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Archive 2014 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

HopeIsEternal
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

I used to use my local Costco to process and scan my color film until they stopped handling film altogether. I then tried Walgreens but I'm very unhappy with the quality and resolution of the digital scans. My local Walgreens always scans at about 1080P no matter what I tell them before hand about increasing the resolution. When I tried to print some 4x6s right there in the store their own photo printing application complained that the source images had too low resolution for 4x6! Also the scan framing & color quality is not very good and in some cases the operator scanned the negative strips in somewhat random order rather than the original shooting order. Basically it doesn't look like they really care about the quality of what they are doing. One of their photo techs even said that poor picture quality is normal and expected with film compared to digital P&S. I had no idea if she had ever seen 35mm photos taken in good light with something other than a disposable film camera.

I brought this to the attention of the photo department and they asked that I leave the negatives behind so they could re-scan them and try to increase the scan resolution settings on their scanner. After several days they gave up and called me back to collect my negatives. Apparently not even their resident photo experts could figure out how to get their professional film scanner to scan at a resolution good enough for printing at anything even up to 4x6 inches! They claimed that their scanners settings are locked in such a manner as to prevent the operator from scanning at an acceptable resolution even if the customer intends to print the film scans at 8x10 inches. I was flabbergasted. Why would they lock the machines to scan film at under 4x6" resolution even when the customer requests 8x10" prints? Surely, scanning for 8x10" would take very little extra time per roll compared to scanning only for 4x6". And anyway, the scanning is pretty much automated right?

I don't know if my local Walgreens photo techs don't know what they're doing/saying or if indeed nobody at a Walgreens can get my film scanned at a resolution good enough for 8x10 prints so I'm wondering if any of you know of any affordable/mass-market stores or chains that will process and scan 35mm color film to CDROM at a resolution that is significantly more than the 1800 x1200 or so that Walgreens is offering.

I really don't want to mail my 35mm film canisters with not very important snapshots off to a specialist processor somewhere in middle america and pay $20 - $30 for the development and scanning.

Here are some of the pics developed from Walgreens after color correction and output (over-)sharpening in Lightroom: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hopeiseternal/10626983334/in/set-72157622941753436

20130109-96230012 by HopeSpringsEternal2008, on Flickr

20130109-96230010 by HopeSpringsEternal2008, on Flickr

20130109-96230026 by HopeSpringsEternal2008, on Flickr

I'm also open to recommendation for a relatively *cheap* 35mm scanner that can handle automated scanning of 35mm film strips using modern Windows version & USB (as opposed to Windows 98/2000/XP and SCSI respectively). I'm not looking for drum-scan quality here - just something that will allow me to quickly get decent digital scans of my current film shots and also help me digitize a few hundred Kodachrome? 35mm color slides that I took more than two decades ago. All the normally recommended film scanners I've read about like the Minolta Dimage Scan series and Nikon Coolscans are completely out of my price range. I won't be shooting film much in the future (even more so that I now have FF digital) and I won't be surprised if it becomes impossible in the near future to buy film stocks cheaply and have them quickly developed locally - so I don't want to "invest" in expensive gear for what is clearly a dying technology and hobby.

I still remember a few years ago when I bought a dozen rolls of Velvia ISO 50 slide film and after shooting a few rolls discovered that none of the local stores were processing E-6 slide film anymore. I took it to Target and explained it was slide film and needed special processing and the photo tech there said "no problem, we can handle this" only to then cross-process the slide-film as if it were color film resulting in weird looking black-and-whiteish negatives with a huge amount of grain. They provided low-res scans and I rescued what I could using Lightroom and a sepia-like toning preset: https://www.flickr.com/search/?w=30579584@N02&q=Fuji%20Velvia

026_27 by HopeSpringsEternal2008, on Flickr

036_37 by HopeSpringsEternal2008, on Flickr

I also bought some Illford Black & White film then but they're still in my freezer and I'm afraid to shoot it because I'm not sure anybody locally can process them properly.

So to get back to point, I'm looking for a local store chain in the Seattle metro area that will process and scan 35mm color film at a decent resolution (or at least more than 1080P) or advice/recommendation/ebay-link of a good/reliable & cheap (< $300, that can be thrown away in the future) film scanner than can scan 35mm color negatives and slides (a plus for automated scanning of slides/film strips) and having drivers that will work with Windows 8 x64 (or older Windows via virtual machine) and connects via USB.

Thanks!

May 08, 2014 at 04:23 PM

JonPB
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

I scan my film with a Pacific Image 7250Pro3, which BH has now for $270. I haven't been very happy with the software--either the included one or Silverfast--when scanning negatives, but it can scan an entire roll of film at a time and the results are very printable at 8x12. I've since gone back to primarily digital capture, but I'm still working through a backlog of slides, which it works well for.

