Tag Archives: C-41

Photo USA

Just wanted to give a quick shout out for a local business, Photo USA on Colonial Avenue in Roanoke. I’ve used them for several rolls of color print film developing, and am more than happy with the results and especially their handling of my film. No fingerprints and no scratches or crud on the last half-dozen frames because they know that a 36-exposure roll held at waist level will drag along the ground behind you and therefore refrain from doing that.

At $3/roll plus sales tax for C-41 develop only ($4 for 120 format) at time of writing this, they’re not much more expensive than CVS were, and cheaper than mailing out. They’ll package up my uncut negatives in continuous plastic sleeve which means I can just lay the whole thing out flat on the kitchen table for cutting. Only then do I need to don the creepy white cotton gloves to transfer the strips into archival pages. Much easier to deal with.

I’ll be trying them for some E-6 development soon, once I’ve run a roll of the Fujichrome film I ordered recently through a camera.

If you’re shooting film in the Roanoke Virginia area and want it processed by people who know what they’re doing, I’d recommend Photo USA.

Kodak Ektar 100 First Impressions

The Promised Land?

Is Kodak Ektar 100 the promised land for color print film shooters?

It would be fair to say that Kodak caused a bit of a stir with the introduction of Ektar 100 film. I finally got around to buying, shooting and processing a roll to see if the stuff was all it cracked up to be.

About half the roll was static test shots; I wanted to see how it behaved under certain conditions. The rest was my usual semi-aimless shooting at whatever looked interesting.

I have to say, based solely on the scans as viewed straight off the CVS photo CD (1.5MP or so Noritsu scans, auto corrected to within an inch of their lives) I am very impressed with this film stock.

Just a handful of photos for now. These are all shot on Ektar 100, uploaded as scanned with the only changes being quick cropping and resizing for the web.

I think this was lit by natural light (daylight through window), metered off a gray card. The colors are close to real life, as I remember it.

Lit by natural light (daylight through window), metered off a gray card. The colors are close to real life, as I remember it at the time.

Love that color saturation. Punchy without being ridiculous, again faithful to the real scene.

Love that color saturation. Punchy without being ridiculous, again reasonably faithful to the real scene, looks like it emphasizes reds a bit.

They're not kidding about the grain. I'm thinking you could do some seriously aggressive cropping on this film, even in 135 format. I can only imagine how well it works in medium format, never mind in large format!

They're not kidding about the grain being fine, bearing in mind the proof-quality nature of the scans. I'm thinking with high-res scanning you could do some seriously aggressive cropping on this film, even in 135 format. I can only imagine how well it works in medium format, never mind in large format!

The extreme end of my exposure testing. Lit by flash, underexposed 3 stops compared to the metered exposure, auto corrected by the Noritsu at CVS. I haven't done anything to this yet, it's straight from the CD. Shadows and dark tones are muddy, the brown book on the top of the pile is very undersaturated and dark, and it's a little flat overall, but I'm thinking it could be pushed this far and some repair work done in post if I had to. I'll be curious to see just what I can do with it, or what can be done when I eventually get a decent scanner.

The extreme end of my exposure testing. Lit by flash, underexposed 3 stops compared to the metered exposure, auto corrected by the Noritsu at CVS. I haven't done anything to this yet, it's straight from the CD. Shadows and dark tones are muddy, the brown book on the top of the pile is very undersaturated and dark, and it's a little flat overall, but I'm thinking it could be pushed this far and some repair work done in post if I had to. I'll be curious to see just what I can do with it, or what can be done when I eventually get a decent scanner.

Yes, I do believe it is. :)

Yes, I do believe it is. 🙂

Impressed by CVS

When I started getting back into shooting 35mm film, I was a little worried. Would I be able to get it developed anywhere nearby? Would the quality be any good? Would I stand a good chance of having my negatives trashed by some kid who didn’t know or care what they were doing? Would I have to set myself up to process C-41 at home just to ensure the safety of my film, never mind the quality?

I’ve heard the minilab horror stories, after all. And the pro-lab horror stories too, come to think of it.

Thank you note from CVSTurns out I needn’t have worried, the CVS round the corner from where I work (the Westlake store at Hardy, VA) has me covered. I just processed and scanned my 10th roll since December through them yesterday and was pleased with the results yet again. I’m pretty sure they mostly know me by sight now and this time I even got the film back with a thank you note! Another couple of rolls and I’ll probably be able to rock in there and ask for “the usual, please”! 🙂

The scans are inexpensive and good for printing up to about 5×7 and for proofing and web use. They’re auto-adjusted for levels, which is great if you’re using some sort of flaky point and shoot with marginal exposure control, not so much if you’re using a manual SLR and hoping to learn from your errors! Higher resolution and non-adjusted scans would be great but I haven’t explored that possibility yet, other than being vaguely aware that the Noritsu machine they use can do both. Ideally I’ll have a scanner of my own sometime soon anyway; the net result of that would be that I go process-only at the CVS but end up shooting a whole lot more and sending more rolls their way for processing.

More important in that regard, the processing and handling has been excellent. The only fingerprints on any negatives have been my own before I bought some white cotton gloves to use while working with the negs. I haven’t seen any obvious scratches or dirt either. They’re fine with returning the film uncut, which allows me to cut to the lengths I want (6 frame strips, perfect for the desktop film scanner I don’t yet own).

Sure, I could do my own processing. If I ever get into shooting black and white it makes economic sense to process at home, but for C-41 I can’t buy the chemicals for any less per roll than it costs me to process at CVS and it’s a lot less trouble to just drop the roll(s) off in the morning and pick them up after work.

So, thank you CVS Westlake for doing an excellent job. I really appreciate it.