Good UK Developing and scanning Labs

[wlaidlaw]

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I have been using Peak for process and scan for the last two years C41, E6 and B&W. Their standard Noritsu scan is not bad and more than good enough for me to choose the ones I want to do a RAW scan with my Leitz BEOON and SL601. The do offer a drum scanning service but if you are sending in 10 rolls of film, it gets prohibitively expensive. I have used AG in the past for B&W when I wanted Adox Silvermax developed with lowered contrast (otherwise I find it a bit blocky) and they did an excellent job. For specialist films such as Minox 8 x 11 and at the other end of the scale 70mm, I use Northernfilm. As and when I get my 250FF Reporter back repaired, they said they would also have a go at a 10m length of 35mm. 

In France good processors are rarer than dents des poules. I have settled on Labo Photon in Toulouse. Not especially quick (about a 2 week turn around) but very good quality, especially for E6, where other French processors I tried were terrible. 

Wilson

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[stvn66]

Why has so little if not nothing been said of Harman Lab (Ilford Film).

Surely they are a major player here?

[David Purton]

Well, because they are not accepting orders since March and it would appear their "hi res" scans are 12mp equivalent.

I always go for the large scans with AG Labs, from memory around 100mb opened up, and only around £18 including process per roll of 35/66/69.

Not drum scans, which they do offer, but industry standard Noritsu. Never had any complaints!!

Only used the c41 as I shoot xp2 but they tell me they can.process any b&w emulsion...

But if you have had great experience with Harman, post it here!!

[stvn66]

I have ONLY used Harman Lab and that has been for around two years. Having not used anyone else I cannot really comment and have always assumed that any bad shots are down to me. I would love to hear from any professionals about their comments on Harman Lab.

I assume that as they manufacture the film that I use (HP5) then they must be the best in developing it?

[David Purton]

Not necessarily. Most devs are stock

The industry standard used to be ID11/D76 which were both the same and excellent for virtually all emulsions. From memory, I exposed HP5, my favourite b&w at 320iso and processed at 68deg, 1+9, 10 minutes, 30 secs agitation to start then 4 inversions every minute...anyway,  that's from memory from 15+ years ago.

Thing is a generic dev like this will work with most emulsions, charts available for processing times, etc.

Thing about AG is they have experience processing  virtually any emulsion. Now ID11/D76 may have been replaced with greener chemistry but they will certainly have no problem with any Ilford/Kodak emulsion.  They were happy with some of the Czech emulsions I asked them about.

Importantly their processes are always  very clean as are their scans.

If Harman is only offering 12mb max I can only assume they use the standard "high street" Fuji frontiers. Excellent for high volume relatively small scans but not in the league of the Noritsu in the right hands...

Harman appear to be very expensive too for processing, etc. I believe they do distribute film and print product at reasonable prices... but even that is worth googling!

[stvn66]

Hmm. So I should give AG a try? Thank you.

[chris_livsey]

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Thanks for the replies to the bump. A test film has gone to Ag based on those and on the clear navigation of their web site and freepost films inward.

Ilford were using Fuji "high street" scanners when I visited but that is about 5-7 years at least ago before factory tours ceased and the last buy out, at that time given the scale of the equipment and site it was surprisingly a small family business in effect. That is not to their detriment but processing was then a side line, they were monitoring their film making process so just expanded to use the same facility for the public. It may be more "professional" now but as they are, as noted above, not taking in work not a current option.

 

 

[wlaidlaw]

Harman are very expensive for specialist films. I use 70mm Type 2 double perforated aero film in my giant rangefinder Combat Graflex. Harman price is £250 + VAT for a 100 foot roll of HP5. Instead of this I buy 100 foot rolls of Rollei 400 Professional (very similar to HP5) for €80 from Maco Direct in Germany. That is a huge price differential. I am told their large format cut film for anything other than standard 4 x 5 is also quite expensive. 

Wilson

[David Purton]

Yes, appear not to be competitive and doubt they will survive. 

Not "open" presently according to their site??

[Ouroboros]

I have used Palm for a number of years, mainly for film  supplies, but they do scan with Imacon Flextight 848 scanners and they know what they are doing.    Earlier this year I sent a dozen rolls of Ektar in mixed formats from 35mm-6x9cm to Exposure Film Lab in Hereford to try their process & scan service.  I'm very pleased with the service and the quality of the scanning I received.  I have posted a number of my Leica images on this forum that were taken in Egypt in January, perfectly clean files.  I simply resized the jpegs from the supplied scan for forum upload with no additional retouching.

If it wasn't for the fact I need my Imacon scanner for my 6x17cm work, I'd seriously consider selling it and let Exposure Film Lab take the load

 

[Charles Morgan]

For hand processed black and white developing and scanning done by an Ilford Artisan Partner, I can highly recommend Keith Moss - he is a friend but he taught me everything important about black and white developing in the process of becoming so. He also does 4x5. He is a real film photographer and applies his eye to each scan as such. He'll also do stand development if you ask nicely.

For colour, I have used AG for E6 and been very happy, but for C41 have always used FilmDev - very happy with their inexpensive scanning, and if I want a better result I'll re-scan at home. Very nice negatives always returned in excellent condition. They aren't accepting new orders at the moment until they've cleared the virus backlog.

 

[chris_livsey]

Ag have returned some scans from roll of Kodak Gold 200 shot by my son, not my choice of film stock but he loves it, on his OM-1/50mm f1.8 Zuiko, 

The colours are as I would expect for that film, punchy, very well scanned, obviously given the exposure range (negatives in the post and I will check them) individually optimised and so sharp you risk a paper cut viewing them.

Son is very impressed commenting he didn't know that lens was so sharp, the sunny sixteen weather meant he was at 1/500th and now sees the benefit of higher speeds as father had been preaching.

I have sent a roll of B/W out, usually all home processed so felt very strange, to this processor not mentioned here but from a personal recommendation I trust off forum out of curiosity and will report back later.

https://ntphotoworks.com/product-category/film-processing-developing-scanning/

 

[wlaidlaw]

Chris thanks for that link. Once I get out and about and start to use my now working Leicina Special cine camera some more, it is useful to know someone who will process Kodak Vision colour negative Rem-Jet Super 8 film. To date I have only used Ektachrome 100D Super 8 and even though I have the Leicamatic autoexposure system on the Optivaron power zoom lens on the Leicina, it is a little slow reacting (motorised diaphragm, which you can hear whirring away) and the very narrow latitude of the Ektachrome means you get quite a few underexposed sections, before the Leicamatic has caught up and opened up the diaphragm. My cine technique still leaves a lot to be desired. Ken Loach I am not. 

Wilson

[chris_livsey]

49 minutes ago, wlaidlaw said:

 My cine technique still leaves a lot to be desired. Ken Loach I am not. 

Wilson

Some would say that was a good thing, perhaps Stanley Kubrick as a Leica user would be a more suitable aspiration?

[chris_livsey]

Just as a follow up to Harman mentioned earlier who were closed due to COVID I  have just had an email as a previous customer informing me they are open again and with a money off code:-

To celebrate the lab re-opening and to say thank you for your patience, we're giving you 10% off your next order with us*

Simply place your order as usual on the website and enter code HLTY10 *Until the end of July

 

https://www.harmanlab.com/

I have no commercial connection other than as a previous customer.

[Heathom]

Snaps Photo Services are very good . I have tried most of the Labs by Post, some mentioned  here and Snaps give by far the best value dev and scan service with file sizes much larger than their competitors . For a roll of 6x6 I get a 65mg scan from Snaps , from a " pro lab " I got 12mb and no discernible quality difference in processing .