Process & Scan recommendations...

350wedge

350wedge

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Tony
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Can anyone recommend a good place for 35mm film processing and scanning that doesn't cost the earth.

It will mainly be for black & white and I need the scanned files to be ideally saved in a TIFF format....

Any good places out there that people have used..?
 
Processing recommendations can be found here in the resources section near the top of the page. most of them will scan as well. Depending on your needs, final usage and budget will get you different suggestions for your scanning, from Asda to Peak.
 
trevorbray said:
Not many places offer scans to TIFF
I've used these people, got a very good result.
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I wonder whether they output a tif right from the scanner, or whether the scanner outputs a jpg that is then converted, in which case it would be immaterial.
 
Hiya,

I used Snap Photo Services in the past to develop and scan my films. I found them to be great. Both 35mm and 120.

Though I no longer use them to scan anymore (decided to buy my own scanner), I still use them for processing.

Ta,
Shane :)
 
350wedge said:
Thats good to hear, I used to have my own film scanner too but no more. If I start taking a lot of film I might invest in another but its a lot of dosh for something decent!
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..and your home 35mm scanner will never be as good as a lab scan, but with a home scan you will still get a good A4 print...but one thing I've never tried yet is a home scan for over a A4 print...but I have blown up a home scan up to about 5ft across on my monitor and I reckon it would look VG as a print say viewed from about 20ft away.
 
droj said:
Won't it? What lab scan? I think that you need to quantify your assertions here and name your sources.
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Huh !!! a lab shouldn't be called a lab if they are only using a V500 or even a V750 and producing crappy scans........so you reckon a £20,000 to £50,000 scanner by a competent operator can not give better scans for your 35mm negs with say a V750 at home?
 
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Of course not, Brian. Thanks for more fully explaining what you meant.

I wouldn't expect anyone wanting to scan 35mm film well to use an A4 flatbed, though, but rather a dedicated film scanner, whereas I'd guess (but don't know) that the average dev-and-scan lab is using something like a Noritsu or Frontier with minimal operator intervention?
 
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Some guys here have a drum scanner and a Cezanne flatbed and I can't see any reason why they can't get the same results as a top lab at home. But I've seen what a VG lab can do with one of my 35mm negs and I just couldn't equal it with my V750
 
excalibur2 said:
Some guys here have a drum scanner and a Cezanne flatbed and I can't see any reason why they can't get the same results as a top lab at home. But I've seen what a VG lab can do with one of my 35mm negs and I just couldn't equal it with my V750
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Better
 
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robhooley167 said:
Better
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Doesn't surprise me Rob...but IMO the "also ran" home scanners suffer in producing detail (resolution?) and detail in the shadows (Dmax?) and I was reading about a digi technique of taking two shots, one for shadows and one for highlights and merging the two shots into one...not sure how you would do this with film.
 
You might be surprised how far you can go with a shot exposed for the shadows and scanned well, in terms of highlight recovery... but you can of course do HDR shots starting from film as well as digital, just need a tripod (and preferably a winder), then appropriate PP software including almost any version of PS or Elements?
 
Or do two scans with different exposures to favour highlights and shadows, and then merge.

I've never been successful in producing an enlargement of a 35mm negative larger than 10x8. That might be down to the cheap lenses I was using, but it was also down to the grain I could see. Either way, the results from my first Epson flatbed (3200?) with 35mm at least equalled my darkroom attempts with the format.
 
StephenM said:
Or do two scans with different exposures to favour highlights and shadows, and then merge.

I've never been successful in producing an enlargement of a 35mm negative larger than 10x8. That might be down to the cheap lenses I was using, but it was also down to the grain I could see. Either way, the results from my first Epson flatbed (3200?) with 35mm at least equalled my darkroom attempts with the format.
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Anyone done this merging and can say what the results are like? If an Asda scan can produce a decent A4 print (which I did on a old photo printer) then it shouldn't be a problem for a V500 esp with software "cheating".
Cheap doesn't always mean a crap lens as I've seen in the past, in classifieds, a Zuiko 50mm for £12 and plenty of good 28mms and 135mms lenses around as these were common......zooms can be a bit of a minefield though esp if anyone compares them with a modern digi zoom.
 
At the time I'm talking about, my lenses (on an Exakta Varex) were the 50mm Domiplan (described on the AP forum as the perfect lens to demonstrate every aberration known to man), a preset 135mm Palinar (clearly cheap and cheerful which I always used wide open because I found it easier) and a Meyer Lydith 30mm preset, where the same applied - used wide open. That was the limit of what I could afford. Using the modern cost of accomodation at my old university (and for the same accomodation I had in residences) the last two lenses work out at about £750 each. And I was at school at the time. You can't measure what's affordable now against what was affordable in the mid 1960s. Zoom lenses? As far as I can recall, just the Voigtlander Zoomar.

Software cheating? Just getting the best possible results with the hardware available. It's no more cheating than using hot developer on a print, or printing different parts through different multigrade filters because you weren't competent enough to get it right in camera :D
 
Ah the old days before digi, but no excuse in the last 6 years for crap lenses as one of my first buys was a Canon FTB plus Canon 28, 50 and 135mm for £10 .....I broke the FTB as it needed a service but the lenses are very good.and sometimes used (well they are heavy) on my other Canons bought cheap.
Software cheating for a scanner is:- interpolated resolution over optical resolution so when you scan at say 9600dpi on a V500 it wont be the same as a drum scanner for the same (if it could reach that figure).
 
Some interesting reading there. I used to have a Minolta Scan Elite 5400 which I found really great for doing all my old negs and slides.

If I could justify it I'd buy another without hesitation, but for the small amounts I'll be doing now its not worth it at the moment.
 
My Plustek 7500i is being really annoying just now. It occasionally runs about 10-20 times slower than usual. I've had 3 rolls to scan this week, and sometimes it was taking 15 minutes a frame at 3600 ppi! Then a bit later it recovers and does one in a minute. Worrying.
 
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