Film Developing in the UK

If anyone used The Darkroom UK for film development, could you please shed some light on what they charge for postage costs to send developed film back? It is not entirely clear from their website and the only option that is there seems to be Special Delivery by 12 which is quite expensive (nearly double of a single roll development).
 
First Class delivery is included in the price - the special delivery option is there for if you need to it back fast or its valuable.

Postage is the main reason why I switched to using the Darkroom over Peak Imaging, Peak stopped including E6 dev and mount in their lower charge postage rate so it was just uneconomical. Besides The Darkroom is of equal quality anyway.
 
s162216 said:
First Class delivery is included in the price - the special delivery option is there for if you need to it back fast or its valuable.

Postage is the main reason why I switched to using the Darkroom over Peak Imaging, Peak stopped including E6 dev and mount in their lower charge postage rate so it was just uneconomical. Besides The Darkroom is of equal quality anyway.
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Fantastic - thanks. I could not find this anywhere on their site.
 
dalex_257 said:
If anyone used The Darkroom UK for film development, could you please shed some light on what they charge for postage costs to send developed film back? It is not entirely clear from their website and the only option that is there seems to be Special Delivery by 12 which is quite expensive (nearly double of a single roll development).
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As s162216 says it's included in the price, also when they send your films back they'll send you a Freepost label for your next lot of films.

I have also swapped to them from Peak, their service is excellent, most films they've processed for me have been back within 3 days of posting, and they're really helpful if you need to talk to them.
 
I knew there was something about Harpers that I couldn't recall...cheers for the clarification!

s162216 said:
First Class delivery is included in the price - the special delivery option is there for if you need to it back fast or its valuable.

Postage is the main reason why I switched to using the Darkroom over Peak Imaging, Peak stopped including E6 dev and mount in their lower charge postage rate so it was just uneconomical. Besides The Darkroom is of equal quality anyway.
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This is good to hear, they are just round the corner from my work, so I think I will use them to drop stuff into as they seem reasonably priced....

Edit: I was thinking about the shop in Bayswater, club 35. Anyone have any experience?
 
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***Edit: I was thinking about the shop in Bayswater, club 35. Anyone have any experience***

Same place as Kodak express 29 Leinster Terrace...went in there once to see if they developed 120 film and IIRC correctly it was expensive.
 
excalibur2 said:
***Edit: I was thinking about the shop in Bayswater, club 35. Anyone have any experience***

Same place as Kodak express 29 Leinster Terrace...went in there once to see if they developed 120 film and IIRC correctly it was expensive.
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It depends on whether its colour negative, B&W or E6 120, they only run 120, E6 and B&W once a week if I remember correctly and the 120's mostly colour negative hence the reason why E6 and B&W are so expensive, they don't get as much of it.

Their 35mm colour neg service is excellent with quite good prices for a pro lab, usually if done by mail order the films will be back in 4 days. Their E6 service takes about 10 days because as I said above they only do it once a week, but is also excellent quality with the slides in good quality mounts and a boxed.
 
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RaglanSurf said:
As s162216 says it's included in the price, also when they send your films back they'll send you a Freepost label for your next lot of films.
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They have a PDF of the Freepost label on their web site that you can print out yourself

http://www.the-darkroom.com/fastcartimages/label .pdf

I'm giving them a go.

BTW, I sent four 35mm films to Genie Imaging and all of them came back with water/drying marks on them. Anyone else get this? Never saw it once with Peak.
 
Musicman said:
They have a PDF of the Freepost label on their web site that you can print out yourself

http://www.the-darkroom.com/fastcartimages/label .pdf

I'm giving them a go.

BTW, I sent four 35mm films to Genie Imaging and all of them came back with water/drying marks on them. Anyone else get this? Never saw it once with Peak.
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I have had the same from Genie. I don't think they take into account the hardness of London water and treat accordingly. The only other company I have used is photo express up in Hull and their C41 negatives always come back very clean.
 
