Signs of the Apocolypse, Part MCMXXXLI

[erikhaugsby]

The 1-Hour Photo Lab is dead (in Waconia, at least)!

My local Walgreens threw out their old 1-hour photo machine this last week. Nobody else in town has a 1-hour, so with the passing of the Walgreens lab, my town (a nice sized one, and it grew a little under 50% in a little over 5 years (from 6000 in 2001 to almost 9000 today) is without a single 1-hour.
:bang:

So now I'm reduced to driving 20 miles towards the cities to reach a Walgreens that hasn't replaced their photo lab with a "Beauty and Home" expansion.

Ick.

[erikhaugsby]

(and no, they aren't putting the machine up for sale. It's just going straight to the garbage. :bang:)

[varjag]

Maintaining commercial film processor is not viable for person anyway.

Maybe you need to source yourself a JOBO tabletop processor. Or switch to BW.

[peterc]

Noritsu and Fuji are in pretty heavy competition over 1 hour systems in my neck of the woods. Both have brought out very compact C41, scan, print lines and (so I'm told) are offering very attractive incentives to places (mostly chains) that put them in.
Develop and scan is pretty readily available at $3 to $5CDN.
However, smaller (non-chain) places are going under pretty fast.

[erikhaugsby]

Maintaining commercial film processor is not viable for person anyway.

Maybe you need to source yourself a JOBO tabletop processor. Or switch to BW.
I shoot almost exclusively B&W (meaning I've shot only 2 rolls of K64 and 4 rolls of C-41 for a yearbook assignment where I really wanted to use my Leica. But that's literally the only color film I've ever shot with my cameras), but I just picked up an OM-1n and wanted to shoot a roll of C-41 through it to test the colors of the lens.

[toyotadesigner]

I used to live in a small village far away from everything. We had 2 photo shops with Fuji C41 developing machines, run by the owner and his wife. Some day I noticed a decline in quality - the grain was growing bigger and bigger. I asked them for the reason: Oh, might be because we turn off the machine during siesta time (from 12:00 til 16:30). They charged 3.60 Euros (!) for each 35mm roll to develop.

OK, some weeks later they completely ruined 4 films, so I started commuting to a real lab some 80 KM away. After a couple of weeks they ruined 7 films.

I switched to slide film, because the process requires a better quality control, but this particular lab didn't run E-6 processes. 'Not enough demand'. Just by chance I discovered a very tiny E-6 and C41 lab some 100 km away from my office and home...

Because the house where I was living in had been sold I searched for another spot in this region, and one of the variables for the decision of the location was the lab. So I moved some 90 km to my current location, where the lab is just 7 minutes away. Great deal! Best of all: they deliver perfect results because they have an excellent quality control.

But the downside: this is the last E-6 lab in this province, that means if they will stop the E-6 and C41 process I really don't know what to do, because the next existing lab is hundred of kilometers away. OK, I could mail the rolls to that lab, but the price is high...

I'm going to move to another province end of this year, and I already know that there is no lab at all. My alternatives: d****** , a Jobo processor or maling the rolls to the lab in Madrid. Purchasing films is not (yet) the problem, because I order 100 rolls 35mm and 50 rolls MF slide film in Germany with each package to reduce costs.

It's more or less a desastrous situation for me, because my niche is the quality of film, especially slide film because of the finer grain and the great color rendition.

I don't like the 'technical progress' we are facing now. But what can we do?

[Thardy]

These days (in my town) you have to mail any slide film (E-6), or any size different than 35 mm or Black and White for processing. Next will be 35mm C-41.

There is a pro-lab about 35 miles from here though.

[cmedin]

There's a bunch of 1 hour places around me (east of Atlanta), but none that I know of do E6 or BW.

Of all places, Wal-Mart consistently gives good results and cheap scans.

[RML]

Most places of that size here in Holland don't even have any 1-hr labs. So, while I feel for you, I'm not lamenting. :)

[David Murphy]

The one hour at the corner drugstore near me is jammed with business -- they often have to drop their 1 hour guarantee. Of course this is Pasadena -- lots of people here.

