Affordable B&W Developing by Mail

Could you give me some suggestions on affordable B&W

developing/prints by mail? Locally, developing/prints for a 36

exposure film costs $18.

Raid, for the cost of developing three rolls locally, you could set yourself up to develop your own. It's easy to do (I learned to do it at age nine and did it on my own without any adult assistance at 10), the equipment is being given away or can be found in dumpsters at times, chemicals are innocuous (some are REALLY innocuous -- coffee and washing soda makes a pretty fair developer, distilled vinegar can be diluted for stop bath, and plain hypo fixer is sold as a pool chemical), and it's cheap. I can develop 2 rolls of 120 for about a dollar, despite using distilled water for both mixing/diluting chemicals and washing the film.

 

Printing is a bit more involved, but if you can scan your negatives, you can burn the scans on a CD and take it to the local Costco or photo store and have them printed for well under 25 cents a print in snapshot size (or upload them and get the prints in the mail for half that price -- even from B&W), or print them yourself on an inkjet printer (though IMO B&W inkjet photoprinting isn't quite up to standards).

I send some of my black and white to a lab in Arizona, www.blackandwhitelab.com, and they do a great job for reasonable prices. I do most of my black and white developing myself with equipment my Dad gave me. It really is easy, especially if you shoot 35mm. Winding 120 film onto the developing reel is somewhat difficult. I believe most labs will charge you about $4 to develop a 36 exposure roll, and around $7 for the contact print. Then you can have your favorites printed whenever you'd like.

 

The advantage to processing your own film is the level of control over pushing and pulling, types of developers, etc. Above all, its fun!

People who do black and white will normally not accept affordable, they insist on quality. When you get back flat grey looking prints from some high volumn process, you will either learn to do it yourself, give up, or pay for better work. I would say 99% take the first option.

 

I would use Ilford XP2 as it uses a standard C41 process that most anybody can do. Excellent prints can be done from it. I will not use it for home processing as it is too ecpensive on a low volumn basis.

That's cheaper than it costs me to get good develop and print from C-41 film. (Yeah, I can get C-41 done at $9 a roll -- if I don't mind scratched negatives.) As a low-volume process, you shouldn't expect B&W to be cheaper. The dominant cost is labor. Also, there's been a lot of engineering put into making C-41 processing fast and efficient -- faster than B&W these days. Especially since C-41RA is washless, and B&W most definitely requires washing.

 

Kodak/Kodalux/Qualex does reasonable B&W. But some rolls of prints will be low contrast, and some will be high contrast. Depends on how the particular operator feels that day.

Thanks for your responses. I have to agree that there seems to be two or three ways to go about B&W; do it myself (which is out since I have two little children running around in the house) and paying more for good work. The third way would be to have the film developed and then use a scanner. Maybe I should consider that route for my situation.

Having kids are no excuse for not developing yourself, they do sleep sometime doesn`t they? :-)

 

IMO, shooting B&W film, you are giving at a lot of control by not developing at home.. And it`s very easy to do.

Raid:

 

Two thoughts here - one: if you use a lab most seem to use fuji chems - at least near me in Sarasota, FL & the best work I ever received was for Fuji Acros - could always ask for process & proof & if they can do a hi res CD as well; The other is to do it yourself - I used to develop years ago - recently started again - very little money & a lot of fun & don't let the kids help! This way you can do it consistently & to your liking - very easy once you've done it a few times - shoot a few rolls that don't matter & practice - in the end you will be very glad you took the time.

 

Good Luck

Little known fact: Kodak PK-36 mailers state that they are good for black and white as well as color. I think they're around $10 these days.

If developing yourself is just not for you, reconsider why. If the answer still comes back negative, just shoot XP2. Take it to any minilab with a Fuji Frontier and staff that were not asking "do you want fries with that?" last week at their pevious job.

 

99% of my b&w is silver based film that I develop at home in 20 minutes for pennies. But when I do want 4x6 prints of each neg, I shoot XP2 and take it to a local Sam's Club that I know does good work. I get C41 developing and 36 4x6 prints for about $6.50.

 

If you still want to shoot conventional b&w film and have someone else process it, just remember quality and low prices are mutually exclusive.

Raid:

 

I have a 1 year old and a 4 year old at home. I started developing my own b/w negatives this past summer. Takes me about 1 to 1 1/2 hours to setup in the kitchen, develop, and teardown and wash all my equipment (and leave to air dry overnight). I hang the negs in the bathroom to dry overnight, and get up 20 min earlier the next morning to cut and sleeve the negs., and put away the clean equipment. It fits between their bedtime and mine - they never know it happened.

 

I chose this route for cost and control reasons. Minimum $17 around here for developing and prints, some places charge $23+. I do it at home for between $1 and $2 depending on the developer, dilution, and how much distilled water I use. I bought a used 35mm film scanner from KEH for $109 US ($200 Canadian after shipping, taxes, and exchange). Once digitized I print digitally at a local drugstore/grocery store - 4x6 for 25 cents. Even if I were to print all the frames (which I never do) it would still only cost me $10-$11.

 

Do it if you can, I find it fun and a $ saver. One place wanted to charge me an extra $10 to push a roll of film 1 stop - you can do it at home for free!

Yes Raid, as there is no excuse to not develop your own film with 2 kids in the house.

 

Edward Weston had 41 cats running around!

 

Do it, it is easy.

 

Cheers, Tito.

A lab I would suggest is www.mylab.com. They specialized in doing true optical enlargements at reasonable prices. Also they will process C41 B&W films and IR B&W films.

This is going to sound goofy, but I sent a roll of XP-2 to Clark Color expecting the standard proofs on color paper just like with Kodak's C41 B&W. They returned the completed order on actual B&W paper. I think they charged me about $7. Quality was along the lines of a decent one-hour processor.

Scott: Is there a big difference in how XP2 prints appear when printed on real B&W paper?