May I add to this list Ilford Lab Direct in Mobberley, Cheshire for black & white developing and printing. I have used them myself on a number of occasions and the quality is superb.

http://www.ilfordlab.com
 
Carl V said:
May I add to this list Ilford Lab Direct in Mobberley, Cheshire for black & white developing and printing. I have used them myself on a number of occasions and the quality is superb.

http://www.ilfordlab.com
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Agreed, the proper silver-gelatine prints are superb in quality, the service is fairly expensive in comparison to others but the quality of the prints easily makes up for it.
 
Starastin said:
hello everyone !

are there any significant differences between developing places and technique ?
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For colour C-41, whilst it is technically a standardised process, things like water composition locally and how exhausted the chemicals are will affect final results. For hand-developed B&W, even more so, technique will vary between developing labs, between individual personnel and even each agitation might be done slightly differently.
 
freecom2 said:
For colour C-41, whilst it is technically a standardised process, things like water composition locally and how exhausted the chemicals are will affect final results. For hand-developed B&W, even more so, technique will vary between developing labs, between individual personnel and even each agitation might be done slightly differently.
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thanks. just wanted to clear this. do remember that there can be some differences with true BW developing, but it's been a while since I've done my own.
 
I know this is most probably a stupid question...especially for a first post...

But as an avid user of 35mm film still , surely there is some technology that can allow the person at home to develop their own film without having to resort to chemicals or pro's...can one not simply scan the film straight out of the container????

forgive me for being stupid as I know you can scan negatives and slides..am i just being a little simple ??? :wacky:

hi by the way

Buzz :D
 
The film is light sensitive until its developed and fixed with chemicals. If you take it out of the container and scan, you just destroy the picture by over exposing it.
You can develop at home, but if you had the chemicals etc required then you probably wouldn't be in this thread.
Also, Hi.
 
thanks matt..that answers my questions well enough :)

nowadays one can get the pictures on a cd..what is the quality like when that happens??? i dont always want prints of every picture on a film when not all of them turn out perfectly :)
 
the develop and scan to cd is usually produced to a resolution that'll allow you to print a 6x4" picture on a typical inkjet printer - i.e. good enough for happy snaps and web sharing, but you'd probably not want to use the scans as they stand for anything much bigger.
 
i would be sure to keep the negatives nice and safe
 
The Matt said:
You can develop at home, but if you had the chemicals etc required then you probably wouldn't be in this thread.
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Well that's not strictly true... there's somewhat of a "little known" recipe consisting of instant coffee, washing soda and vitamin c that goes by the name of Caffenol, i've seen some very impressive results. You would be hard pressed to get fixer from household chemistry though, i guess if you washed it out and scanned it fast enough you might be able to get something before the unexposed crystals faded the image, but it wouldn't be anything on what you could get from using fix.
 
i will wait till i win the lottery and buy a mini lab..lol
 
Theres something interesting regarding 'Process C-22', although they for all seemed to be out of business with no emails being answered, the phone disconnected and the website not updated for nearly 2 years...

Suddenly they've added in a closed for Christmas holidays page and posted an update on their service time for the first time in nearly 2 years, seems that their experiencing severe backlogs of work waiting to be done in some formats and are not accepting certain formats at the moment to try to clear the backlog.
 
I've been wondering, & I'm sure this is going to be pretty unlikely, is there any where
in England that one can develop their own black & white film?

I miss working in the darkroom at college & I'm still considering university, altho I'd
definitely choose a course that does traditional black & white photography. I can't think
of anywhere allowing you access to a darkroom unless you're on a course or working in
a darkroom environment permanently.

Excuse me if this was a dumb enquiry, just curious.
I'll definitely be looking into using one or two of those processing labs tho!
 
