Very positive news: Five new darkroom products from Heiland, Germany

Tom Kershaw said:

And much darkroom gear will keep in good condition for multiple years / decades; unlike those sneakers or smartphone.

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MattKing said:

A $200.00 safelight makes a decent amount of sense, because if you have a commercial operation, and you need reliability, and need to replace something that is causing problems, a $200.00 investment is efficient and inexpensive.

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How many commercial labs are there left in the world? 100 maybe?

markbau said:

How many commercial labs are there left in the world? 100 maybe?

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No, if you consider all professinal labs (C41, E6 and BW) you will get a total number in the four-digit range. And the number is increasing again.

Best regards,
Henning

I have to disagree to those saying the Heiland products are too expensive. They are neither in absolute terms, nor in relative terms.
I have seen the production at their factory (see my original post):
- highest production quality standards
- excellent skilled staff
- excellent engineering capabilities (they are also building machines for film manufacturers and other industry partners for example)
- suppliers also on highest quality standards; and Heiland is using regional suppliers, they have a very close and trusted relationsship to them, and very short distances
- no cheap Asian electronics
- no cheap plastic components
- excellent service (they care for their customers)
- they listen to customers: several improvement suggestions from customers have been implemented in their products quickly.

E.g. I am using a Heiland TRD-2 Densitometer. It is really outstanding, both from build quality and functionality. It is so well build that it will serve me until I die. And then another photographer can continue using it.
Such high quality products have an excellent price-performance ratio: You can use them for many decades, and often the next generation benefit from them, too. And therefore they are in the end the better and more cost-efficient products. Much better than cheaper products which are unprecise and brake after short usage times. If you buy cheap, you pay double.

Best regards,
Henning

markbau said:

How many commercial labs are there left in the world? 100 maybe?

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You have to include labs operated by individual, "fine art" photographers, as well as those who do work for others.

You don't pay double for cheap gear over time, Henning .... you pay over and over and over, and that's without taking into account the expense of all the film or paper that gets wasted when some gadget keeps going wrong. Then one has to factor if their time is worth anything or not. It's false economy all around.

Quality is economy. I've fiddled around with used equipment, in all I've been pretty lucky. If I was doing this professionally or on an academic schedule, buying new equipment would make sense.

DREW WILEY said:

You don't pay double for cheap gear over time, Henning .... you pay over and over and over, and that's without taking into account the expense of all the film or paper that gets wasted when some gadget keeps going wrong. Then one has to factor if their time is worth anything or not. It's false economy all around.

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Drew, I have always found it sad that people will value their labor at 0 to everyone except their employer. Their time is worth just as much to a customer of their photographs as it is to someone who regularly pays them for their labor. It is the photographer who under-values the time spent taking pictures and making prints. Not customers. If a person insists on not treating photography as a business, they should quit trying to sell their work and enjoy the "HOBBY". You and Henning are absolutely correct. Cheap junk is the most expensive equipment that money can buy. Unfortunately this is a lesson that only experience seems to be able to teach. It is a shame that so many of us must learn the lesson over and over and over.........Regards!

A 20x24 enlarger, now there's something to drool over!

Arklatexian said:

Drew, I have always found it sad that people will value their labor at 0 to everyone except their employer. Their time is worth just as much to a customer of their photographs as it is to someone who regularly pays them for their labor. It is the photographer who under-values the time spent taking pictures and making prints. Not customers. If a person insists on not treating photography as a business, they should quit trying to sell their work and enjoy the "HOBBY". You and Henning are absolutely correct. Cheap junk is the most expensive equipment that money can buy. Unfortunately this is a lesson that only experience seems to be able to teach. It is a shame that so many of us must learn the lesson over and over and over.........Regards!

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I think a bit of perspective is needed here. When I was in the photo (lab) business, yes, I used and/or purchased the best, Durst, De Vere, Rodenstock/Schneider APO's, no question. Now it's just a hobby and I could never justify a 800 (or whatever it is) euro film dryer. My point is that there can't be that many pro labs anymore, in the city near me, Melbourne Australia, a city of 3 or so million, affluent, etc, there may be 3 or 4 labs that have C41/E6/B&W lines. I just don't see the market for high end lab gear. Look, I wish Heiland the very best, I wish Salthill and Zone VI were still in business (but I don't miss Picker's newsletters).
The world is overstocked with people who think that they can make money selling their photos. There are still many great photographers that make a living out of it but almost all of them are digital now. There are not many Kenna's out there. Darkroom is a niche/hobby thing now.