Cheers,
Jon

May 08, 2014 at 04:38 PM

corposant
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

HopeIsEternal wrote:
I also bought some Illford Black & White film then but they're still in my freezer and I'm afraid to shoot it because I'm not sure anybody locally can process them properly.

Just do it yourself - it's the cheapest way to get the results you want. A 35mm film scanner will pay for itself very quickly this way.

May 08, 2014 at 05:01 PM

LightShow
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

Bellows with a slide copier on a digital camera?
https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1170368/0&year=2012

May 09, 2014 at 12:27 AM

adamdewilde
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

Black and white is easiest to process at home. So is making prints. Scanning you can get the Epson Vscan series, buy whichever one you can afford.. They're the best you're going to get with no fuss.

May 09, 2014 at 03:41 AM

DaveOls
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

I bought an Epson V600 flatbed scanner about 9 months ago and have scanned around 2,000 negatives, slides and prints with it. I'm very impressed with the results. I think I paid $ 200 for it on Amazon.
If I could post a few images on here, I would, but I can't seem to post images from Flickr anymore since they changed their format.
At least once, you ought to get a roll of film developed and scanned at NCPS ( North Coast Photo Service ) and get the highest scan to compare it to anything else you do.

May 09, 2014 at 06:47 AM

Tariq Gibran
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

HopeIsEternal wrote:
I don't know if my local Walgreens photo techs don't know what they're doing/saying or if indeed nobody at a Walgreens can get my film scanned at a resolution good enough for 8x10 prints so I'm wondering if any of you know of any affordable/mass-market stores or chains that will process and scan 35mm color film to CDROM at a resolution that is significantly more than the 1800 x1200 or so that Walgreens is offering.
Thanks!

I think all the Walgreens are the same with regard to the CD resolution and inability to change it. I had not checked out the consumer film processing situation until just this week and ran into the same Walgreen issue here in Fl. Nobody could tell me the CD image resolution, file size or anything. All they said was they had no ability to change it whatever it was (and it was what you experienced, small 1mb jpegs.) I didn't even realize all the once common places for 1 HR Photo processing except certain Walgreen's had stopped offering the service (or any film processing in many instances) all together. Consumer film processing is pretty much dead.

A used Epson V700 is the way to go if you don't want to spring for a new one. I think I paid $250-$300 for mine off the auction site. My medium format film scanner died a few years back, after I mostly stopped shooting film, and this was the best option for occasional use. It actually punches way above it's weight for a flatbed scanner.

May 09, 2014 at 07:15 AM

Imagemaster
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

You get what you pay for. Cheap processing and scanning equals cheap results.

Save money and get better results by going digital. Ten years since I switched to digital and I don't miss a single thing about film.

May 09, 2014 at 12:54 PM

Mike Tuomey
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

DaveOls wrote:
At least once, you ought to get a roll of film developed and scanned at NCPS ( North Coast Photo Service ) and get the highest scan to compare it to anything else you do.

+1 Consistently excellent results from NCPS for the film I still shoot

May 09, 2014 at 02:31 PM

jim bennett
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

I was going to suggest a Pakon F-135+, but since you dont want to deal with XP, you will miss out on the best scanning experience/ease of use for 35mm film negatives I have ever had. It is a complete roll scanner, i.e. you can feed it a 36 exposure roll, walk away and it will scan the entire thing. Limits out at 3000x2000. It can also do slides (but its not made for that and is a little more manually intensive)

May 09, 2014 at 04:52 PM

buggz2k
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

+1 on the Kodak/Pakon F135+
I LOVE mine!
Best $250.00 I have spent!
XP mode in Win7 is piece of cake.

Shameless cross post:
2008 - 35mm Walmart developed, probably Fuji 400.
Canon EOS 3, forget the lens, probably nifty 50II
Just got a Kodak-Pakon F135 scanner, rescanned.
This thing is great!
Liberal PP, big crop, slight missed focus, blah, blah, blah...

jim bennett wrote:
I was going to suggest a Pakon F-135+, but since you dont want to deal with XP, you will miss out on the best scanning experience/ease of use for 35mm film negatives I have ever had. It is a complete roll scanner, i.e. you can feed it a 36 exposure roll, walk away and it will scan the entire thing. Limits out at 3000x2000. It can also do slides (but its not made for that and is a little more manually intensive)

May 09, 2014 at 04:58 PM

Uncle Mike
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

Even before digital photography, people knew that drugstores were lousy photo processors. Scratched up negatives are the norm. Professional photographers used higher-end labs that used "dip and dunk."

Color film photography is becoming less and less viable.

Try developing your own black and white film. It only requires a minimal investment in gear and chemicals. But real time consuming, and a real PITA getting dust off of the negatives. Scanning negatives is also a PITA.