If you only want to develop the negatives and not do prints then you can do it at home on a kitchen table. Otherwise some photography societies have their own darkroom facilities.
 
menthel said:
If you only want to develop the negatives and not do prints then you can do it at home on
a kitchen table. Otherwise some photography societies have their own darkroom facilities.
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I don't mind sending my negatives off to get developed but it was the printing I really enjoyed
doing! I might look into home development tho, it's something I've been considering for a little
while now. Photography societies? Mmm looks like I need to look into things more. Thanks for
the direct answer :}
 
I wanted to update C22's Status on page 1 of the thread but I can't edit the first post [Has it become too old?]
 
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IamAshlyRose said:
I've been wondering, & I'm sure this is going to be pretty unlikely, is there any where
in England that one can develop their own black & white film?
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The Photofusion gallery in Brixton has a darkroom available for use by members and non-members alike.

http://www.photofusion.org/darkrooms/hire.htm

It's just a couple of minutes walk from the tube station.

e2a: Ilford have a searchable database of darkroom hire facilities

Here's everything within a ten mile radius of Charing Cross

http://www.ilfordphoto.com/photocommunity/darkroom.asp?postcode=WC2N+5HS&distance=10&submit=Go
 
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Musicman said:
I wanted to update C22's Status on page 1 of the thread but I can't edit the first post [Has it become too old?]
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:( We had to move the time limit on editing posts, because one member went on a post culling spree :nono: - I think they thought they were going to get a taste of banhammer and decided to remove any incriminating evidence...:naughty:

PM me with the edits you want making and I'll sort it mate (y)
 
IamAshlyRose said:
Thank you for the suggestion! I'll have to look into that.
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Just a note on that - I believe Zoom In has had to shut its darkrooms recently, I don't know the exact details but they had a big sell off of their darkroom equipment about a month ago.
 
Hi,

I work in 'The Photographic Centre' where we process traditional C41 films and Black & White and was actually looking for somewhere to get an old C22 film processed - not so easy it seems! I stumbled on this site and this thread and thought it worth mentioning what we do in case we're convenient for anyone! We also do Minilab printing, inkjet printing, canvases, scanning and framing etc. We're based at Pinewood Film Studios so due to security we need to know if you're going to visit, but we've been tucked away here mainly doing film stills but still service the general public and Professionals alike! You're guaranteed a friendly and Professional service, just so you know!!
 
Hi Andy - welcome aboard, always good to have someone else "in the job" so to speak - I do hope your going to be here to contribute to the forum, rather than just to push your place of employment however... If you DO want to advertise the company, then please feel free to use the "contact us" button at the bottom of the screen to apply fo our commercial advertising rates. :)
 
Thanks Mark! I'm really just interested in Photography myself and chanced on this site so I wont be trying to promote the Business as such - I did see your lists of labs though and thought it worth mentioning our one! I will be keeping an eye on the threads just for general thoughts and info!
 
no worries Andy - but I'm sure you understand - we do have rules about promotion of businesses on here, and you were actually reported by a number of members, so I thought it best if I pointed out what "the done thing" is...
 
I'm still trying to get an old Ilford SuperColor film processed if anyone has any ideas please? I'm presuming it's a C22 process but it seems that the guy who does it in Worthing is not around anymore. I've email Kodak who have a service although I'm not holding my breathe after hearing they've gone into receivership - such a shame :(
 
SuperColorPrint and not SuperColorSlide? If so, then it is C22.

There's a thread from January last year discussing getting it processed.

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=288103

Process C22 (in Margate - is it them you're talking about being in Worthing?) seem to be showing vague signs of life in the last few weeks. There's been updates on their web site. They're saying their phone is out of order, and that they're catching up with email.

Looks like they weren't hugely reliable even before things went wobbly.

http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?89868-Process-C-22

:cautious:

It seems Rocky Mountain Film Labs also mentioned on that thread went into bankruptcy in 2010

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1018&message=27040241&changemode=1


There's also Fotostation in Ruislip. They're not cheap, but it may be the last resort.

http://www.fotostation.co.uk/page/Very_Old_Film_Processing/
 
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