The curse of using film...

railman44 · Nov 11, 2004

I went out on a shoot a week ago and had the film developed. I liked what I saw and wanted to post some pics on this forum. Went downstairs last night and found my flatbed scanner DOA (toes up). It was old and never designed for any OS more advanced than Windows 98. Called my camera store today and asked what they charge to digitalize film. The guy calmly said without hesitation it would be $60 for 24 pics. Ouch! Went on eBay and bought another scanner compatable with XP for $48 including shipping. Do people actually pay this kind of dough for this service? If so, I'm in the wrong business... :shock:

Nytmair · Nov 11, 2004

60 bucks??? i thought when you get film developed you can have it put on a CD for only a few dollars more??

$60 is just rediculous if you ask me! :schock:
...and this is why I love digital cameras :LOL:

Uselessdreamer1 · Nov 11, 2004

thats way overpriced. i usually pay about 5 dollars for 12 pics. so... i recommend finding somewhere better!

Karalee · Nov 11, 2004

Yeah thats stupidly overpriced if all you wanted was a quick scan to display them online. I guess it depends on how good they scan them in though.

Corry · Nov 11, 2004

Well, if you are just talking about like...a one hour type lab rather than a pro one...if you have it put on a CD at the time of processing it's usually around $2-$4 more, but if you do it after the negs have been cut it costs more. Not $60, mind you, but a little more. I can't remember the exact price, but at Walgreens I'm thinking, it would cost about $8 or $9.

Karalee · Nov 11, 2004

Corrys right, when I went to have some high res scans of some negs done a while back it was like 7 bucks and a dollar for each additional frame.

fadingaway1986 · Nov 11, 2004

At work, we charge $7.95 at time of developing. Or from negatives - 47c/negative scanned... plus $2 charge for the cd.

(So if they want 24 photos, it would be around $13) Nowhere near $60!

Shutterbug · Nov 12, 2004

I think he's talking about High-Resolution neg scans, they can get to be that expensive quickly, given that each frame takes about 20 minutes to scan.

Yeah, that can be pricey, but you should consider investing in your own film scanner. I have the opportunity to use a Nikon Coolscan (5500? I dunno :\) at school and if you could either afford one of your own or find a place to use/rent one, all you would have to do is invest the time to scan them all, and I feel that it is really worth it - You get beautiful scans from a machine like that. :sillysmi:

Nikon Fan · Nov 12, 2004

I take my negs to walmart b/c it's the only place around here, and they'll put up to 100 pics on a CD for $3-$4!!!!!

MDowdey · Nov 12, 2004

the local pro "im too good for you" lab around here charges 14$ a scan for high res. you do the math...its horrible.

md

Jamie R · Nov 12, 2004

Try not to be too critical of high-end labs boys - when you get dodgy workflow from your own home scans and prints you'll know why.

$60 for a roll of 24exp. might be considered good value if it was supplied as 5MB Tiff files CMYK balanced.

Again $14 for a scan is very little (for a working photographer, but quite a lot for a casual snapshooter) depending on how high the resolution is. My own pro-lab charges around $40 for a drum-scan producing files of around 120 -300 MB depending on the format; colour balanced; dust and spotless unlike the cheerful 0.5MB Walmart scans which any Tom or Harry (let's say Dick) can do next to his own dry darkroom jonny.

DocFrankenstein · Nov 12, 2004

5mb tiffs?

That's small :S

MDowdey · Nov 12, 2004

who exactly needs a 300mb tiff?

md

ahelg · Nov 12, 2004

MDowdey said:
who exactly needs a 300mb tiff?
md

Advertising companies who need extremely large prints to hang up on the buss stop?

Shutterbug · Nov 12, 2004

ahelg said:
MDowdey said:

who exactly needs a 300mb tiff?
md

Click to expand...

Advertising companies who need extremely large prints to hang up on the buss stop?

Totally. The only time I get High-Res scans professionally done is when my employer wants a digital version and is willing to write it off on the shot's budget. Something that big gives you plenty of options when it comes to what you want to do with it in the end.