Think I've just shot my last E6 film!

Pentode · Jul 28, 2018

I've been on the fence about this for a while. I love E6's look, but it has gotten very pricey.
I'm lucky enough to have a good lab here in town and I don't get my film mounted, which helps a lot, but it still adds up.

I mostly shoot B&W nowadays - not so much because of the cost but because I enjoy it and I like processing at home - so I've been considering, strongly, switching over to digital for all my color stuff.
I have very mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I know it's a much more practical way to approach color photography these days but, on the other, I feel like giving up E6 just contributes to the decrease in demand and, therefore, the faster demise of E6. It becomes a snake eating its own tail: the less we shoot the lower the demand, the lower the demand the higher the production cost, the higher the production cost the higher the price of film, the higher the price of film the less we shoot, etc.... I feel bad turning my back on it, but it just doesn't make a lot of sense for me to use E6 for my purposes anymore. I seldom shoot color anyway and I don't want to get involved with the nastier chemicals and the precise temperature control required for home color processing.

I have a trip planned in the fall and I'll shoot E6 because I don't want to risk losing important pictures while I'm learning a new technology (I've never owned a digital camera other than my cell phone) but once I return I'll be shopping for a digital body and an adapter. From that point on I doubt I'll be shooting color film.

GarageBoy · Jul 28, 2018

I don't shoot enough to get a home set up, but I'm more annoyed about how spotty some labs can be. Fingerprints are not okay!

bestbefore1978 · Jul 28, 2018

pentaxuser said:
OlyMan, have a look at AGPhotolab as well as silverpan. It is difficult to tell which is the cheaper as it would appear that AGPhotolab will give you a Freepost label for sending film in and charge £3.49 for its return whereas silverpan does not offer Freepost labels but it isn't clear to me if its price includes free delivery. It would seem unlikely but I may be doing it a disservice with such speculation.

There may be delays in processing at silverpan as it is done in batches. If there is a similar delay at AGPhotolab then this is not obvious. Certainly I know that AGPhotolab does a good job but I have no knowledge of silverpan.

Both would certainly appear to be a lot cheaper than your current price.

pentaxuser

Hi Pentaxuser, At SilverPan we offer free 1st class return postage if your slides, but the cost of sending the film to the lab is met by the user.

Our turnaround for E6 is generally 1-3 days depending on how busy we are and the size of scans.
We are now running E6 every day, as we are currently getting enough in to ensure full utilisation of each batch of chemistry.

Thanks

pentaxuser · Jul 28, 2018

Thanks for the clarification on postage costs, bestbefore1978

pentaxuser

Paul Howell · Jul 28, 2018

I have not shot slide film in many years maybe 10 to 15 years. Reason is that my clients at the time wanted a digital file. For prints I use negative film which I think had better latitude when printed. Now that all the color directive positive paper is gone and you need to make a internegative to print just skip the step and print from a negative to begin with. I was never into slide shows so I have printed for display.

Steve Roberts · Jul 28, 2018

The Darkroom at Cheltenham offers 35mm E6 process and mount for £8.50 with return postage being £3.50 for as many films as you choose to send in one batch and a discount if you send ten. Postage for unmounted film is less (£2.00 IIRC). My use of E6 is such that I'd claim a fairly high percentage of successful shots for record/educational use (others might dispute that!) I'm using refrigerated stock at c.£7.00 a 36 exp film so the resulting slides turn out at about 50p a pop - not bad, though of course that's dependent on using film at last year's prices. B/W isn't cheap - cost of film and chemicals, time in the darkroom if costed in plus paper (ouch!) 10 x 8 at c.50p a sheet as well as inevitable rejects...... Analogue photography isn't a poor man's hobby, but unlike digital the equipment last (virtually) for ever, with no expensive software/hardware upgrades.
Steve

jtk · Jul 28, 2018

E6 scans beautifully. No film rivals it. Kodachrome didn't....the only way to beat E6 is...