Henning Serger said:

Hello,

probably the most innovative and active manufacturer of darkroom equipment is Jürgen Heiland of Heiland electronic in Germany.

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That's really cool. What an enlarger!

Markbau - so you're implying that personal work is somehow inherently less deserving of quality consideration than commercial applications? I think it's the other way around. Maybe high volume and rapid turnover are not as much a priority, but printing for oneself allows for a higher level of dedication because one is not on the clock. Are we somehow less deserving of good gear? How the heck would you know how many gourmet printmakers are out there or not????? No, you're not going to see anything resembling a resurrection of Kreonite, Durst, etc. But niche and custom-made opportunities are still realistic. Want to make quick money? - open a pizza parlor. Making beautiful prints should be a labor of love first, whether or not it's a commercial success. That's been the case all along.

A commercial lab has to turn a profit. In the long run, they can amortize the cost of expensive equipment and not have to repair it often. Equipment that is durable means less down time for maintenance and repairs. Equipment that is still being manufactured (a rarity in this arena) has more support available in the way of parts and trained technicians.

Don't always count on mfg tech support. The most active full-service big lab in this area bankrupted over that very premise. They got roped into expensive service contracts mandatory with equipment purchases, and just when they needed that, the mfg told them they had moved on and not longer service that kind of gear. That mfg was Kodak. They made pro lab equip too, not just film etc. But they were still expected to make installment payments on pricey (hundreds of thousands of dollars) pieces of equipment which couldn't even be serviced! Twenty years of hard work building a successful business down the drain in six months. Better to deal with a little outfit which cares and will stand behind their product than a huge corporation only interested in stock market reports. But what goes around, comes around - word get around fast. But nothing I can think of is totally maintenance free. That's why I don't like buying anything I can't fix myself. In fact, most of my lab gear I made myself.

Markbau, Melbourne's population is now over 5 million, just so you know.....

Mick.

DREW WILEY said:

You don't pay double for cheap gear over time, Henning .... you pay over and over and over, and that's without taking into account the expense of all the film or paper that gets wasted when some gadget keeps going wrong. Then one has to factor if their time is worth anything or not. It's false economy all around.

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Hello Drew,
I can only agree with you......
When I wrote "If you buy cheap, you pay double" I just wanted to express the fact in a short and descriptive / demonstrative way.

Best regards,
Henning

markbau said:

.....in the city near me, Melbourne Australia, a city of 3 or so million, affluent, etc, there may be 3 or 4 labs that have C41/E6/B&W lines.

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Besides the fact that Melbourne has about 5 million inhabitants, it also has much more professional labs. There are almost 30 companies offering film processing in Melbourne. Have a look here:
https://urbanlight.net.au/melbourne-film-shooters-guide/
And this list is not even complete: E.g. there is also 'Film never die' lab in Melbourne.

Best regards,
Henning

Henning Serger said:

Besides the fact that Melbourne has about 5 million inhabitants, it also has much more professional labs. There are almost 30 companies offering film processing in Melbourne. Have a look here:
https://urbanlight.net.au/melbourne-film-shooters-guide/
And this list is not even complete: E.g. there is also 'Film never die' lab in Melbourne.

Best regards,
Henning

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That list is a bit misleading as I know that there is quite a bit of outsourcing. But I'll guess there might be 10 as there were a couple I was not aware of and I don't know if they actually develop or outsource.

Henning, you never cease to amaze me, you even know of, “Film Never Die”, which is a tiny business in Melbourne. It is a tiny but growing business, the owner is a rushing around type of person who seems to garner loyal customers with his unbridled enthusiasm for things photographic and boy does he move instant film packs.

They also have a table at Melbourne’s twice yearly camera flea market, where I see a lot of 35mm film being moved by them.

They recently moved to new premises, I haven’t visited yet but I will. Their previous place was on the second floor of a mainly disused building in the older financial part of Melbourne.

While sitting in their store one day some years ago waiting for the rain to stop, I struck up a conversation with a young film photographer, think under 20 years of age. He was standing at the window doing something with his phone for a while, eventually I worked out he was trying to work out an exposure regime using an app on his mobile.

We started talking and he expressed his desire to stop wasting film by using metering apps that didn’t seem to work under extreme light conditions. I pulled out my Gossen ProfiSix meter and we started to take some measurements and compare. About two years later I ran into him again and he promptly pulled out a ProfiSix light meter with a huge grin on his face.

