Home-Developing C-41 for Professional Applications/Economy of Color Lab Developing

[dkirby]

Hi everybody!

I don't really post a lot here but I've been reading Photrio (and Apug before that) years at this point. Thanks for all the wisdom I've been able to get from you. Bit of a long post here; thanks for bearing with me.

So - I've been a longtime amateur guy - dad gave me my first camera (his old K1000, then a brand-new Nikon FM10) & taught me how to shoot and develop B&W when I was 8 (90s kid), studied Ansel Adams with me at the same age, etc. In the past year or so I've had the opportunity to start getting paid for my work, which is awesome, but I'm still very new to the economics of photography for money. I'm still very semi-pro, but obviously as these opportunities have become more frequent I definitely want to explore the possibility of moving in that direction lol. Problem is not only does digital not excite me at all (honestly what's the difference between that and a desk job I hate?), but I also don't know how to create the image I want through digital means (I get the results I want through choice of stock and developing technique, etc). Using film is integral to me creating my images, so what I'm trying to figure out is if I can do this professionally and not have film and processing become cost-prohibitive.

With B&W, I'm not concerned about that. I've at this point put in my hours of shooting & developing my own B&W. I roll it myself, develop it myself, scan it myself, been doing it since I could read chapter books; total confidence there. I've shot weddings, commercials, events, portraits, BTS on film sets - all B&W, no problem, I know how to get the results I need at a cost that makes sense. And, personally, I love B&W.

What I am concerned about is color. Obviously B&W isn't applicable for every job. Right now I have a prospective client who likes my B&W work, and will hire me, but he wants me to shoot a combination of B&W and Color. I use some color for personal stuff that I send out for developing and then scan myself, and that comes out to $20-$30 for each roll and its processing. I can't really make that work financially at the rates I'm getting currently, and at my stage billing the client for that is a no-go for them. So my question is twofold: 1) What is the experience that you have with self-developing color film in terms of ease of process and ability to get pro-level results from self-development (assuming of course that I put in the time to practice before attempting it with a client)? and, if so, 2) What is the cost per roll of your workflow?

I use E-6 and C-41, but would probably only use one of the two professionally for the sake of streamlining the process.

Anyways, thanks all for any thoughts and advice you might have. Very grateful this community exists as a resource for me and other "young(ish)uns" like me

Best,
Dan

 

[btaylor]

That’s nice you’re getting paid! Not many people are able to do that using film these days.
My first impression from your post is that if your rates are so low you can’t make money at $20-30/roll for processing you are not charging enough! Don’t be shy, ask for what you need to pay all your costs and make a decent profit for the hours you spend. Where I live working at Mickey D’s will get you $20/hr. Charge appropriately.
On the other hand, if this is a one off and you want this job to build your portfolio for color, do it even if you don’t make a profit. If it’s realistic you can look at it as a marketing expense (which it would be).
Back in the day it seemed to me that busy commercial photographers used trusted labs for the most part, they made their money being the shooter and marked up the lab work. You have to be realistic about how much time you would have to spend in the darkroom to get the results you need, but I find C41 process is very easy and takes not a lot of time. I use a Unicolor Film Drum, it hold temperature and will do (if memory serves) at least 6 rolls of 35mm at a time. On a roller base the agitation is constant.
Good luck and have fun!

 

[Paul Howell]

With clean tanks and reels, temperature control you can develop C41 and E 6. Given the cost of color either home kits or labs I shoot digital for color, but still shoot film for black and white. Unless your selling point is that you shoot film I don't see any great advantage of shooting color film. Depending on the final application of the negatives, web site, social media, technical, or prints you can usually use a cropped sensor body. If detail is the driving consideration a late model full frame body will beat the resolution of a color negative.

 

[Fatih Ayoglu]

If you have volume, you can get 5l Fuji Hunt kit to develop nearly 100 rolls. In UK that is £1.2 per roll. There are multiple ways to keep the solutions healthy.
As for ease, I was hesitant as well but then when I’ve seen my results I told myself, “really that was easy” Also the fact that C41 development is standardised and any slight colour shift can be corrected in post, if I were you, I wouldn’t worry at all.

 

[dkirby]

Understood. Thanks, guys.

So, regarding rates: what do you guys think is appropriate for a starting photographer to charge per day? Or, if not by day, what's the best way to charge? Right now I'm operating by means of someone comes to me and says "I'll give you $____ if you come out and shoot this thing for me," totally word of mouth at this point, but like I said the opportunities have been increasing and I'm looking at ways to keep that trajectory going. Firguring out website, whatever. Essentially this is a new door and I'm trying to see what could be on the other side.

