cheap and good B&W processing?

Note that I chose only two of "cheap/fast/good."

I have some B&W film here I'd like to use, perhaps even with a pinhole
camera (check out www.pinhole.cz if you've not been curious about this
before). But I'm currently unemployed and have neither access to a
tray line or a lot of budget slush to expend on this.

Can anyone recommend a good mail-order house that does a nice job with
B&W film?

Thanks and sorry if this is a published FAQ: if there is a FAQ or
charter for this group, please direct me there.

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:34:02 -0600, brougham wrote:

(paul beard) wrote:

But I'm currently unemployed and have neither access to a
tray line or a lot of budget slush to expend on this.

You don't mention what film size you're wanting to develop, but if you're
talking about roll film, I'd suggesting buying a developing tank and some
reels on ebay and doing it yourself. I don't have a dedicated darkroom at
home, either. I only need complete darkness for when I'm loading the film.
After that, I can process in the light.

You can get away with a good old fashioned changing bag, put the tank and
film inside with your tools, zip it up, stick in your arms and do it all
with the lights on......


I calculated at one time that it costs me 20 cents a roll.

I develop my own not for economic reasons, but for quality. If somebody is
giong to ruin my film, I'd rather it be me.

I've only had a lab destroy negatives on one occasion. But as Murphy would
have it, that happened to have the most meaning to me of any film I had ever
exposed. That's what pushed me back into developing my own again after many
years' lapse.

I expect within 20 years everyone will be doing their own, even colour,
except that when the roll is nice and dry you will feed it into a 12000dpi
scanner with a 5TB memory cube and 20 minutes later drop that into your
computer and start processing them with Photoshop V22

W

"The Wogster" wrote in message ...
On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:34:02 -0600, brougham wrote:

(paul beard) wrote:

But I'm currently unemployed and have neither access to a
tray line or a lot of budget slush to expend on this.

You don't mention what film size you're wanting to develop, but if you're
talking about roll film, I'd suggesting buying a developing tank and some
reels on ebay and doing it yourself. I don't have a dedicated darkroom at
home, either. I only need complete darkness for when I'm loading the film.
After that, I can process in the light.

You can get away with a good old fashioned changing bag, put the tank and
film inside with your tools, zip it up, stick in your arms and do it all
with the lights on......

[ . . . ]


I expect within 20 years everyone will be doing their own, even colour,
except that when the roll is nice and dry you will feed it into a 12000dpi
scanner with a 5TB memory cube and 20 minutes later drop that into your
computer and start processing them with Photoshop V22

Hmm, I have the tanks and all that stuff, and I remember how to do all
that stuff. What I lack is a way to get the negs into something other
than, well, negatives.

I guess my *real* question is, does anyone have a recommendation on a
good slide/negative scanner? I have a bunch of chromes I'd love to
burn to CD or at least view some other way than through a loupe . . .
..

paul beard wrote:

I guess my *real* question is, does anyone have a recommendation on a
good slide/negative scanner? I have a bunch of chromes I'd love to
burn to CD or at least view some other way than through a loupe . . .

I'm using an Epson 2450 I bought 14 months ago; there are better
and cheaper options now, I think. I've scanned several hundred
old slides from my wife's family; they get saved as 300K JPGs,
and I put them, about a hundred at a time, on a CD where the
family members can view them as a slideshow or access the JPGs
for their own use. Family members love getting them--nobody
has a slide projector these days but us camera nuts! :-)

_______________________________________________
Ken Kuzenski AC4RD kuzen001 at acpub .duke .edu
_______________________________________________
All disclaimers apply, see? www.duke.edu/~kuzen001

The Nikon CoolScan line of scanners. The LS40 will run in the
neighborhood of about $500 maybe even less? I bought my LS4000 (the
next model up from the LS40) about a year ago for around $1,100. It's
served me well, I love it! The LS4000 is selling now for under $800.
The newer models LS50 and LS5000 debuted about a month ago. Nikon's web
site is chock full of info. on those mentioned models above.

PGW




In article ,
wrote:

paul beard wrote:

I guess my *real* question is, does anyone have a recommendation on a
good slide/negative scanner? I have a bunch of chromes I'd love to
burn to CD or at least view some other way than through a loupe . . .

I'm using an Epson 2450 I bought 14 months ago; there are better
and cheaper options now, I think. I've scanned several hundred
old slides from my wife's family; they get saved as 300K JPGs,
and I put them, about a hundred at a time, on a CD where the
family members can view them as a slideshow or access the JPGs
for their own use. Family members love getting them--nobody
has a slide projector these days but us camera nuts! :-)

_______________________________________________
Ken Kuzenski AC4RD kuzen001 at acpub .duke .edu
_______________________________________________
All disclaimers apply, see? www.duke.edu/~kuzen001