price of print from slide vs. print from negative

Okay, I take a negative into to my local pro lab to get a reprint

from a negative. They scan scan the negative and make a print on

their Noritsu. I take a slide into my local pro lab to have a print

made from that. They scan the slide and make a print on the same

Noritsu. Seems pretty much the same to me. That is, until I have

to pay: $0.38 for the print from the negative, $1.50 for the print

from the slide. Can someone tell me what I'm missing here, because

I feel like I'm being taken advantage of every time I have a print

made from a slide. Problem is when I've looked online at the prices

of other labs, it looks like they do the same thing. What am I

missing?

It is a little mystifying. A local lab here charges $8 to do ~1000x1500 scans of a 36-exp roll of neg film at time of processing, but $16 for the same service on slide film. When I asked about the price difference, they told me that it was because "there's more information on a slide, right?" :| Hopefully someone with Noritsu or Frontier experience can provide an explanation.

How much does it cost to scann it only?

the reason for a higher price is that they must switch in a slide adapter for the scan. takes a bit more time, but not much. definitely does not justify the increased cost IMHO.

Hmmm. Scanning previously processed images to a picture CD costs:

 

35mm cut negatives - $2 per strip,

35mm slides - $2.50 per 4 slides

 

Now that makes some sense, as there's a little more handling with the slides. And scanning a up to 5 MB file (supposed to be good for up to 8x10 inch prints) costs $2.95 per image, regardless of whether it comes from a negative or a slide.

two reason I can think of:

 

Many more people get prints made from negs than slides, thus driving the cost down for negs.

 

Slides (at least in my experience of 10+years) take more correcting to get a good print from. Negs have a far greater latitude for shadows and highlights, were as slides don't and that becomes very noticable when scanning in the different mediums.

Afrer working on both machines, I can say that the cost results from the "extra" work time required due to the fact that slide require a manual carrier versus neg strips that run through an automatic carrier. The manual carrier is usually require due to the fact that the auto carrier only works with negatives

In other words mounted slides are a royal pain in the butt to deal with, which is why I never get slides mounted anymore, too much of a pain even with my own desktop scanner. The question is: are the prices still more expensive for positive strip film and if so, why?

Mounted slides also can cause severe loss of sharpness when scanning because slide mounts rarely hold cut film as evenly and firmly as film in strips.

 

Good luck getting that point across though - I gave up years ago. There's a law that says neg film must be cut and sleeved, and slide film mounted. We all voted on it, remember :-)

I should have been clearer above. The prices for both a full-roll neg scan and full-roll slide scan at time of processing are for UNMOUNTED film. I understand why mounted slides are more work (and this is why I have my film returned unmounted when I am going to scan at home) but to claim that there's "more information in the slide" so a 1000x1500 scan needs to be more expensive is just crazy.

Many things in the photo industry don't make sense, e.g. used photo

gear on E*bay more expensive than new equipment from NYC retailers,

and $7/roll JPEG scans versus $21/roll TIFF scans. People who shoot

slides think their images are better, thus will pay more. Possibly

more operator intervention is required, even with strip positives;

Joe Hernandez might know.

There also seems to be a law that says that negatives must be cut into strips of four frames each (unless you use A&I - they're good). I get weird looks when I ask the local lab to cut the negs into strips of six frames instead, since that is the ideal length for batch scanning with my Coolscan 5000, and having strips of six also enables me to put an entire roll of 36 on one binder-sized PrintFile storage page. The lab people seem baffled by this, so I just ask for "develop only, uncut," and cut the strip at home before scanning. Every roll I've ever had developed in Japan (probably 50 or so from about 10 different labs) naturally came back cut into strips of six. Another weird thing about some lab practices.

Historically getting prints from slides was always more expensive because of the extra time and specialised equipment needed to do prints from slides. It's true that a modern digital mini-lab can do prints from slides just as easily as from negatives. Usually you do need a separate slide carrier for mounted slides, and this takes more time. A mounted slide carrier for a Noritsu will also cost an extra $5000+ (or somthing like that) when you buy the machine. That's on top of the $130,000+ or whatever you pay for the machine, so I would say the labs are just trying to recoup some of their costs.