Smarter Every Day - This is GREAT!

A real plug for film photography from the YouTube channel Smarter Every Day. Destin has done a marvelous job of not only explaining how film photography works, but also showing us the inside of an operating lab with engaged and enthusiastic employees.
It's all in a day's work to us. But the plug in favor of film is wonderful and, I think, to be commended.


Cheers,
Will

I've subscribed to his channel for quite some time. Always good stuff.

I like this guy, been watching his stuff for years. Makes me happy that he's one of us. Knowing his channel he may just get obsessed with film and run another handful of videos on it. Hope he starts his own development.

Thanks Will.

I love seeing people as excited as I am when they make photographs, thanks Will !

Great video! Thanks. I've never seen a one man revolving door. Ours will fit 4.

Thanks for posting. The Frontier SP3000 brought back some nice memories.

foc said:

Thanks for posting. The Frontier SP3000 brought back some nice memories.

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foc said:

Thanks for posting. The Frontier SP3000 brought back some nice memories.

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The Frontier series are the only ones I trust to scan my 35mm color negatives.

George Mann said:

The Frontier series are the only ones I trust to scan my 35mm color negatives.

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The Fuji software for the Frontiers was very good, IMO. The only drawback was that they operated on windows NT.
The SP3000 was a very fast, high volume scanner but it didn't skimp on the quality of the scan.

foc said:

The Fuji software for the Frontiers was very good, IMO. The only drawback was that they operated on windows NT.
The SP3000 was a very fast, high volume scanner but it didn't skimp on the quality of the scan.

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I could have sworn that the tech at one of the labs I use said that they had been updated to run on XP/2000.

Interesting video. I take it that this lab only processes and scans film so if you want RA4 prints from your film then you have to go elsewhere for this service?
Does it do inkjet printing or is this down to the consumer to either have this done elsewhere or do it at home from the scans sent to him/her. As the colour correction is done to the scans of the negs what role does the film have once it is returned to the consumer?

Thanks

pentaxuser

George Mann said:

I could have sworn that the tech at one of the labs I use said that they had been updated to run on XP/2000.

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Yes that could be true, I just remember the one I had was on NT. I also had a Pakon F135 and it had to have windows XP. Another great little scanner.

pentaxuser said:

Does it do inkjet printing or is this down to the consumer to either have this done elsewhere or do it at home from the scans sent to him/her. As the colour correction is done to the scans of the negs what role does the film have once it is returned to the consumer?

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I would imagine that it is up to the customer if they wish to print their photos, a lot of people don't. For the lab to run an RA4 printer and processor is a big investment and more importantly, you need the volume/throughput to keep it running.
They could install a dry lab (inkjet), not as volume sensitive, but again it is a big investment and it might go against the ethos of a film (analogue) lab.

Returning the negs to the customer because it's their property and they, the customer, may want to keep them. Although when I had my lab (IIRC) 75% of mailorder dev & scan orders DIDN'T want the negs returned. The opposite was true of the call-in customers.

Full of the same kliché mysticism you always get when you hear someone introduce film.
But it was made with a good heart, entertaining, and was overall a good introduction.
If it makes more people interested, then that is fantastic.
Look at the major YouTubers showing support underneath.

foc said:

I would imagine that it is up to the customer if they wish to print their photos, a lot of people don't. For the lab to run an RA4 printer and processor is a big investment and more importantly, you need the volume/throughput to keep it running.
They could install a dry lab (inkjet), not as volume sensitive, but again it is a big investment and it might go against the ethos of a film (analogue) lab.

Returning the negs to the customer because it's their property and they, the customer, may want to keep them. Although when I had my lab (IIRC) 75% of mailorder dev & scan orders DIDN'T want the negs returned. The opposite was true of the call-in customers.

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Thanks and ,yes, it may be the size of the lab that mitigates against RA4 printing although my local lab in what is a small town still does this up to 8x10 size It is just that looking ahead and if this lab is the future then RA4 printing would appear to have a gloomy outlook other than a few home "diehard" printers and to a lesser extent the fact that other than being the taking medium, film then seems to be largely redundant in the process as for many it then has the status of a throwaway item

It just leaves me uneasy about the future. The lab people in this video are clearly enthusiastic but I can't help wondering if they are heralding a new dawning or simply raging against the "dying of the light"

pentaxuser

It costs less money to run and maintain a high commercial volume RA-4 print processor than an equivalent inkjet printer.
One of the small independent camera store attached labs around here used to make excellent RA-4 prints. They decided to replace their printer with a modern lab volume inkjet printer. They expected to save lots of money, on the electrical costs alone.
Paper costs went down, ink costs replaced at higher cost what they were spending on chemicals. Electrical costs went down and the software and support costs ended up making everything much more expensive to run than the RA-4 machine had ever been.
And while the wider colour gamut of inkjet appealed to some users, I didn't like their prints any more.
I don't know how their volumes compared, but the store is closed after many years of operation, and the owner is selling cars.

Yes, Matt, my local lab has had RA4 printing facilities from its start many years ago so now the fixed costs of buying this facility has now been amortised long since and the lab will do a set of 5x7 RA4 prints remarkably cheaply. I want to be able to leaf through a set of prints in my hand and then do the same again at a later date from that envelope of prints or from an album but I need "hard copy"

What bothers me is that this need seems to be largely disappearing in the generation that is now to an extent returning to film. Once any desire for hard copy goes then it augurs badly for the "paper" side of the business

pentaxuser

Analog prints for cheap? If only I knew of such a lab.

The vast majority of all RA-4 prints are not made in an analogue way - they are made on high volume machines exposing from digital files with lasers or other sources of light. It is those volumes that permit there to still be RA-4 papers and chemicals still availabe.

Yes I should have made this clearer; the machines in my local mini-lab do exactly what Matt has described but what comes out is a RA4 print on colour paper. It is the future of RA4 darkroom paper and its process that I am worried about. If we end up with film only labs as shown in the video we may lose colour paper and the chemicals needed for darkroom colour prints. At that point colour enlargers are very big doorstops

Hopefully the econs of the alternative way makes no economic sense as described by Matt and those home darkroom colour print enthusiasts will still have access to the paper and chemicals required

pentaxuser

I remember, about 5 years or more ago, a Fuji lab engineer telling me that R&D had stopped in RA4. How true this was I don't know.
I do know that a lot of the small minilabs switched to dry lab (inkjet) partly being pushed by the local Fuji rep and being told of huge savings in electricity charges. For example a (wet lab) Frontier 350 laser print-processor unit can consume 4 kilowatts (approx) of electricity when running.
What they weren't told was that the cost of ink was high, so that the unit cost per print of a dry lab was between 2-3 times more expensive than a wet lab.
So for the small volume lab, the dry lab looked good, but once you had any sort of decent volume the wet lab won on print unit price and speed.

Big online print labs, for example, Photo Box (Ire, Uk & EU) use RA4 prints. AFAIK, Snapfish uses inkjet but they are owned by Hewley-Packard.

I think the Fuji Instax has reignited a desire to have prints made for digital files. But this time around the customer is only printing the ones they want and they want different formats ( imitation polaroid prints were a craze a few years ago). I don't think we need to worry about RA4 disappearing just yet but maybe Henning Serger could give a more accurate picture of it.