[Nikon Bob]

The 1 hour lab that I use told me that they do about 30 rolls a day. I just pray they keep the lab open. There are quite a few other in our town but I prefer this one.

Bob

[ChrisPlatt]

I remember when we were content to drop our film off at the
photo store and pick up our finished photos a few days later...

Chris

[toyotadesigner]

Chris,

and pick up our finished photos a few days later...

yup, and those prints featured a very good quality because there were intelligent humans in the labs and not a weird software with 'auto-everything-levelling' !

What I don't understand: Kodak as well as Fuji churn out slide films like hell - more than ever before. But they give a damn where the photographers can have them developed.

I just started an inquiry to Kodak and Fuji Europe, asking for a list of standard or professional labs. If they don't know, I asked for contacts of the distributors for chemicals, because these companies **must** know which labs order chemicals for E-6 processes.

Let's see if they will send a reply....

[MartinP]

Hola Toyota,

The quality scheme for Kodaks E-6 is the "Q-Lab" scheme. I used to work in one of these in the UK. There are regular test strips run through the chemistry and sent to Kodak for analysis, so the staff have to control their systems or lose the Q-Lab status. Your countries Kodak reperesentatives will have a list of accredited labs for you, although you may find that the cost is somewhat higher than you expected !

[patrickjames]

Because the house where I was living in had been sold I searched for another spot in this region, and one of the variables for the decision of the location was the lab. So I moved some 90 km to my current location, where the lab is just 7 minutes away. Great deal! Best of all: they deliver perfect results because they have an excellent quality control.

Moving closer to a lab? Now that is dedication!

Patrick

[Bike Tourist]

The labs are slowly vanishing, one by one.

Camera clubs are pretty well dead, too, at least around here. The ones that remain are populated by people even older than me!

[toyotadesigner]

Patrick, no dedication, thats the will to survive because I try my very best to make a living with real photography and large prints in a niche surrounded by plastic images :D

Martin, I'm used to pay between 4 and 6 Euros per roll for the E-6. If they don't ruin the film it's worth the investment. Considering the overall costs it's only a fraction of the whole process. Without a lab I'd have to go d****** and wouldn't be able to offer hi res prints anymore which in turn means I'd have to participate in the cheapo rat race: a wedding with 600+ images on a cd including prints for 300 Euros, a building documentation for 80 Euros (only 5% of what I'm currently getting) etc. No thanks, no d****** banana ware tools as long as I can avoid it.

[MartinP]

I recall the pricing was something like GBP3,50 for a sheet of 5x4, but that was around eighteen years ago with a very high volume of business. Similar pricing for 135, so now it could be around EUR15 I think, very possibly more, but there is a serious difference between perfect E6 and mass-produced E6 so I suggest to try it at least once in a good Q-lab.

[toyotadesigner]

Camera clubs are pretty well dead, too, at least around here.

That's because we have 'global' clubs now - the forums on the Internet. I don't want to say that these virtual meeting can substitut personal gatherings, but that's the change of our society. However, I'm one of the founders of a German analog photography forum, and very soon we've noticed that we needed to set up personal meetings. The first one took place almost in the middle of Germany, then we established regional groups - south, east, north, west, with one national meeting each year.

So I'd say the clubs still exist but with a different structure.

My hope is that we will see large national labs with fast turn around times, between two and six per (European) country, where we can mail in our films. And I think a clever entrepreneur could make a good and profitable biz of it.

[dmr]

The one hour at the corner drugstore near me is jammed with business

That's been my experience at the two Walgreens I use most. There's almost always a line and more often than not I see somebody in the back working with film.

The one I use most installed a brand new Fuji Frontier 550 a year or so ago.

Another one that I use for DO only (older machine, can't do CD) seems to have installed a second old brown mini-lab machine. I'm not sure of the brand or model.

[toyotadesigner]

There's almost always a line and more often than not I see somebody in the back working with film.

Which is no wonder: there are billions of analog cameras in this world which are still in use. Only the d****** industry wants us make believe that these are tools we can't use anymore.

