There's nothing inherently wrong with having your B&W film developed by a
lab. It was good enough for Cartier-Bresson.
You do, however, have to make sure it's appropriate. You have to do one of
two things: find a lab whose standardized process is appropriate for your
film and exposure preferences, or find out from the lab owner or manager
which films And exposure practices work best with the process the lab runs.
There's nothing magic going on here. Some processing regimens and chemicals
work better with some kinds of films. Get a good match and you'll be okay.
Ignore the appropriateness of one to the other, let it occur randomly, and
you'll stand a pretty good chance of getting what you deserve.
Bear in mind two things: first, most labs don't run B&W at all, or, if they
run it, they run very little of it; and, second, most people "push" their
films or else are incompetent, so the labs are dealing with a preponderance
of films that haven't been exposed properly. Generally, they set up to
produce what I would call overdevelopment if I were doing it at home,
because their clients will be happier with a neg that's too contrasty than
with a neg that is thin and weak.
I still think Aaron's tips are very good (and not just pertinent to B&W,
either!): find the custom lab in your area that actually does good B&W work,
then find out what they run in their line and what they get the best results
with, then shoot to fit the processing.
This even works for color neg film. A very good tip that often works is to
find a minilab (1-hour lab) convenient to you and strike up a relationship
with the best operator. Ask for that person to process your film or take it
in when that person is on duty, so that an actual human who actually knows
you is handling your film, and the same person is always handling your film.
The processors have what are called "channels": they'll be color-balanced
for three or four groups of films. However, when the channels are set,
they're usually optimized for one film, and then all other films similar to
that film are also run on that channel. Find out what channel the operator
thinks works best, find out what film is it's optimized for, then shoot that
film. Nine times out of ten, you'll get better results than you would just
shot any old film and took it anywhere for processing.
Of course, this presumes that the vendor has at least one competent
operator, which sometimes is not the case.
--Mike
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