I'm currently getting a few hundred dollars for a day's shoot, and I usually shoot ~15 36-ex rolls for that day. If it's a portrait thing, it's all less, maybe an hour of shooting and I go through 3 rolls, they give me a hundred bucks. I find I'm usually delivering something like one image per six that I take. After developing and scanning I spend about 10-20 minutes in photoshop with each file, mostly removing dust and adjusting levels. I realize with all of that labor I'm not making much per hour, but like I said I'm new to this and figuring it out.

I totally understand digital is more practical, but it's like - the antithesis of how I create images. If I have to go digital to make this work that'd be a tough pill to swallow, and also I'm not sure how those would be my images if that makes any sense. When I'm putting a shot together I'm seeing the way the film I'm using is going to render the image.

Final output so far has been digital images, photobooks, and prints. Photobooks and prints I do through a Canon Pro-300, or sometimes I send out for the books if they're particular about bindings, but I don't like to because I lose control of the final product. Obviously I'm charging extra for these deliverables, but really only to cover their cost. I do wet prints, too, personally - love it - but find that hard to scale and apply for paid work. For digital delivery I usually give them a JPG and a TIFF of each delivered image.

 

[pentaxuser]

Provided that you have the ability to maintain the temperature at 100F for the 3 mins 15 secs of the developing time then there is no reason at all why you should not process C41 negs that are every bit as professionally produced as any lab's You don't even need a darkroom, a changing bag is all the darkness you need. The rest of the C41 process is done in full light

pentaxuser

 

[dkirby]

If you have volume, you can get 5l Fuji Hunt kit to develop nearly 100 rolls. In UK that is £1.2 per roll. There are multiple ways to keep the solutions healthy.
As for ease, I was hesitant as well but then when I’ve seen my results I told myself, “really that was easy” Also the fact that C41 development is standardised and any slight colour shift can be corrected in post, if I were you, I wouldn’t worry at all.

Thanks! I definitely don't have the color volume to make that work currently. Is there a different C-41 kit you (or anyone) could recommend that I could test out on my own for a little bit, see what it's like? Obviously I see the options on B&H, etc. but some people have mixed reviews that I see online

 

[alanrockwood]

Hi everybody!

I don't really post a lot here but I've been reading Photrio (and Apug before that) years at this point. Thanks for all the wisdom I've been able to get from you. Bit of a long post here; thanks for bearing with me.

So - I've been a longtime amateur guy - dad gave me my first camera (his old K1000, then a brand-new Nikon FM10) & taught me how to shoot and develop B&W when I was 8 (90s kid), studied Ansel Adams with me at the same age, etc. In the past year or so I've had the opportunity to start getting paid for my work, which is awesome, but I'm still very new to the economics of photography for money. I'm still very semi-pro, but obviously as these opportunities have become more frequent I definitely want to explore the possibility of moving in that direction lol. Problem is not only does digital not excite me at all (honestly what's the difference between that and a desk job I hate?), but I also don't know how to create the image I want through digital means (I get the results I want through choice of stock and developing technique, etc). Using film is integral to me creating my images, so what I'm trying to figure out is if I can do this professionally and not have film and processing become cost-prohibitive.

With B&W, I'm not concerned about that. I've at this point put in my hours of shooting & developing my own B&W. I roll it myself, develop it myself, scan it myself, been doing it since I could read chapter books; total confidence there. I've shot weddings, commercials, events, portraits, BTS on film sets - all B&W, no problem, I know how to get the results I need at a cost that makes sense. And, personally, I love B&W.

What I am concerned about is color. Obviously B&W isn't applicable for every job. Right now I have a prospective client who likes my B&W work, and will hire me, but he wants me to shoot a combination of B&W and Color. I use some color for personal stuff that I send out for developing and then scan myself, and that comes out to $20-$30 for each roll and its processing. I can't really make that work financially at the rates I'm getting currently, and at my stage billing the client for that is a no-go for them. So my question is twofold: 1) What is the experience that you have with self-developing color film in terms of ease of process and ability to get pro-level results from self-development (assuming of course that I put in the time to practice before attempting it with a client)? and, if so, 2) What is the cost per roll of your workflow?

I use E-6 and C-41, but would probably only use one of the two professionally for the sake of streamlining the process.