Every year they publish their statistics and compare their d****** sales to the analog camera sales, deriving their market share from these figures. Which is totally misleading, because in the market there are billions of analog cameras compared to just a few millions Tupper boxes with attached sensors.

I know many (older) people who have dumped their d-cams after 2 or 3 years, because they couldn't see what's on the display, too tiny buttons and the hassle with the computer ('I have to visit my son so he can empty the memory card... - but I can bring my films to the drugstore and have them developed!').

In addition: who's gonna print all the Tupper box pics? Home desktop printers? Hehe, no, too expensive. Online services? People don't want to wait after they've been promised an instant gratification (just connect to your computer and there you go...). The result: 99% dump their pics to flickr and co., hoping that the whole world will view them, praying flickr won't have a hard drive crash or think about introducing a fee for the storage ;)

So, if there is a photographic printer it shouldn't be a big problem to attach a film processor to it as well, which the Fuji Frontiers in most cases have. Unfortunately only for C41 and not E-6 :mad:

[Al Patterson]

We still have a decent local camera store with a one hour lab. However, I am old enough to remember dropping film off at the local store on Monday and they sent it to a central site and it was back by Saturday. If you want "instant gratification" going forward, you may need to buy an M8...

I for one will wait a week for XP2 or E6 if that's the look I want.

[ChrisPlatt]

Minilabs offer convenience but on average offer spotty quality at best.
It didn't have to be that way, but like anything driven mainly by price
it became inevitable. Maybe their time has come and gone...

Chris

[RML]

What does "d******" mean?

Minilabs, 1-hr labs, they may provide spotty quality but I think that's entirely up to the people working there. In my experience, most deliver more than decent results. And for a fair and affordable price.

Now, go to a so-called pro lab and a) they take a several days to a week to get you your print, b) the quality is often only on a par with the 1-hr labs and c) they are waaaaay more expensive, especially with larger prints (20x30cm and up).

I never get any small sized prints. The only prints I get are 20x30cm mat prints, which cost me 2.50 euro at my favourite lab. It takes them a week because they need to order the mat paper. A regular glossy print will take 2 days and 2 euro. The results are always very good.

For larger prints I just go to my local Hema (similar to Boots, Costco, Walmart, etc). A 50x70cm print on glossy paper cost 9 euro, and 4 days. I wish they'd do mat but they don't. If I would go to a pro lab, I'd be paying at least 40 euro, and it'd take a week. For that kind of money I'm not even going to try them out.

[toyotadesigner]

RML,

What does "d******" mean?

The ultimate hype word: digital

Well, the pro labs are different. It depends on their set up and organization, really. Mine delivers between an hour or - if they collect more rolls for the E-6 process - 12 hours. C41 in 30 minutes - always.

I can't tell you what they charge for normal prints or posters, because we scan the slides and deliver just files for printing or imagesetting. In this case the math is pretty simple: per m² Euro 75 for a professional (don't know the public prices). So a 40x60 cm print @ 300 ppi (glossy, matte, semi matte, canvas) is 18 Euros, a 1.2 x 1.8 meter print @ 300 ppi is 162 Euros. Or a 60 x 180 cm panorama is 81 Euros. Plus tax of course. The point is the 300 ppi resolution an a perfect color management, which the cheaper labs don't guarantee. A 150 ppi resolution is a lot less, but I don't want digital quality (when they do a 150 ppi print they use some weird algorythms to upsample the images which leads to some ugly artefacts, loss of detail etc).

So if you can live with slightly off colors there is no need for a pro lab. I can't send a file to an Internet poster printer, because if there should arise a problem I can't send the image back and start a discussion about colors or perfect format cutting/trimming.

On the other hand: I know there are some good standard labs around in north Europe, but not down here.

[charlesfoto]

Everything seems to be able to be had online these days. I've tried, and been happy with, the lab service of MPix.com. Send the film in their mailer, they post low-res shots online, you order prints(or not), they send back the negs. The negs I got back were dust-free.