Film Developing in the UK

But not if their mounted slides, although it doesn't explicitly say that on their site, I was a bit shocked at price on the receipt when I got when I had one slide film processed and mounted a couple of years ago as I was expecting it to be less because they previously used to include it in the lower postage band.

I switched to using The Darkroom, but as it now looks to be the same sort of price since they added on that new postage charge I think I will have to find somewhere else.

Looking at their most recent price booklet, it appears that mounted slides do not incur any extra postage fees, they have a flat rate up to 15 films or 2kg, whichever comes first i believe
 
I was referring to the £1.75 postage price for a single film - when they updated their prices a couple of years ago I sent one 35mm slide film in for processing with mounting expecting it to be in the £1.75 single film band but when the order came back they had charged me £3.50 postage which took the price up a bit too high for my liking (nearly £11). Whether that was a mistake or not I don't know as I have used The Darkroom ever since.

I'm now looking for a new E6 lab with a similar price to the Darkroom seeing as their now charging £3 postage, so far Metro Colour seems the best (£8.40) although thats only with 2nd class delivery and AG Photo Lab seem to have taken over it or be working in partnership (unsure which) although theres no mention on Metro's site.
 
I have just a 120 B&W film through an Ensign Selfix 120 and went to my local Max Spielman and was quoted £13.95 for 5X5 prints and a three week turnaraound. :thumbsdown:

So am now persuing this thread for someone a bit quicker and cheaper.
 
Club 35 will do it with 5"x5" prints for £9.99 including postage and about a 3- 5 day wait (as they only run 120 and B&W/E6 once a week) although if you add on a £1 they will do it same day as received so it will be about 3 days from sending it to them.

http://www.club35.co.uk/120.html
 
I don't have anything to compare it to, as this is my first roll of film I've ever sent off for processing, but posted my roll of Fuji 400H off to AG Photographic, got it back today and I'm extremely pleased with the results.

Just a scan at medium res, no prints.

If you tell them you need it urgently, they prioritise it. I'd recommend using them.
 
As do The Darkroom and their return postage was included as well but now due to the Royal Mail price hikes they have unfortunately started to charge £3 return postage, although this seems to be regardless of the number of films.

But I've never used them for scanning, I've never needed it but I don't think they're cheap either.

Their scanning is good, but it turns a roll of film into a £10 development. It is a shame about the additional postage charge nowadays, £4.90 was a good deal!
 
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The price estimator at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApD_hzAmA-budE4xbjYwc0cyYkNpa0wtMjR1cXJXclE#gid=1 seems to have been totally screwing up its maths. I've rejigged the base data spreadsheet a bit and it seems to be getting it right now. Sorry about that! If anyone notices a significant problem, please PM me!

I don't get it :cautious: ...from your spreadsheet who would be daft enough to pay £50 for C41 dev and scan, even £24 is ridiculous when the supermarkets do it for £3. :shrug:
 
I don't get it :cautious: ...from your spreadsheet who would be daft enough to pay £50 for C41 dev and scan, even £24 is ridiculous when the supermarkets do it for £3. :shrug:

because it was set to display the price of 1 C41 and 2 black and white films...
 
because it was set to display the price of 1 C41 and 2 black and white films...

Jeez the labs are killing off B/W film use...one charges £11 for dev and £21 dev and scan...add the cost of film and surely even the lomo crowd wont pay that...just think 24 exp film and that's £1 a shot :eek:
 
In 1967 you could take any size B/W 120 film to Wallace Heaton in New Bond st London and get it dev for 2 shillings and sixpence 2/6 which in new money is 12.5p. So using an inflation calculator that would be £1.80 in 2011...erm must have been using slave labour then :)
And for 35mm 36 exp they charged four shillings and sixpence which is about 23p, so using the same calculator would be £3.50 in 2011.

So hey keep awake at the back and pay attention, so the weekly wage in 1967 was about £27 therefore you could have appx 107-35mm 36 exp films done for your weekly wage (i.e. roughly four for £1).
The same for today would be from the spreadsheet min £6 X 107 and you would have to be earning £642 per week.
 