Anyways, thanks all for any thoughts and advice you might have. Very grateful this community exists as a resource for me and other "young(ish)uns" like me

Best,
Dan

Non-professional here, so take my comment with a grain of salt, or maybe two grains of salt.

Do you have your scanning and color inverting for C41 dialed in the way you like it, and how much time does it take for you to do it for C41 compared to scanning E6?

The reason I ask is that you seem to be willing to go with either C41 or E6 but prefer to do just one of those two processes. If your workflow is longer and/or more difficult for C41 (because of the color inverting process and the related issue of getting the right color balance in the inverted photos) then maybe you should stick with E6. This assumes that your image capture process is dialed in enough so that the narrower exposure latitude of E6 isn't a problem.

That doesn't quite answer the question you asked, but I hope the comment is at least relevant to your decision making process.

Another thought is this. Do you really want to make color part of your business? If you can get enough business with black and white, and if as you say you love black and white then maybe you should with black and white and leave color work to someone else. On the other hand, if you can't get enough business with only a black and white operation then maybe you are forced into making color part of your business. This is related to the issue of whether your photography business is you main way of making a living or a part time business on the side to augment your income.

 

[dkirby]

Non-professional here, so take my comment with a grain of salt, or maybe two grains of salt.

Do you have your scanning and color inverting for C41 dialed in the way you like it, and how much time does it take for you to do it for C41 compared to scanning E6?

The reason I ask is that you seem to be willing to go with either C41 or E6 but prefer to do just one of those two processes. If your workflow is longer and/or more difficult for C41 (because of the color inverting process and the related issue of getting the right color balance in the inverted photos) then maybe you should stick with E6. This assumes that your image capture process is dialed in enough so that the narrower exposure latitude of E6 isn't a problem.

That doesn't quite answer the question you asked, but I hope the comment is at least relevant to your decision making process.

Another thought is this. Do you really want to make color part of your business? If you can get enough business with black and white, and if as you say you love black and white then maybe you should with black and white and leave color work to someone else. On the other hand, if you can't get enough business with only a black and white operation then maybe you are forced into making color part of your business. This is related to the issue of whether your photography business is you main way of making a living or a part time business on the side to augment your income.

Hm. I've definitely had better success getting images I'm 100% happy with through E-6 than with C-41, but $30/roll is a wowser, and it's not reliably in stock anyways. I have gotten some good results with the Kodak C-41s, but my percentage is much higher with the Fuji Chrome films.

The problem is I've run into it a few times now where the client wants color in addition to B&W, or instead of. I did a wedding recently where I mixed in some Provia with my B&W (client paid for the provia & development). We were both very happy with the results, but I haven't seen it in stock for months now. Makes it tough to hang your hat on. Ektachrome is nice, but I've just had better luck with Provia and Velvia, depending on the subject.

For your last bit: I plan to spend some time this summer pushing myself with C-41s, because I don't think I could turn B&W only into a primary source of income. Even getting enough reps becomes a sizeable investment if I'm sending out to be developed, though. Much easier for quick feedback if I'm processing myself, too.

 

[dkirby]

Provided that you have the ability to maintain the temperature at 100F for the 3 mins 15 secs of the developing time then there is no reason at all why you should not process C41 negs that are every bit as professionally produced as any lab's You don't even need a darkroom, a changing bag is all the darkness you need. The rest of the C41 process is done in full light

pentaxuser

Water immersion for the Paterson tank between inversions? Is there a problem with 100F temps and the plastic of the tank? How do you maintain that temp?

 

[Fatih Ayoglu]

Water immersion for the Paterson tank between inversions? Is there a problem with 100F temps and the plastic of the tank? How do you maintain that temp?

Water bath, with a heater

 

[Paul Howell]

As you scan and only need processing Blue Moon Camera will develop a roll of 35mm for $6.75

Photo Lab Services Pricing | Blue Moon Camera

See our Photo Lab pricing for processing, printing, and scanning.

bluemooncamera.com

A one liter dry chemistry Unicolor C 41 kit at Freestyle is $30.00 at 8 roll a liter that come out to $3.75 a roll. You do need to add shipping.

For start up. If you use stainless tanks and reels you can same tanks for both B&W and Color, if you use plastic tanks and reels I would recommend a second set for color. You need a set of high quality plastic or glass bottles, or glass., a thermometer with + or - 1/4 degree. Then a temperature control unit. When still processing color I used a high end food grade temperature control unit. Although many people adjust times to compensate for different time, as you are selling your work you need as true to scene color as possible.