M-88 · Jul 29, 2018

E-6 films are not a thing in my country, unfortunately. And there's only one lab that develops E-6. For 6$ per roll. And you have to wait a few weeks until enough amount of film is accumulated so it's "worth opening a new batch of chemicals".

I have never tried E-6. Can't think of anything worth shooting. Because let's face it - one roll of E-6 film and its development will cost me as much as buying three rolls of Ektar. So I will try E-6 film if and only if new Ektachrome is released. Just for the sake of it.

AgX · Jul 29, 2018

RattyMouse said:
Yep, E6 is just too expensive to be sustainable.

With C-41 prints have to be paid for too.

With E-6 you only have to pay the film and its processing (if you are lucky still as cheap as 6€ complete), and the mounts and magazines (old stock can be cheap too, used it can be free).
The projector you likely get locally for 5€. The same for the screen.

Steve Roberts · Jul 29, 2018

Should have mentioned that The Darkroom don't charge for postage of your unexposed film (they include a pre-paid mailer or you can download one from the Interweb) and their turnaround is usually one day, so film goes in the post on Monday, back on Wednesday. I've had no cause for complaint in many years of using them. They provide many other services, some in the d*****l domain. When I required an enlargement from a 2 1/4 sq transparency, the one of the twelve virtually identical shots on the roll that I wanted to use exhibited a flaw in the emulsion. With a short phone call followed by a diagram, they did the necessary and produced an excellent print.
Steve

pentaxuser · Jul 29, 2018

It may be worth adding that AGPhotolab will also do prints @5 x7.5 ( full frame of 35mm) of the slides on what I understand to be RA4 paper at what seem a very reasonable cost. Certainly when you take into account the time and cost of E6 and no way any more to do darkroom RA4 prints from transparencies plus the time needed even if such was possible then it seems to take away a lot Olyman's justified despair at continuing with E6 on cost grounds

pentaxuser

Mackinaw · Jul 29, 2018

Steve Roberts said:
Should have mentioned that The Darkroom don't charge for postage of your unexposed film (they include a pre-paid mailer or you can download one from the Interweb).......

Sure they do. That $11.00 you're paying for processing includes shipping cost. No free lunch there.

Jim B.

pentaxuser · Jul 29, 2018

Mackinaw said:
Sure they do. That $11.00 you're paying for processing includes shipping cost. No free lunch there.

Jim B.

I think you may be talking about a different darkroom. The one referred to by Steve Roberts is in Cheltenham, England. The OP lives in England and his complaint about prices pertains to one E6 processing establishment in the U.K. which as others have pointed out is not necessarily representative of all E6 processing establishments in England/U.K. England or maybe that's the whole of Great Britain is the small place across the Atlantic about the size of Texas on a good day as we say over here

pentaxuser

Steve Roberts · Jul 29, 2018

With the way UK postage is charged these days, the cost of sending a 35mm film in a plastic pot is ridiculously high because it exceeds a certain size, regardless of weight. You could near enough send a cardboard shoe box of stuff through the system for no extra cost (I'm probably exaggerating, but I'm sure you get my point!) Though the cost is no doubt factored into the bottom line charged, The Darkroom's self-adhesive label just has to be slapped on to a padded envelope containing one, two, three or however many films and off it goes - no queuing at the post office or faffing around with counter staff who weren't born when yellow envelopes were shooting off to Hemel Hempstead. That convenience alone is worth a great deal as well as the excellent service I have always received from The Darkroom. There's a YouTube video that shows what happens with their E6 processing at:
No big surprises, but worth a watch. In case anyone Googles The Darkroom and turns up one Barrie Roberts as owner/director, I should say that we're not related!
Steve

pentaxuser · Jul 29, 2018

Steve Roberts said:
No big surprises, but worth a watch. In case anyone Googles The Darkroom and turns up one Barrie Roberts as owner/director, I should say that we're not related!
Steve

Damn! There goes my conspiracy theory Thanks for the video link, Steve

pentaxuser

RattyMouse · Jul 29, 2018

AgX said:
With C-41 prints have to be paid for too.

