Is there a difference in film dev quality?

[elliotjnewman]

I have some colour negs - if I take them to get developed in a professional studio would there be a difference in quality to taking it to say jessops or snappy snaps who would offer it cheaper?

 

[Hertz van Rental]

The film dev quality is pretty much the same. They use pretty much the same machines and chemistry. You get better quality control with a pro lab but the difference in quality is usually hardly noticeable - certainly not visually.
The difference is down to service - pro labs will do specials, ie pulls and pushes. High street processors won't do it.
Post processing tends to be better in pro labs. They take more care over your films.
The main difference is in print quality. Highstreet labs use computerised machines thes days and just bang your film through - errors occur often. Pro labs take more care - they want to keep their customers. And you can get hand printing done.

 

[ksmattfish]

I agree with Hertz.

There are exceptions to the rule though. Talk with the folks who work/run the lab you take your film too. I've found supposed "pro" labs staffed with inexperienced, unconcerned lab hands, and I've found economy, mini labs run by amateur photogs who really did a great job, because they cared about the photos.

 

[ferny]

The cheap street labs can be a pain in the bum if you've used filters as well. They'll run it through the machine and normalise your prints removing the lovely orange hue you were going for. You can ask them to run them through without any bells and whistles switched on. Whether they can be bothered is another kettle of pancakes.

 

[terri]

Talk with the folks who work/run the lab you take your film too. I've found supposed "pro" labs staffed with inexperienced, unconcerned lab hands, and I've found economy, mini labs run by amateur photogs who really did a great job, because they cared about the photos.

Exactly! You have to know who you're dealing with because the bottom line is going to be who is actually doing the work. There is a pro lab downtown I won't use anymore because of careless handling and bad attitudes, yet this dingy little place around the corner has great people and does perfectly acceptable work. :thumbup:

 

[Canon Fan]

I often have found that the general "street" processors do not even know how to turn off the auto-corrections that thier machines are set up to do.; If you shoot with filters or purposely over-under expsoe shots and do not want them "normalized" send it to a pro-lab. For the prints anyway. I agree the negs don't seem to matter much although there does seem to be a higher scratch rate with "street" labs

 

[Hertz van Rental]

Never ever ever send your films to the Kodak lab - certainly not the one in England anyway. They use students and have a high turnover - and I think they process the films by chewing them. Every time a film of mine has gone there it has come back with more scratches than an ice rink.
I use my local chemist for most stuff - they have a machine in house and I know most of the people working there.
But if I'm doing anything for money then it goes to a pro lab (the client pays anyway).
As I said - print quality varies enormously but that usually has nothing to do with the negs.

 

[elliotjnewman]

Hi everyone, thanks for all the input. - Hertz van Rental -lol!

The crazy thing is, I went into snappy snaps and got a quote and they are charging more than the pro lab!! So I have just taken them to the pro lab to get processed.

I had a friend that used to work in Boots, she was a student at the time too, and she used to work with a girl who never used to check negs before they where printed - so they always ended up with dust all over the print. So I guess there is no general "rule" as it relies so much upon the individual thats handling your prints, and knowing the best place to get them done relies on experience, and knowing who it is thats handling your negs - not where it is...

 

[KevinR]

I agree to definitely get to know your lab people. I used to manage about 12 mini-labs. Most of my guys where advanced amateur photographers. They did a good job printing and making any adjustments when needed.

As long as the lab is maintaining their equipment, i.e running test strips, watching temps, doing regular cleaning and maintenance, then it is hard to screw up your film.

 

[fadingaway1986]

grrr... stupid test strips... (sorry - our printer wouldn't do daily setup on sunday because it said my test strips weren't coming out... and well - they were... grrr)

I definately agree it depends who's printing your photos... A good company will happily re-print if you aren't happy with the original prints...

 

[KevinR]

Sounds like a sensor was stuck....Hate when that happens

 

[fadingaway1986]

probably... and it was a bad day. (the densitometer was telling me that the processor was out of control and not to process) and the printer was playing up. the manager was ****ty at me for going to the wrong door (because i couldn't get in the other door!) and grrrr... I was in a bad mood. lol...

Worked out okay though. Just didn't do daily setup on the printer... Called my boss & she said the c41 was okay to process... its just playing up... etc.

 

[walter23]

I find that cheap places are fine for normal photos in normal brightly lit situations. If I do any night shots though, it's a huge hassle to get them printed properly (if even at all) by the automatic machines, which tend to reject anything that is too dark - like a night scene, star trails, etc. This is where the pro (and higher end consumer) places are better - they actually hand correct photos, so you get everything printed approximately right.

 

[Rob]

In my experience, Boots or Jessops on the High Street are random. Boots in Bromley is great, Jessops not bad. Jessops in Hastings, however is a nightmare.

Kodak UK *will* scratch your negs. Every time without fail. If you get unlucky, they'll also play with it in their sand-pits and dust-boxes, which they reserve for special customers like me.

Most of the London pro-labs are good, assuming you don't get a college / work experience youth. It's common for them to string all the negs together and dev them on a giant drum, which some people object to.

My best experience with photography has undoubtably been Russia. Stern looking bespectacled staff who really knew their stuff, wore latex and cotton gloves and forced you to go through your prints and take out the ones which you weren't absolutely completely happy with. They would then hum and har and try again on some of them until you were happy. This was both in the big Nikon lab on Arbad-strade(phonetic nonsense spelling) and in a normal small shop out in the projects.

Whilst we're on the international thing. Bermuda. The most unhelpful belligerant photo lab in the world - the Kodak lab in the Phoenix Mall. Charged me $150 for one set of prints!!

The best advice has been mentioned already - get to know the lab staff - preferably take them out for a beer and say how wonderful they are. This gets you the best treatment in the world. They'll also reprint my ill-judged cross-processing experiments in black and white for free (as I required yesterday!).

R