I Haven't Shot Color Print Film Since The Days Where....

DF · Jun 16, 2022

....you simply dropped it off and got an envelope W/negatives and your 4"X6"'s back, all for roughly $7-$8 !!
What a hassle it is now - do I want negatives - do I want scans - which do I want printed....and how expensive!
'Perhaps I'll stick to Ektachrome or Velvia.

M Carter · Jun 16, 2022

I haven't shot color since Cibachrome died. Those prints looked a foot deep.

Sirius Glass · Jun 16, 2022

I still shoot black & white and color film.

projectbluebird · Jun 16, 2022

The last time I shot color film you could still buy Fuji Pro 800Z, fresh!
I was also developing it myself, in my college’s (tiny) but well-equipped color lab.
(And in the brand-new ‘digital‘ photography course we shot slides, and scanned them into photoshop.)

gone · Jun 16, 2022

I shot 2 rolls of color film a few years ago in Albuquerque. They were developed by a local lab, and I got scans on a CD as well as 4x6 prints, which look really good. Lots of nicely saturated color w/ very little grain. Unfortunately, I can no longer find either the prints or the negs, and I have no idea what film it was.

BrianShaw · Jun 16, 2022

Gosh… the options really aren’t that difficult…

The cost is a different matter. Much more expensive than the olden days.

pbromaghin · Jun 16, 2022

I gave up on color film because of all the above, plus the fact that I really don't have a good enough eye for color casts and all those other complications. But the new availability of ECN2 in 100ft bulk rolls along with developing kits made me give it another go. The experiment is still early. We'll see what happens. Lots to learn.

Ektachrome in 400ft is tempting.

Sirius Glass · Jun 16, 2022

My photography dropped off once it was not possible to meaningfully travel during COVID. I am beginning to travel more and take more photographs.

Down Under · Jun 16, 2022

All posts here are good responses, but to me the OP and #6 have it right.

Many young'uns (and a few of us oldies) who have returned to film are shooting color negative film nowadays. For how long they will do it, nobody knows. The lack of good prolabs (I define "prolab" as any lab that doesn't charge like a wounded bull for its services and scratch my negatives in the processing) and the high cost of buying film, are two negatives (bad pun, sorry) to this interesting born-again, what - fad?? resurgence?? mass movement back to more natural processes??

Cost is an important factor, especially given the global recession we now seem to be moving steadily into.

We older and more experienced shooters know that film is interesting, and has a 'look' entirely different from the clinical coldness and pixel-perfection of digital.

So yes, I think more young photographers are buying film cameras and lenses and using them in the field - but will they go on doing it long-term??

I have 20-30 rolls resting peacefully in my darkroom fridge, and when I return to Southeast Asia next month I plan to take it all with me, also B&W, and my Contax G1 kit, my two goals being to shoot it all off before it rots and to travel more lightly than my usual Nikon D700 or D800 kit would let me.

Age has wearied me, and film seems to me to no longer be a 'given'...

Your thoughts on all this, please.

Patrick Robert James · Jun 16, 2022

I don't shoot much color at all, never did. The days of dropping off film at Costco and getting it back on the way out for a few bucks are over though. I kind of kick myself sometimes for not taking advantage of that, but hindsight is 20/20. I remember buying 100 foot rolls of Agfa Optima (still have some) for $20. Should have bought all they had.

These days when I shoot color I accumulate then develop them myself. It isn't very expensive that way and i can develop it exactly how I want, which is to get a thick neg. Then I scan. I would love to print color too at some point but I don't have a color head and I don't like the chemical smells of color. If I had a roller processor and more space I'd love to do it, just for fun. Color darkroom prints are really beautiful in my opinion, even if they aren't cibachrome. I still have a bunch of color film laying around, but I am thinking of getting some big 400 foot rolls of cinema film just to future proof it all. I am no luddite, but film just has that special something to it.

AZD · Jun 16, 2022

Thinking about this with as little nostalgia as possible, the combination of convenience, low cost, and high quality in the last decade of film is what I miss. Just did a quick scan through my albums and it looks like my last rolls of color were around 2006. The quality is great. Film and processing were so cheap you simply turned in 10 rolls after vacation, picked the best images, and forgot about the rest. It’s certainly a different economic calculation now.

However, before mini labs got really good, I produced many examples of “the film look”, for better or worse, often the latter.