Nope. I never order prints. I only get processing for C41. Or at least I used to. I have now 29 rolls of C41 shot sitting in the can.

Cloudy 8 · Jul 29, 2018

In Germany the major drugstore chains still offer E6 development with in-store drop off and pick up.
I got a roll back from the local "dm" store last week, paid just €1.95. Nothing to complain about, really.
Not sure if they still do framing though.

And while there are rumours that it will be discontinued soon, that store still had a shelf full of AgfaPhoto CT Precisa (€12.45 for two rolls).

AgX · Jul 30, 2018

No more mounting at the major lab (supplies issue), don't know about the other.

msage · Aug 1, 2018

Steve Roberts said:
With the way UK postage is charged these days, the cost of sending a 35mm film in a plastic pot is ridiculously high because it exceeds a certain size, regardless of weight. You could near enough send a cardboard shoe box of stuff through the system for no extra cost (I'm probably exaggerating, but I'm sure you get my point!) Though the cost is no doubt factored into the bottom line charged, The Darkroom's self-adhesive label just has to be slapped on to a padded envelope containing one, two, three or however many films and off it goes - no queuing at the post office or faffing around with counter staff who weren't born when yellow envelopes were shooting off to Hemel Hempstead. That convenience alone is worth a great deal as well as the excellent service I have always received from The Darkroom. There's a YouTube video that shows what happens with their E6 processing at:
No big surprises, but worth a watch. In case anyone Googles The Darkroom and turns up one Barrie Roberts as owner/director, I should say that we're not related!
Steve

Good video but does a mistake in the naming. Slide film is a piece of film in a plastic or cardboard holder. A piece of E-6 35mm film un-mounted is not a slide!

Alan Edward Klein · Aug 1, 2018

msage said:
Good video but does a mistake in the naming. Slide film is a piece of film in a plastic or cardboard holder. A piece of E-6 35mm film un-mounted is not a slide!

Even if it's not mounted, slide film is film that can be mounted to become slides.

Ste_S · Aug 2, 2018

pentaxuser said:
OlyMan, have a look at AGPhotolab as well as silverpan. It is difficult to tell which is the cheaper as it would appear that AGPhotolab will give you a Freepost label for sending film in and charge £3.49 for its return whereas silverpan does not offer Freepost labels but it isn't clear to me if its price includes free delivery. It would seem unlikely but I may be doing it a disservice with such speculation.

There may be delays in processing at silverpan as it is done in batches. If there is a similar delay at AGPhotolab then this is not obvious. Certainly I know that AGPhotolab does a good job but I have no knowledge of silverpan.

Both would certainly appear to be a lot cheaper than your current price.

pentaxuser

A shout out for my local lab, Palm also in Birmingham (UK).
120/35mm E6 process is £5, mount is +£3 and a 'medium' scan is +£6

msage · Aug 2, 2018

Alan Edward Klein said:
Even if it's not mounted, slide film is film that can be mounted to become slides.

Then all film is slide film with that thinking. I have seen negative film mounted and different sizes mounted also. All slides are transparencies but not all transparencies are slides.

AgX · Aug 2, 2018

Slide film is film designed to make projection slides.

(In German and some other languages it is called Dia-Film)

msage said:
All slides are transparencies but not all transparencies are slides.

Exactly..

But all films designed to make transparencies follow the same principle: higher density as light only passes them once.

Poisson Du Jour · Aug 2, 2018

They are trannies...

Alan Edward Klein · Aug 2, 2018

Slide film and transparencies are commonly called slide film I guess because most transparencies at least in 35mm used to be mounted for projection. They don't have to be mounted. It may be a colloquial presentation. But people use the word interchangeably especially for 35mm format.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Fuji-Velvia-RVP-135-36-50ASA-Slide-Film/172289431
https://petapixel.com/2018/06/04/kodak-teases-first-test-photos-shot-on-new-ektachrome-film/

Think I've just shot my last E6 film!

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