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from_the_gym
Jul 29, 2005, 11:20 PM
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Registered: Dec 20, 2003
Posts: 50
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Hey everyone. My question is this: what do all you guys do about the cost of film and developing? I do not have ANY experience developing photos, though i could learn. But as of now I cannot do it myself. Another post mentioned getting just the negatives developed to save money, and then use a film scanner to get them onto my computer for printing.
The film scanner i was looking at is the Konica Minolta - Scan Dual IV Film Scanner. Anyone have experience with it?
Am i going to have to suck it up and pay for developing for every role i shoot? What does everyone else do who shoots with a 35mm SLR?
Thanks
--Corey
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tinu
Jul 31, 2005, 7:17 AM
Post #2 of 3
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Registered: Jul 31, 2005
Posts: 1
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Hey,
I have since two years the Konica Minolta - Scan Dual III Film Scanner to scan my slides. I made good experiences with this scan. So I can suppose that the Dual VI is also very good. (But if you want to have a very good scanner for difficult scans, you have better to choice a Nikon...)
But you must know that make a good scan take a lot of time !
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ryanb
Jul 31, 2005, 8:33 AM
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Registered: Nov 4, 2004
Posts: 832
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Unless you are in love with film think about going digital...
I love film. I can't stand the grainless look of digital photos. I particularly love Tri-X, kodachrome (overexposed like egelston not under exposed like national geographic) and sensia/astia (the e-6 film closest to kodachrome.) I'm also particular about my results but here is how I keep costs manageable without sacrificing quality.
1. Buy cheap. Discount print film sucks. I get grey market (manufactured for use in non us markets) film from adorama.com. I also buy the consumer version of the film if there is one (sensia is the consumer version of astia, kodachrome has two versions).
2. Roll your own. Some film can be bought in 100 foot bulk rolls. Then go to your local mini lab and ask for their empty film canisters (the metal bit not the plastic can it comes in). With a bulk loader and a dark bag (only needed to load the bulk loader) it is fairly simple to put 36 exposures worth of new film in an old canister. The trick is finding somewhere that will develop it...easiest way is to make sure that the processing instructions on the canister match the ones for the film you use. c-36 for color print, e-6 for color slide besides kodachrome which you can't get in bulk rolls anyways.
There are two possible downsides to this procedure...scratches on film from the old canister (I have never had a problem but it is a risk) and the fact that the last few shot or two on your roll might be half ruined by the bulk loading process (that section of film will have been exposed to light.)
3. Develop at the right place. If your just doing this for fun Costco develops film for cheap. If you're trying to make money or your photos are really important you're not going to settle for mini lab developing as the chemistry can be bad and the roller processing machines can scratch things. The cheapest way to get film dip and dunk processed at a pro lab is to order mailers for a and i pro lab from bhphotovideo.com. Ordering mailers from kodak is the only way to get kodachrome developed anymore.
If you shoot black and white just learn to develop at home. It's easy and cheap. Developing color at home is more pain than its worth (the process is too sensitive, the chemicals to harsh)
4. Print your own. Deffinetly don't have the lab make prints, maybe just a contact sheet if its cheep but scanners (or darkrooms if you have access) are the way to go. Minilab prints tend to suck anyways.
I have also used the scan dual iii which was an earlyer version of the iV i think. Great scanner for the money, my only gripe is that it lacks an infrared channel so the automatic dust cleaning feature is a joke. (High end scanners have an infrared scanner channel which is used to distinguish between pieces of dust and the rest of the photograph allowing for target dust removal. This scanners dust removal feature just seems to blur the photo.) Again if your just using this scanner for fun this is fine but if you try and make big prints with it you're going to need to spend a lot of time in photoshop fixing dust. Infared channels don't work for black and white (film grain looks the same as dust) so its a moot point there. I tend to slightly under develop my black and white film and ever so slightly overexpose my slide film to keep things within the dynamic range of the scanner...and because i like the way it looks.
Some photo's I made with this scanner are online in an old portfolio:
http://students.washington.edu/mooneye/portfolio/pages/corrientes%252003%2520uncle%2520sam%2520grafiti04%5B1%5D.htm
A good friend bought a used canoscan from ebay for under 100 dollars and has been happy with the results. keh.com and the two sites mentioned above have used scanners sometimes too. Its a great time to be buying used film equipment with everyone jumping ship and going digital. (fools)
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