UK: 120 C41 process & scan

Im looking for processing colour negative. From the scan I need up to say 12" longest side from 645 format. Density, colour shift

correction as default.

 

Any suggestions? To me this shouldnt be a terribly demanding scan but I'm having trouble finding the right pricing. Either low quality mini

lab scans suitable for small reprints or huge drum scans which are excessive.

 

Hands on experience VERY welcome.

 

Many thanks,

Richard

<p>Metro Print, the mail order divison of Metro Imaging in London are very good. Plenty of mail order labs with a good reputation for pocess and scan are BPD Photech, Peak Imaging and The Darkroom in Cheltenham.</p>

 

Hi Nick. Do you have any experience with Peak Imaging scans? I'm hoping to get a test roll to them soon, but the weather

has been dire.

 

I asked metro, they say their minivan scans aren't good enough for larger prints, and the next thing up is drum scans

which are £30 each, too much for me.

 

I'll look into Photech & The Darkroom. If you have experience with scans from either of these input would be appreciated

too.

<p>Hi Richard,</p>

<p>I'm afraid i have only used Peak Imaging for E6 processing in the past. I'm confident they will be able to offer the scan size and price you need. Peak are a very professional and well run company, with a high quailty C41 processing service as well.</p>

<p>All the best.</p>

<p>Yeah, Peak is probably the way to go--they should be able to do you scans at the size you want without breaking the bank.</p>

<p>For £30.85 per roll, they offer what they call CD Archive 120 Platinum, which should give you pretty much precisely the dimensions you are looking for. They offer even larger sizes on their Custom Scanning page.</p>

<p>Their work is in my experience uniformly excellent--I've always been pleased with Peak.</p>

<p>Rich,<br>

You might want to try out Genie Imaging as well. Probably the cheapest processing for 120 but no idea about scan costs. Might be worth doing one roll and taking it from there?</p>

The thing is £35 per roll might be a touch too much for me. If I'm using say 2-3 rolls per shoot, that's a cost price of £105.

Then if I'm paying myself for 1.5-2.0 hours work, prices go a little too high. Part of the idea is to remove time in front of the

monitor with good scanning, so perhaps something to consider there.

 

Thanks Starvy, I'll check them out too.

<p>Genie often runs a special--£5.99 + VAT for processing and scanning 120. The only problems are that the scans aren't the resolution that Richard said he wanted, and the colour isn't usually quite up to the standards that Peak delivers. It might actually be more cost effective in the long run to get an Epson flatbed and scan the film yourself, which is what I normally do.</p>

<p>www.genieimaging.co.uk</p>

<p>Thanks Bernard. That is the inner turmoil I'm dealing with right now! I always planned on scanning myself, but I was hoping to make film more "time effective", if that makes sense, in that pretty much everything is done in camera. But the more I delve, research, perhaps this is unrealistic if I want to do it economically at least to start.</p>

<p>Are you using something like a V500, V700?</p>

<p>The problem I have is that scanning colour negative and getting the really good colours I want from really good negative film could be time consuming, frustrating. Which sends me back towards a professional lab. Do you have any experience to share with scanning C41 colour negative yourself?</p>

I wasn't massively impressed with Genie Imaging's scanning service. Development wasn't a problem but the scan looked oversharpened and undetailed, like a very bad digital image from long ago. Viz the enclosed example, which has Genie's standard £5.99 scan on the left, my own using an Epson V500 on the right. It's 120 Kodak Ektachrome shot with a Yashica Mat. Their scan is 7200x7200, mine was 4779x4779, but seems to have more detail and looks nicer.

 

The Epson V500 cost me about £150. It takes time to scan stuff, and colour negative is a bind; no doubt a professional lab would do wonders, but I prefer the level of control I get scanning by myself.<div></div>

<p>Your scan does look much better Ashley. v500 was the one I considered, seems it should get me the resolution I want, but the colours and exposure could be frustrating. I'm definitely a C41 colour negative personal, so slide isn't an option. Perhaps worth doing more research on the C41 scanning via flatbed to see if there is any sort of methodology behind it.</p>