Jeez the labs are killing off B/W film use...one charges £11 for dev and £21 dev and scan...add the cost of film and surely even the lomo crowd wont pay that...just think 24 exp film and that's £1 a shot :eek:

Might as well get into Polaroids at that price! Glad I started doing my own b/w dev, even if it is a bit hit-and-miss sometimes.
 
Remember, this is priced on medium resolution scans, equivalent to 6*P prints at 300 dpi (ie about 1800 dpi on the negative). Most will do much cheaper low res scans, but I wasn't interested in them when I put it together.

You can't change the base data sheet; enter the number of films in the boxes in the other sheet, and you should get back an estimate of the cost (including your mail costs TO the lab, if no freepost is available). No guarantees, do please check, especially postage. It's just to give you an idea; I was surprised at the variation, and I kind of hope that this extra information in the market might bring prices more in line (downwards I hope!).

There's also a 120 sheet that someone else added; I don't know how that works!
 
Currently it doesn't I started collating a variance from 135 36 frames with the thought of adding a little logic to say if its 120 apply the delta but I don't think it would work the way I had in mind. Simple enough to do the 135 calculation then manually add or subtract for 120.
 
In 1967 you could take any size B/W 120 film to Wallace Heaton in New Bond st London and get it dev for 2 shillings and sixpence 2/6 which in new money is 12.5p. So using an inflation calculator that would be £1.80 in 2011...erm must have been using slave labour then :)
And for 35mm 36 exp they charged four shillings and sixpence which is about 23p, so using the same calculator would be £3.50 in 2011.

So the predominant consumer film type worked out to around £3.50 for developing - not significantly less than a lot of C-41 dev (that being the predominant consumer film type nowadays, if you could call it predominant) only places still in operation across the UK.
 
So the predominant consumer film type worked out to around £3.50 for developing - not significantly less than a lot of C-41 dev (that being the predominant consumer film type nowadays, if you could call it predominant) only places still in operation across the UK.

Well it wasn't C41 but B/W chemicals...but in 45 years Tesco got C41 down to 99p for dev...now that's progress.
It would seem no one thought of inventing a machine to do B/W so labs probably still use the method of 45 years ago but if so, it's a puzzle why 120 is not a lot cheaper like it was in the past.
 
I still throw all my film at Studio 5 in Thetford Norfolk. http://www.studio-five.co.uk/index.htm
They seem to have been there forever and have the Kodak dev franchise for most places across East Anglia. At first I thought I'd stumbled into a purely local photography shop. They aren't the place to go to spend money on kit unless you're mr & mrs W. E Wantacamera but they dev and cd all my 35mm colour and b&w and they dev my 120.
I'd say if you're in Norfolk or Suffolk and drop your film into somewhere other than Jessops, Boots or ASDA/Tesco your film quite possibly ends up here.
Working in Thetford it's just hugely convenient and really the only reason I have for home scanning is to deal with my 120 prints which I'm sure they'd do but just don't seem greatly keen on so doing.
 
Hi folks, I've updated the "nifty 35mm film processing spreadsheet" on Google Docs. I've tried to take account of updated prices including postage, and I've also divided the process+scan option into a low res scan (lscan) and the previous medium res scan (mscan). Roughly a low res scan is 1200 dpi, good for a 6*4 print, while a medium res scan is about 2000 dpi (it varies from 1800 to 2400 I think), good for a 9*6 print or thereabouts.

As always, reasonable efforts, correct as of today as far as I can tell (but some of the price lists are hard to read), postage is complicated and may vary (I had missed on at 95p per film, for example) and there may be additional discounts for students or for volume. Please do check yourself; this is just to give an idea.

Total cost includes your 2nd class postage at £2.20 unless there's a Freepost label available. I usually use first class post myself.

Please let me know if you spot any obvious errors.
 
Got my first rolls back from AG yesterday - 120 B&W and 35mm Colour. While not the quickest - guessing at a week and a half (previously used walk in at Snappy Snaps, or Ilford) the quality was excellent, and are great value.
 