I guess it was me, I would shoot 2 rolls of color, one to send off as a reference the other process at home to see how close you are to a lab. When shooting color for catalogs and the Sunday Womans insert for various papers I used a kodak color grid, it was my first frame as a reference for printing.

 

[pentaxuser]

Water immersion for the Paterson tank between inversions? Is there a problem with 100F temps and the plastic of the tank? How do you maintain that temp?

You can buy a Sous Vide from Amazon or other retailers. Ít maintains the temperature of the water in which you keep the tank between inversions

pentaxuser

 

[dkirby]

As you scan and only need processing Blue Moon Camera will develop a roll of 35mm for $6.75

Photo Lab Services Pricing | Blue Moon Camera

See our Photo Lab pricing for processing, printing, and scanning.

bluemooncamera.com

A one liter dry chemistry Unicolor C 41 kit at Freestyle is $30.00 at 8 roll a liter that come out to $3.75 a roll. You do need to add shipping.

For start up. If you use stainless tanks and reels you can same tanks for both B&W and Color, if you use plastic tanks and reels I would recommend a second set for color. You need a set of high quality plastic or glass bottles, or glass., a thermometer with + or - 1/4 degree. Then a temperature control unit. When still processing color I used a high end food grade temperature control unit. Although many people adjust times to compensate for different time, as you are selling your work you need as true to scene color as possible.

I guess it was me, I would shoot 2 rolls of color, one to send off as a reference the other process at home to see how close you are to a lab. When shooting color for catalogs and the Sunday Womans insert for various papers I used a kodak color grid, it was my first frame as a reference for printing.

Copy that. Thank you, Paul.

 

[dkirby]

You can buy a Sous Vide from Amazon or other retailers. Ít maintains the temperature of the water in which you keep the tank between inversions

pentaxuser

Perfect. Thanks a bunch

 

[Mr Bill]

1) What is the experience that you have with self-developing color film in terms of ease of process and ability to get pro-level results from self-development (assuming of course that I put in the time to practice before attempting it with a client)? and, if so, 2) What is the cost per roll of your workflow?

Hi, I'm gonna answer more in terms of commercial processing, where I've had substantial experience. Regarding chemical costs, by far the most economical way is to use "replenished" chemicals (instead of use and then discard, you periodically add a smaller quantity of so-called replenisher which brings your working solution back up to original strength). The most economical developer, Kodak LORR, uses an extra-strong replenisher that uses only about 25 or 30 ml per roll of film. In other words you can develop somewhere around 35 rolls (135-36) per liter of replenisher with no degradation of development quality. So the chemical cost per roll (for developer only) would be whatever you pay for a liter of LORR replenisher divided by 35.

The problem with this is twofold. First, most amateur type processing methods aerate the developer too much to be suitable for replenishment of color developers - they will damage the C-41 developer in short order. Second, the actual amount of replenisher needed varies somewhat depending on the film and exposure. So a serious processor routinely processes special pre-exposed test strips from the film manufacturer (comparing vs a reference strip using an instrument called a densitometer). Then they will make any necessary adjustments to the replenishment rates. Consequently any pro-level processor will know, for sure, how closely they conform to the "proper" activity level for C-41. If one doesn't "know" that they are within standard C-41 tolerances I don't see how they could call it pro-level work.

For more info than you probably want download the Kodak Z-131 manual.

Now, on the plus side, precise control was important when all prints were made optically onto a matching color paper. Today, if you intend to scan film, only, it's theoretically possible to fix nearly any processing defect digitally. But... there's a large learning curve to do high (or even decent) quality color work.

My recommendation, assuming that you want to build your shooting business, is to stay concentrated on that, farming out the color film process/scan to those who already know how to do that. I imagine that you could, in short order, learn how to process the film well (moderate use and discard develop), but you may have trouble getting "guaranteed" scans of same. So unless you have a knowledgeable person on hand to guide you through things, I'd say to let a single entity process and scan film.

 

[mshchem]

Very few people are able to actually make money shooting film today, especially considering the logistics of getting film processed and scanned etc.

I process my own color, it's fun, not a business. I recently processed a friend's backlog of C41, 18 rolls, for free. I've got lots of good chemistry etc.

I would shoot digital for 90% of your color work.

 

[Philippe-Georges]

Derby,
You could perhaps use this: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...g-machine-for-sale.189786/page-2#post-2798780