Let's Talk About Spending a Lot of Money on Lab Equipment with the Aim of Retiring in 25 Years.

DREW WILEY said:

Fuji makes a whole lineup of RA4 papers. Their Fujiflex Supergloss is a fabulous product with the same look as Cibachrome but easier to use, itself being standard RA4. Yes, all but one product line - the product you apparently don't like - are available in rolls only. I'm not going to press the point, since you don't have commerical RA printing in mind.
Just general information. And most of these papers do just fine with traditional optical enlargement - no need for a Lamdba or other laser printer for sake of personal printing.

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Yes they do but . . . . they all fade on display. At first, it's not noticeable, then after a few years it is, and then suddenly they are washed out.

If you purchase a Colour print for display, you expect it to last. I had a print on the wall a friend made, it's so washed out it's junk, he still has the 5x4 E6 tranny so I can get a colour pigment print off it.

Even Kodachromes and Cibachromes fade. An uncle was Advertising & Marketing manager at Harrods, if one backlit image by the lifts was changed new Cibachromes were made of the others as you could spot the difference.

Having met Bob Carnie, he and I would not disagree on anything except age, he was shocked to find I was SO much younger than him I would add months, not years

NortheastPhotographic said:

I'm aware but the one I don't like is the only one sold as cut sheets. I just don't think it prints well in the darkroom. I actually have a small table top processor but for the short print runs I do it's hardly worth making and filling it. Inkjet is just winning all the arguments at least in my shop.

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While I would rather in some ways say the opposite. inkjet/pigment prints are way better for colour.

Ian

This is a great discussion! My thoughts are make sure that whatever you get it's easy for a novice to use.

I really agree with you regarding computational digital. Maybe every wedding venue has such things and you get your images as you take off from the church.

Really need to understand the building you are in. You don't want to have to move unexpectedly.

I think analog is the only sure thing.

I would be tempted to put in 12 inch pvc pipes vertical and dip and dunk old school

Oh I've made plenty of excellent prints on that cut sheet CA medium. But one has to be selective about which images take to it well, and which don't. So it's certainly not ideal as a general purpose paper for a commercial lab, where all kinds of color negatives factor, or inversion from scanned chromes.

What they call Super C here in the US, and now Super C II, is a much punchier product, with a thicker base too, and available up to 50 in roll size. For me it has a superior gamut over inkjet, but not quite as wide a gamut as Fujiflex, which is really a deluxe product.

Inkjet makes sense for many nowadays. For optical enlargements, I manipulate film curves and hue corrections and overall contrast tweaks by supplemental film masking instead, which certainly delivers the end result well, but at too slow a pace for commercial applications, and at higher expense too.

Ian - I wouldn't go around placing bets on what fades and what allegedly doesn't. There are plenty of susceptible dyes in the makeup of inkjet inks too. Actual pigment prints, they're not, and even if they were, UV can get to almost anything over time, unless your color palette resembles the surface of Mars.

I've got hundreds of Cibachromes that look like they were made yesterday. Yeah, you want to keep them out of direct sunlight and high-UV artificial sources. But I've got one of my very first ones on a wall behind me. It sat in mountain window light for 25 years, and overall, has been on display 45 years now, and still looks beautiful; a bit of the yellow dye has shifted. The worst thing for Cibas were the hot "projector" halogen lamps once popular in galleries. I've seen those actually melt the acrylic colors on major works by famous abstract expressionist painters within a week or two. Just plain dumb.

In terms of more recent Fuji Crystal Archive media, I had fifteen big 30X40 on display under clear overhead skylights plus 18 hrs per day under quite no-no high-UV commercial CFL lighting before the building sold - 15 yr of torture. I overprinted them a bit, so that they look just about right now. Another 15 yrs should be no problem, now that some of them are being displayed under much kinder lighting. If that had been the case all along, then Fuji's projections of a 75 display potential seems entirely credible. And their more recent RA4 papers have improved in that respect even more.

I doubt I'll even be around another 30 yrs, and inkjet technology is barely 30 yrs old, so
making premature claims about that is presumptive. I always sold my own prints with a bit of advice about how to protect them from fading or mildew, etc, and it seems the advice has been followed by collectors. But big huge decor pieces are going to get inevitably abused with respect to lighting, and will likely get thrown out when the sofa or drapes are anyway.

Can we please get back to the topic of capital investments for a small lab? We have PLENTY of threads about RA4 vs. inkjet. We really don't need another one that rehashes the same arguments we've gone through over and over and over and over again. The original question was about film processing equipment.

koraks said:

Can we please get back to the topic of capital investments for a small lab? We have PLENTY of threads about RA4 vs. inkjet. We really don't need another one that rehashes the same arguments we've gone through over and over and over and over again. The original question was about film processing equipment.

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Well moderating.

I agree with earlier recommendation to avoid long term loans. I know nothing about taxes. Lots of farming in Iowa. The folks who survive understand depreciation on equipment.

Some people trade million dollar pieces of equipment every 3 years, to take advantage of depreciation.

Not suggesting this for a photo lab, but it's good thing to keep it in mind.

With new equipment, one can get locked into mandatory service contracts. That can be an even bigger form of financial bondage, and you can't simply amortize it on brief cycles. The fine print has to be read. It's been the downfall of more than one big photo lab.

DREW WILEY said:

With new equipment, one can get locked into mandatory service contracts. That can be an even bigger form of financial bondage, and you can't simply amortize it on brief cycles. The fine print has to be read. It's been the downfall of more than one big photo lab.

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Very good point. In my experience, analytical chemistry lab/ material development, the service calls, not the routine tune ups, were very expensive.
Might be prudent to select the option with less technology.

The corollary also applies - avoid a product that doesn't have associated with it robust, accessible and competent service resources, with access to parts and specialized service equipment.