Dropped my film into my local pro lab (DS Colour Labs), cost me £4 more than if I had've sent it in via mail order! Cost was £15.49 for 24 exposures, 35mm film, 7x5 prints and a basic scan to disc, 4 day turnaround.

On the plus side the shop assistants were really nice and the results were fantastic.

EDIT: Just to add, if I had've sent my film in via mail order the total cost would've been £7.99 (plus my cost of sending in the film to them by post). Just realised in addition to the extra £4 I was charged for handing my film in rather than mailing it in, I was charged £3.50 for a basic scan to disc (which is FOC if you use mail order)! Bit disappointed about that really considering that the film processing occurs in exactly the same place (i.e. their Didsbury store).
 
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I'm beginning to realise that under some circumstances (that's most circumstances for me, right now), turnround time is as important as price for film processing (assuming adequate quality). I'm doing the POTY13 with film, and don't do my own processing, so turnround has a big effect. I've been used to getting my C41 films back from Photo Express in 2 days or 3 days, but they don't do E6 or BW. (Yes, quite often 2 days later: put it in the 1st class post by 5 pm Monday, get it back in the post on Wednesday. 3 working days has been the worst case so far.)

My most recent processing was one C41 and one E6 film. Photos taken 20 April, order placed online 21 April, posted in a 1st class prepaid bag Monday 22 April with a note mentioning they were needed by 30 April. Scans actually done on Friday 26 April at around noon. Voicemail message left on that day or the previous. Phone call attempted again 29 April, but mailbox was full. Email sent 29 April. Supplier acted promptly and sent the negatives and scans next day delivery, no extra charge, which was good of them... but they could have been in the post Friday afternoon. Received 30 April!

In subsequent emails: "If it is just dev only, we should have it back to you within a couple of days max. Usually dev only is processed on day of arrival as we weed out any dev only orders and just get them straight out - unless there is E6 with it, this would slow it down a bit - although I do expect the E6 to speed up.

"We are currently training up another member of staff on the Noritsu so we can run a second shift - they have printed for years, but not with the Noritsu and, if you ever see the software on one of them, they take a bit of getting used to!"

So I am hopeful that my currently preferred approach for BW (non-C41), ie process only and scan at home, should produce shorter timescales. I might try a different processor for my E6, and stick with Photo Express for C41. In most cases it's probably worth splitting my orders, as it will not be more expensive despite the horrendous postage costs!
 
My Asda does dev and scan to CD in 40 mins in the weekday.....her quickest time was 28mins. I don't think I could beat the Fuji machines at home.
 
I'm beginning to realise that under some circumstances (that's most circumstances for me, right now), turnround time is as important as price for film processing (assuming adequate quality). I'm doing the POTY13 with film, and don't do my own processing, so turnround has a big effect. I've been used to getting my C41 films back from Photo Express in 2 days or 3 days, but they don't do E6 or BW. (Yes, quite often 2 days later: put it in the 1st class post by 5 pm Monday, get it back in the post on Wednesday. 3 working days has been the worst case so far.)

My most recent processing was one C41 and one E6 film. Photos taken 20 April, order placed online 21 April, posted in a 1st class prepaid bag Monday 22 April with a note mentioning they were needed by 30 April. Scans actually done on Friday 26 April at around noon. Voicemail message left on that day or the previous. Phone call attempted again 29 April, but mailbox was full. Email sent 29 April. Supplier acted promptly and sent the negatives and scans next day delivery, no extra charge, which was good of them... but they could have been in the post Friday afternoon. Received 30 April!

In subsequent emails: "If it is just dev only, we should have it back to you within a couple of days max. Usually dev only is processed on day of arrival as we weed out any dev only orders and just get them straight out - unless there is E6 with it, this would slow it down a bit - although I do expect the E6 to speed up.

"We are currently training up another member of staff on the Noritsu so we can run a second shift - they have printed for years, but not with the Noritsu and, if you ever see the software on one of them, they take a bit of getting used to!"

So I am hopeful that my currently preferred approach for BW (non-C41), ie process only and scan at home, should produce shorter timescales. I might try a different processor for my E6, and stick with Photo Express for C41. In most cases it's probably worth splitting my orders, as it will not be more expensive despite the horrendous postage costs!

