service.

As has been suggested, make a proper business plan. Seek professional advice. Do lots and lots of research and when you think you have done enough..... do some more.
Maybe start with a small plan and see if it is financially viable.

Home processing vs commercial processing (customer paying) is a bit like home cooking vs restaurant standard.

Click to expand...

Great info, thanks! We are still developing the idea and starting to get some numbers and see if it makes sense, if not, he will still take it all manual with a home development kit he has and he can develop two rolls at a time then manually scan them.

pentaxuser said:

Just curiosity on my part but I can't recall signing any waiver anytime I had my film developed by a lab in the U.K.

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From 1890 on, we never offered any waivers to our customers. The work orders did not mention our limited liability. I believe Kodak had a disclaimer that basically said they would replace the film if damaged, etc., etc., etc. These days, I am not sure what would happen if I made a lab mistake. I can only recall a few times where we made (OK, I made) a mistake.

My experience with some labs is they cannot seem to read. When I shot stereo, the last thing I wanted were my slides mounted in 2x2 mounts. Especially the VM Personal stuff.

Bob

The waivers on film lab order forms are, like all contracts of adhesion, problematic if one ends up in court.
Make sure you have good insurance.

Nowadays that almost everyone develops films themselves, a lab is a quite risky one. The cost of opening one will be times bigger than the gains through developing films.

zanxion72 said:

Nowadays that almost everyone develops films themselves, a lab is a quite risky one. The cost of opening one will be times bigger than the gains through developing films.

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No people still use labs.

My advice is buy second hand equipment from a manufactuer still trading, Fuji dominate the market these days.

Ian

MattKing said:

The waivers on film lab order forms are, like all contracts of adhesion, problematic if one ends up in court.
Make sure you have good insurance.

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And in court, anything can happen. Perhaps a bride who is still mad because "the lab screwed up my pictures..." will tank you.

I have never shot a wedding, so I've never felt the wrath of a person who's life I've ruined.

At least buildings don't move away.

Bob

Almost anyone can sue for anything. If your “peril” is covered your insurance company is obligated to defend your position. OTOH, if you are outside that coverage you may be in a pickle.

I could pontificate extensively on the difficulties of trying to contract out of liability for negligence, but will save everyone from that.
Even in our civil litigation system, where there are severe financial penalties for suing and losing, it is reasonable to consider suing if there is negligence, because the waivers are hard to enforce if the damage is due to negligence.

Tell your friend that business is still little,
Yes, it is true that analog photography comes back to life at a rapid rate, but the volume of demand for development services is not that the hoped-for quantity through which it is possible to reach the break-even point and cover expenses and then make profits.

This friend of yours is just someone who wants to take chances.
He wants to make money from the boom in the world of analog photography,
He wants to ride the wave.
He is not an analog photographer, and he is not a fan of photography.
If he was a photographer and a true lover of analogues, he would not want to seek advice. The real photographer knows everything about this field,, I am in Egypt and I contact Champion in Canada and ask them about the prices of their products and I contact a company in Italy,, and Finally, I prepare the chemistry with my own hands so that I can save some money.
- I am looking for a (cover) for a stainless steel development tank, as it is characterized by the ability to develop a number of rolls with less than half a liter.
Why do I do that?
So I can save some money? Why ?
So that I can buy chemicals before they are about to run out?

(V30) machine, In order to become economical in operation, it must develop at least 50 rolls per day in order to only reach the break-even point and be able to cover the cost of chemistry,, This machine needs 10 liters of chemical per tank .
- You should conduct a careful feasibility study,, and suppose that he brought that machine and brought chemistry to it, opened the laboratory and hung up the sign,, How many rolls is he expected to develop per day.? And what is the life span of chemistry?

Some young men in Egypt saw that I appeared on the analog photographic scene in Egypt and set up an analog club in my home. I started to attract some young men as trainees and as clients. They felt that this might be profitable. And they decided to do so, and they bought a primitive (JOBO) machine from the internet. They bought the powdered Cinesteel chemistry, and they thought that they would be able to make profits, but they made losses, because the life span of the chemistry is short and in return the size of the business is small.

I do not keep a secret from you,, the only thing that has made me cohesive so far is that I am the one who prepares chemistry from scratch, I prepare half a liter and that half a liter should be able to develop six rolls.

I develop films only on Friday and Saturday of every week. If God blessed me with one roll, then I must prepare half a liter.
- So, the consumption of chemistry is according to the number of films that God sends me.

I don't think your friend will succeed, even if he has a huge capital. The story currently needs someone who has profound strengths in this field. Before that, you need passion, you don't need a businessman, but you need a passionate photographer and a lover of analog to the core.

Well, I just did it. duphotolab.com For me, it's not my source of income, I do it because I love it. I don't anticipate being (or trying) to be anything close to high volume.

nbagno said:

Well, I just did it. duphotolab.com For me, it's not my source of income, I do it because I love it. I don't anticipate being (or trying) to be anything close to high volume.

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Well done and the best of luck.

Perhaps investigate a space for people to develop film and print for themselves on a rental or co-op type arrangement? You provide water, some standard chemicals, necessary hardware and dark. That would shift responsibility to the clients for quality and decrease the inventory of developers you’d need to keep on hand. Maybe a web or app based scheduling system? It could appeal to folks without a home darkroom. Just my 2 cents. A business plan is a must though. Best of luck with whatever you decide.