My first pictures from 2007 with my shiny new D80 are… mostly better? Or at least as good. The paper looks and feels like the same print material. Clear details, good colors.

But, and it’s a big but, I hated editing pictures on a computer. And organizing digital files. And sorting through it all trying to find something later. That pretty much killed digital for me, and put me off of photography for over a decade.

I have considered going to slide film for color. The cost looks awful up front, but is it really? With a bit of skill and restraint the number of keepers should be high. And at maybe $1-2 per image, is it honestly that much more than the time it takes to edit, plus having prints made? And you can have a grandpa-style slide show! Pineapple bundt cake is optional.

MattKing · Jun 16, 2022

Until recently I could walk down the street, drop off a film at London Drugs and then, either later that day or by noon the following pick up developed negatives, 4x6 (inkjet) prints and a CD of mediocre scans.
Since moving I have to drive 15-20 minutes to get the same result.
They have around 60 locations offering that service in Western Canada.
It is significantly more expensive though than it used to be.

Sirius Glass · Jun 16, 2022

The building owner would not renew the lease for Samy's in Culver City, so that location closed. Now I drive a little farther on more difficult route to Samy's on Fairfax and have to wait several days for the processing. It used to be the next day I would get the film and the prints. Now I can never predict when the prints will be available. So now I drop off the film and drive away singing "Some day my prints will come".

Agulliver · Jun 17, 2022

I shot a roll of Ektar last weekend, popped it into my local lab on Monday afternoon....paid my £4 and got the scans sent to my inbox on Wednesday. I shall pick up the negatives this afternoon. Wasn't difficult at all. Also enjoyed a nice chat with the lady in the shop about youngsters buying film cameras, but lack of colour film to sell them.

Don_ih · Jun 17, 2022

I will periodically shoot colour film to develop using a powder kit - so I like to either shoot a bunch in a row or save them up. I then make prints from some of them. The last time I did this, I shot some 4x5 Ektar and enlarged it - that was my first time enlarging colour 4x5. It went easier than expected.

There is nowhere close to here to get film developed. While it is ultimately cheaper to do it myself, I would shoot colour more often if I could easily get it developed at a lab. I'd still want to enlarge it myself, though - as frustrating as that can be.

Paul Howell · Jun 17, 2022

The camera shop near me is now 100% analog, well film and used cameras, they no longer have a R4 printer, all inkjet. I use to get a roll of C41 developed for a few dollars, current price is $10.00 and $20 for prints. A roll of Porta 400 is up to $20 a roll on Amazon, Freestyle is out. Fuji200, rebranded Kodak is $10. To shoot a roll of color my is now $40. Most of the folks who shoot color are scanning so their cost is around $20. There are a few off brand R4 kits, most are 4 liters, I could print myself, maybe if I can get a 1 liter kit I might.

DREW WILEY · Jun 17, 2022

I'm printing color neg film right now, that is, the past few weeks and probably most of this summer. I'm using Fuji Supergloss, and its a better medium than Cibachrome ever was - better color balanced, more robust and less fragile, no static issues, easier to process. I'll bet that if I threw some of these in the same stack as Cibachromes, not one of you could tell the difference, although the white versus black borders would be an instant giveaway. I'm enlarging primarily Ektar (6X7, 6X9, 4X5, and 8x10 film), but also working with some 8x10 internegs made from older LF chrome film shots. Doing 24 X 30 inch prints at the moment.

No different in principle than printing RA4 snapshots, just bigger, and ya gotta re-mortgage the Drugstore to afford a big roll of the stuff to begin with. No one hour results. I do the processing in drums.

There are several local labs that can still do color neg snapshots without defaulting to Stinkjet. CN film is alive and well, and better than ever, at least from Kodak. Fuji's film selection has drastically thinned out; but they excel at the printing paper end of the equation.

Huss · Jun 22, 2022

I shoot colour film and B&W all the time. Literally daily. W/ colour I drop it off with the wonderful people at Paul's Photo in Torrance and get it back in a few hours. I tell them dev only, no cut. Scan it with my digicam when I get home. With B&W - buy it in mass quantities from places like midwest photo or freestyle, shoot it, dev it w DF96 monobath, let it dry, ready to scan in a couple of hours after shooting.
My photo output went up during Covid, as that was when I re-discovered developing B&W film myself. Spent the time documenting the town I was in.

