The glory of E-6, inadequately captured by digital.

I’m still toying with the idea of shooting E-6 after being so very impressed by the Kodachrome I shot in the final days of last year and especially the results I got shooting a roll of 6×6 on Fuji Velvia 50. The film itself isn’t much more expensive, especially in 120 format (actually medium format Fuji Provia 100F is cheaper than Kodak Ektar 100 in 5 packs!), but you can nearly triple the development cost unless you DIY it or send it out in big batches to one of the larger mail-order labs.

I really like the end result though, the workflow is a little simpler because I can easily make selects for scanning using a light table and my 10x-loupe-assisted eyeball, and did I mention how much I like the results? 😉

One option which might work is the Arista 1 pint kit sold by Freestyle Photographic. Pick that up along with a 5-pack of film, shoot the 5 rolls and develop them in one run. Cost is a little under half for development vs processing locally. Or batch up those 5 rolls and send them out to somewhere like Dwayne’s or North Coast, using the local lab if I absolutely must have it developed right away. That would be competitive with DIY and less mess, yet wouldn’t really penalize me much as far as time to development since I’d be batching the rolls up anyway, then finding time to spend several hours developing.

I’ll have to think on it, because color negative material has its advantages too and is cheap to develop locally.