Interested in Leica film body, need opinion about the processing

[peterv]

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Thanks, that doesn't sound bad at all.

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

[colorflow]

As others have said, there is enormous variability. I just got some bad results back from an onsite quick processing lab where I have previously had very good results. Obviously there is (human) variation within just one lab, never mind between them. This was a wedding too so I was really ticked off.

 

I've found a very good color processing lab here in Boston and found out that they will also develop B&W. After determining what soup they use I've bought film for the next wedding that looks great with that developer. The long-term plan is a wet darkroom in my house. I scan my own film BTW.

 

Hi Peter:

 

As I live on the North shore I'd be interested to know which lab in Boston you use.

 

Thanks,

Alan

[crbirchenhall]

Is the regular camera processing store enough to give good results? I mean, just shoot and go to the store to get the images processed.

Thanks for any advice.

DJ

 

I guess I have been lucky too. Like Bill the service from my local supermarket is good. The only problem I have had is that the service is sometimes unavailable. As a fall back there are four other, less convenient 30min or 1 hour services I can use and all are useable. As long as they do not damage the negatives I am happy. I scan any interesting negative myself.

[leicatwins]

BTW, what is the quality difference between printing results in the store and printing the scanned negatives at home with decent printers? Like Epson R210 for instance.

[andybarton]

I have had diabolical service from my local Sainsburys. As always, it depends upon the quality of the operative, rather than the kit they are using. Mine was obviously better at ironing than processing film.

 

I had some E6 processed locally yesterday, before doing 4 rolls myself today. It was £10.50 roll, process only, back in 6 hours. The C41 was about £7 per roll, ditto.

[stunsworth]

That C41 seems expensive for processing only. My local high street 1 hr lab is around £2 per roll.

[andybarton]

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Sorry, the "ditto" was referring to the time - I had 4x6 prints made too.

[crbirchenhall]

BTW, what is the quality difference between printing results in the store and printing the scanned negatives at home with decent printers? Like Epson R210 for instance.

 

The quality of prints from one hour labs are variable and they are rarely satisfactory for anything more than indexing your films. Any photograph worthy of showing is best handled by home prints. The quality of photo printers is good. My somewhat dated HP 8450 produces very satisfying 6x4 and A4 prints. The work flow is non-trivial and it can be relatively expensive. My HP avariciously eats up photo black cartridges - the price of lots of deep blacks and saturated photos that I love. Nevertheless, I suspect its cheaper than the old darkroom method and in some ways more satisfying as I never did colour prints in the darkroom.