As for the OP not being able to decide on negative, scans, prints. Ya, I feel that pain when trying to order a coffee. Full cream milk? Soy? Sugar? Oh no too much to handle!

foc · Jun 22, 2022

Commercial film developing has gone from mass-market (years ago now) to a niche market (now).
As with any niche product, the retail price will be more and to add extra value (profit) there will be (sometimes) a long list of extras available (ie: scan size, email or usb, index prints, 6x4 (10x15cm) prints, sleeve negs in 4 or 6, return negs or not, etc)

It can be a bit bewildering but multi choice appears to be here to stay as @Huss said with the coffee order.

One thing for sure, the price will not go down. In fact I think the previous film developing prices were too low to sustain business.

Sirius Glass · Jun 22, 2022

foc said:
Commercial film developing has gone from mass-market (years ago now) to a niche market (now).
As with any niche product, the retail price will be more and to add extra value (profit) there will be (sometimes) a long list of extras available (ie: scan size, email or usb, index prints, 6x4 (10x15cm) prints, sleeve negs in 4 or 6, return negs or not, etc)

It can be a bit bewildering but multi choice appears to be here to stay as @Huss said with the coffee order.

One thing for sure, the price will not go down. In fact I think the previous film developing prices were too low to sustain business.

With Costco getting out of the 35mm color print film processing, I started taking the 35mm along with my 120 film to Samy's Camera to process and wait three or four days rather than the length of time for a Costco shopping run.

Huss · Jun 22, 2022

Sirius Glass said:
With Costco getting out of the 35mm color print film processing, I started taking the 35mm along with my 120 film to Samy's Camera to process and wait three or four days rather than the length of time for a Costco shopping run.

Man we really didn't know what we had until it was gone! They would develop a roll of colour film for $1.86. I actually petitioned Costco HQ to keep the film department in the Marina Del Rey/Venice location. I said they were providing a service for the artist community etc. Plus they always were crazy busy, it wasn't as if no-one was using them.
But to no avail - Costco corporate wants all its stores to have the same services, so if something is gone from one, it's gone from all.
Other locations across the country apparently do not have the volume of film work that the major metropolitan areas had.

Sirius Glass · Jun 22, 2022

Huss said:
Man we really didn't know what we had until it was gone! They would develop a roll of colour film for $1.86. I actually petitioned Costco HQ to keep the film department in the Marina Del Rey/Venice location. I said they were providing a service for the artist community etc. Plus they always were crazy busy, it wasn't as if no-one was using them.
But to no avail - Costco corporate wants all its stores to have the same services, so if something is gone from one, it's gone from all.
Other locations across the country apparently do not have the volume of film work that the major metropolitan areas had.

Before closing down the film development, their only failing was not processing 120 film.

Andrew O'Neill · Jun 23, 2022

Since 2005. I only shot colour to shoot my kids. Then my wife bought a digital PS when we went back to Japan for a visit.

Agulliver · Jun 24, 2022

foc said:
Commercial film developing has gone from mass-market (years ago now) to a niche market (now).
As with any niche product, the retail price will be more and to add extra value (profit) there will be (sometimes) a long list of extras available (ie: scan size, email or usb, index prints, 6x4 (10x15cm) prints, sleeve negs in 4 or 6, return negs or not, etc)

It can be a bit bewildering but multi choice appears to be here to stay as @Huss said with the coffee order.

One thing for sure, the price will not go down. In fact I think the previous film developing prices were too low to sustain business.

I don't know how my local lab does it. I've made it quite clear they could increase processing prices by 50% and still match the next cheapest I've found in the UK. But they show no sign of increasing prices, which have been stable for several years. I know they *are* making a profit. I assume overheads are very low.

What is certain is that the days of dropping off rolls of film with the convenience store down the road from work, and picking up prints & negs the following day for a grand total of £1.99 are over. And are not coming back.

I Haven't Shot Color Print Film Since The Days Where....

DF

M Carter

Sirius Glass

projectbluebird

gone

BrianShaw

pbromaghin

Sirius Glass

Down Under

Patrick Robert James

AZD

MattKing

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Sirius Glass

Agulliver

Don_ih

Paul Howell

DREW WILEY

Huss

foc

Sirius Glass

Huss

Sirius Glass

Andrew O'Neill

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Agulliver

I Haven't Shot Color Print Film Since The Days Where....

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