May 09, 2014 at 07:01 PM

Tariq Gibran
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

Uncle Mike wrote:
Even before digital photography, people knew that drugstores were lousy photo processors. Scratched up negatives are the norm. Professional photographers used higher-end labs that used "dip and dunk."

While sometimes the case, the cheaper processing options certainly did serve a market. No way was a typical consumer going to pony up for professional processing. Way back, I worked in one of the top labs in the country - loading the Refrema (dip and dunk) with sheet film roll film and doing high end color matching / copying and duping. Our customers were Professionals and corporations.

I did not read the OP as looking for high end professional processing. I'm sure he knows he was not getting that at Costco and the like. There is (or there was) a middle ground available for decent processing. It was possible due to volume and the machines were run continuously and the chemistry replenished/ changed more often. That model is simply not possible today.

Edited on May 09, 2014 at 07:30 PM · View previous versions

May 09, 2014 at 07:27 PM

StillFingerz
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

Mike Tuomey wrote:
+1 Consistently excellent results from NCPS for the film I still shoot

Another vote and recommendation for NCPS, Velvia and PanF are my game, you can get inexpensive low-res scans all the way up to drum scans...their printing is fantastic as well. They are here on the west coast, just north of San Diego. They DO NOT provide mailers, I send my film via FedEx...call them first before you try them, they are very professional, do exceptional work.

http://www.northcoastphoto.com/

Jerry

May 09, 2014 at 07:28 PM

Imagemaster
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

Uncle Mike wrote:
Try developing your own black and white film. It only requires a minimal investment in gear and chemicals. But real time consuming, and a real PITA getting dust off of the negatives. Scanning negatives is also a PITA.

Sure, developing film is a piece of cake. It is the scanning or printing that is a PITA.

Really, what is the point of shooting with film if you are going to scan it to digital to have prints made? Every conversion step results in a loss of quality, especially when using budget scanning.

May 09, 2014 at 07:33 PM

HopeIsEternal
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

Thanks all for the advice and tips. I'd heard of the Pakon 135 but don't know much about it but not enthusiastic if I have to virtualize in XP to use it.

I may go for a used Epson V600 (or something similar) that can also be used for document scanning long after I've stopped shooting film.

When I first got into photography, Film was so nostalgic for me and I really loved using old film cameras with fast manual focus lenses and waiting to see the results developed. Then I had APS-C camera and not very fast lenses. Now with a FF digital and equally fast AF lenses I'm not really as into it now as I was then and the death of easy, cheap and fast development and scanning makes it even harder to justify. However I will still keep on taking film shots occasionally because sometimes I want the permanence and "analog realness" that recording special moments on film brings.

May 09, 2014 at 11:00 PM

Imagemaster
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

HopeIsEternal wrote:
However I will still keep on taking film shots occasionally because sometimes I want the permanence and "analog realness" that recording special moments on film brings.

You could always convert your digital files to film.

May 09, 2014 at 11:26 PM

rattymouse
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

Imagemaster wrote:
Sure, developing film is a piece of cake. It is the scanning or printing that is a PITA.

Really, what is the point of shooting with film if you are going to scan it to digital to have prints made? Every conversion step results in a loss of quality, especially when using budget scanning.

What's the point?

How about some think developing film is fun.

Some like to make things with their hands.

Some people are tired of staring at a computer.

Some people can see the difference between a scanned film shot and an original digital shot.

Some people prefer the look of scanned film over digital.

May 10, 2014 at 02:35 AM

rattymouse
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

HopeIsEternal wrote:
Thanks all for the advice and tips. I'd heard of the Pakon 135 but don't know much about it but not enthusiastic if I have to virtualize in XP to use it.

I may go for a used Epson V600 (or something similar) that can also be used for document scanning long after I've stopped shooting film.

When I first got into photography, Film was so nostalgic for me and I really loved using old film cameras with fast manual focus lenses and waiting to see the results developed. Then I had APS-C camera and not very fast lenses. Now with a...Show more →

Here's two shots scanned by an Epson V600. I'm perfectly happy with the results. The film is Fujifilm 400H, a beautiful film that I strongly prefer over digital.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3719/11465759013_68c0fe9bd0_b.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2857/11461692043_2f64806870_b.jpg

May 10, 2014 at 02:40 AM

Imagemaster
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · Which stores/chains still process 35mm film and scan at least 5mp?

rattymouse wrote:
How about some think developing film is fun.

Some like to make things with their hands.

Some people are tired of staring at a computer.

Good, then those people can keep playing around with film.

Some people can see the difference between a scanned film shot and an original digital shot.

Some people prefer the look of scanned film over digital.

Yeah, sure. I could make 100 16x20 prints, 50 from digital files and 50 from scanned files. I bet you would not score better than 60% telling which was which.

May 10, 2014 at 08:58 AM

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