He then told me that after seeing how easily I obtained consistent incident and reflected light readings, he wanted quality like that, so somehow he saved his money and ended up with what he called a quality product. I don’t think he has looked back since getting the Gossen; the message he implied was that the quality over the expense, was worth it. The price he paid for that meter was unbelievably low, he was and I presume he still is, over the moon at his purchase.

I currently don’t need anything that Heiland are manufacturing, but years ago I could have and I’m sure there are more people around the world who will purchase some of their offerings. I am tempted by the safelight, but……………………

Mick.

markbau said:

That list is a bit misleading as I know that there is quite a bit of outsourcing. But I'll guess there might be 10 as there were a couple I was not aware of and I don't know if they actually develop or outsource.

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As I know a lab owner in Melbourne, I can say that there are much more of ten labs processing themselves, and not outsourcing. And at least four (Hillvale, FilmNeverDie, Ikigai, Work in Process) of the self-processing labs are run by young, very enthusiastic people. And have been founded recently, the last years, in which the film-revival started. So the lab situation has significantly improved.
Not only in Melbourne, by the way. In other cities, too. E.g. in Bangkok the number of labs has doubled in the last 24 months, now 18 labs again there.

Your original statement was that only 100 prof. labs are left worldwide.That is completely out of touch with reality. We have currently 50 (conservative calculation) to 70 (optimistic calculation) million standard films (C41, E6, BW) sold p.a. globally. And the number is increasing. It is absolutely impossible to develop such an amount of films with only 100 labs.
By the way: In Germany alone we have a three digit number of labs.

Best regards,
Henning

Mick Fagan said:

Henning, you never cease to amaze me, you even know of, “Film Never Die”, which is a tiny business in Melbourne.

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Dear Mick, thanks for the kind words . As part of my job is market analysis of photo markets on a global scale, I know quite well what is going on in other countries, too. And I have contacts to photo businesses and photographers all over the world. Including Melbourne .

Mick Fagan said:

It is a tiny but growing business, the owner is a rushing around type of person who seems to garner loyal customers with his unbridled enthusiasm for things photographic and boy does he move instant film packs.

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Yes, indeed. And if you like him and his enthusiasm, you should also visit Ikigai in Melbourne. Also very passionate about film photography.

Mick Fagan said:

They also have a table at Melbourne’s twice yearly camera flea market, where I see a lot of 35mm film being moved by them.

They recently moved to new premises, I haven’t visited yet but I will. Their previous place was on the second floor of a mainly disused building in the older financial part of Melbourne.

While sitting in their store one day some years ago waiting for the rain to stop, I struck up a conversation with a young film photographer, think under 20 years of age. He was standing at the window doing something with his phone for a while, eventually I worked out he was trying to work out an exposure regime using an app on his mobile.

We started talking and he expressed his desire to stop wasting film by using metering apps that didn’t seem to work under extreme light conditions. I pulled out my Gossen ProfiSix meter and we started to take some measurements and compare. About two years later I ran into him again and he promptly pulled out a ProfiSix light meter with a huge grin on his face.

He then told me that after seeing how easily I obtained consistent incident and reflected light readings, he wanted quality like that, so somehow he saved his money and ended up with what he called a quality product. I don’t think he has looked back since getting the Gossen; the message he implied was that the quality over the expense, was worth it. The price he paid for that meter was unbelievably low, he was and I presume he still is, over the moon at his purchase.

I currently don’t need anything that Heiland are manufacturing, but years ago I could have and I’m sure there are more people around the world who will purchase some of their offerings. I am tempted by the safelight, but……………………

Mick.

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Thanks for the very interesting story.

Best regards,
Henning

So I actually have the expensive Heiland safelight tube, and am quite happy with it. I bought it because it seemed like a much better long-term solution than the old-school approach (janky enclosures with incandescent bulbs and filters that are increasingly difficult to actually get). I also bought it because I was willing to pay for an off-the-shelf solution that's pre-assembled and spec'd out and tested for my use case.

That being said, I did take a peek inside to see what you were paying for. In terms of what the components actually cost, it is grossly overpriced. You absolutely could DIY something nearly identical in form and function for a lot less money. Its an aluminum channel (/w mounting brackets), a translucent cover, an LED strip of the right light frequency (very common and easy to find item these days), some cords, a potentiometer, and a power adapter.

Mick Fagan said:

Markbau, Melbourne's population is now over 5 million, just so you know.....

Mick.

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And the next million will take only five years. Time for me to leave, I think.