If turnaround time is important then I can strongly recommend The Darkroom UK in Cheltenham, free post label to send them, average dev prices, they do unfortunately they now charge £3 return postage but if I post films off to them on the Monday they will appear through the letterbox on Wednesday. They're good for 35mm 120 and sheet film, C41, b&w and E6.

I've only used them for dev'ing so can't rate their scanning service but I find them hard to beat and I've tried quite a few of the other companies.
 
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It could of course be that the scanning is part of the bottleneck. I'm going to try my supplier process-only and see how they go.
 
Just a quick message to say thanks to Chris R. I've had a few partially exposed films kicking around for a while. Nothing important on them and on that basis I was loathed to pay previously paid prices for developing.

I recently joined the forum and found this thread and spreadsheet. Result? I dispatched five films to AG yesterday for considerably less than I have previously paid. On the basis there may be nothing of merit on these rolls of film, I'm happy to speculate for the price they charged me.
 
Well thanks Duncan, it's a pleasure to help. AG are not the quickest but their B&W prices seem the keenest around!
 
Well thanks Duncan, it's a pleasure to help. AG are not the quickest but their B&W prices seem the keenest around!

Yep...and their processing is 1st class.
 
I could scream. In fact, I think I will. AAAAAAaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhhhh. :eek:

I decided to try some more black and white. Given that AG was clearly the cheapest, and I'd been given some hints that the delays I'd suffered were related to scanning, I decided to go process-only and scan my own; not a problem with BW. I had a roll of Reala taken, put aside for when I had two films to send to Photo Express, and a roll of FP4, so I did my AG order, paid, and sent off the FP4 on 7 May. And waited. And waited. Today it finally arrived back (8 days later... just as long as if I'd had it scanned), so I open the envelope and... it's an odd orange colour. Quick look at the negatives and they say Fuji Reala!:bang:

It took 10 minutes of serious hunting to find the FP4 lurking behind something else on the shelf!:bonk:

At first I thought they might have cross-processed it, but I see now they have crossed out BW and written in C41. So now I have a C41 film to scan; not sure if Silverfast has NegaFix presets for Reala.:(

And, I still have a roll of FP4 to get processed. I think I need to try someone else other than AG. 8 days is just too slow for me.
 
I could scream. In fact, I think I will. AAAAAAaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhhhh. :eek:

I decided to try some more black and white. Given that AG was clearly the cheapest, and I'd been given some hints that the delays I'd suffered were related to scanning, I decided to go process-only and scan my own; not a problem with BW. I had a roll of Reala taken, put aside for when I had two films to send to Photo Express, and a roll of FP4, so I did my AG order, paid, and sent off the FP4 on 7 May. And waited. And waited. Today it finally arrived back (8 days later... just as long as if I'd had it scanned), so I open the envelope and... it's an odd orange colour. Quick look at the negatives and they say Fuji Reala!:bang:

It took 10 minutes of serious hunting to find the FP4 lurking behind something else on the shelf!:bonk:

At first I thought they might have cross-processed it, but I see now they have crossed out BW and written in C41. So now I have a C41 film to scan; not sure if Silverfast has NegaFix presets for Reala.:(

And, I still have a roll of FP4 to get processed. I think I need to try someone else other than AG. 8 days is just too slow for me.

Hey you digital lurkers..stop sniggering ;)...but Chris you certainly make using film a challenge ;)
 
I've been meaning to post on notes I've been taking on processing times. I've been keeping a record, a bit obsessive I know!

AG Photographic: 4 lots (mainly BW, half with scan), average 7.3 days. No obvious time reduction when scanning NOT included.

The Darkroom: 3 lots (one C41 with scan, two BW without scan), average 3.3 days, but the two BWs came back in 2 days.

Photo Express: 12 lots (all 35mm C41 with scan), average 2.8 days (max 5 days).

All of the AG lots were affected by weekends, almost all of the others were not (ie send on Monday, get back Wednesday or Thursday).
 
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