Gee thanks Rob, I almost didn't post to this one :~).
Anyway, the C-41 process has so much slop (latitude?) that
as long as the lab makes an attempt to take care of the
chemistry, you will get properly processed negatives from most
anywhere that pays attention to control strips. Film handling
should be your major concern. With minilabs, it is pretty easy
to gauge what kind of attention they pay to care of the film. Is
the lab reasonably clean? I would hesitate to drop a film off at
a pig pen. Labs that practice good housekeeping tend to pay
better attention to quality control. Do they handle the film
with clean gloves or finger cots (they look exactly like
miniature condoms), or bare skin? Again, I would be somewhat
apprehensive about using a lab that had sloppy film handling
practices.
Regarding the negative film vs. slide film question, there
are advantages to slides, in that you can cull the duds very
easily. The downside of slides is that they don't have the tonal
range of negative films, by an average of 2 to 3 stops. For
myself, I do shoot a lot of slide film, mostly Kodachrome, but
for printing and scanning, I prefer negative film for the extra
tonal range.
William Robb
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Studdert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2001 5:31 PM
Subject: Re: Negative Film Processing Question.
> On 3 Jan 2001, at 13:01, BYRON BUTLER wrote:
>
> > Happy New Year to All!
> >
> > I have a basic question about negative film
> > processing.
> > I know that the lab you choose determines the quality
> > or exposure of the print, but is there a significant
> > difference in the quality of the negative itself from
> > lab (most expensive specialty lab) to lab(grocery
> > store/pharmacy).
>
> I am sure that you will get a more comprehensive answer from
Bill Robb
> however given my experience as a consumer it seems that there
is more
> likelihood of your negs coming back scratched and
inappropriately cut
> (especially in the case of low light/night shooting) from a
non-pro lab. I have
> however had some pretty bad experiences with pro-labs too. If
you have film
> that has low light/night shots especially where you may have
also done mid
> roll film changes it is usually much easier to have the roll
returned un-cut,
> sometimes even explaining this concept to a budget/1 hour lab
operator is
> torture.
>
> I have not experienced a great differential between labs with
regards to the
> quality of the negs (although one set were very blue biased to
print or scan
> from a budget lab) but remember that small differences in
density or colour
> will be effectively masked by the scanning/printing process in
any case, neg
> processing not near as critical as slide processing.
This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, visit www.pdml.net
and follow the directions.
