Re: well I'll be....darned (OH MY GOSH)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@ix.netcom.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca>
Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006 7:34 PM
Subject: Re: well I'll be....darned

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Catherine Rogers" <crogers@optusnet.com.au>
> To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca>
> Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006 3:59 PM
> Subject: Re: well I'll be....darned
>
>
>>
>> Chris wrote
>>
>>
>>> How about dem Bears? (for those non-Americans, that's a football
>>> team)...
>>>
>>> Offlist, a friend of mine mentioned the fact that the planet Mars was
>> moving
>>> through Cancer and a lot of this blowup stuff is going to happen.....
>>> snip
>>
>> You may have something there Chris.
>> I took 7 rolls of film to my usual (professional) lab last Friday and
>> when I
>> picked them up on Wednesday, staff were full of appologies because the
>> roll
>> of E6 had been exposed to light. Half the film was ruined - images which
>> I
>> will never get again. As I paid I looked over a proof sheet of black and
>> white and noticed a strange mottling in the sky on one neg, checked the
>> rest
>> and saw that they were all similarly mottled allover, and discovered that
>> all 5 rolls of TMAX100 were covered in this strange uneveness together
>> with
>> a few other markings which looked like (fixer) contaminated developer. I
>> kind of bypassed anger and went straight into despair. A whole day's work
>> absolutely destroyed and quite unprintable - even the gradient tool can't
>> fix this. Sometimes (using lack of time as an excuse) I get a lab to
>> process
>> my black and white film which I would normally do myself. BIG sigh. Big
>> mistake. The autumn light and the weather had been just right for this
>> work
>> too....
>>
>> I know you are all busting to know about the 7th roll. Well, it was
>> overdeveloped. Rather ugly, but usable at least. That was my fault
>> because I
>> had forgotten to ask for an N-1. It couldn't have been any worse if I had
>> processed everything myself.
>>
>> Here endeth my sad photography tale.
>> cheers
>> Catherine
>>
>>
> I am sure you have heard this before but developing your own film is
> pretty simple, especially B&W. Color is best done using a semi-automatic
> machine like the Jobo machines but B&W roll film is dead simple, it
> requires only a tank and you do not even need running water.
> Any lab which allows films to become light struck and delivers B&W film
> which shows the signs of sloppy work should be out of business, at least
> you should not be doing business with them.
>
> ---
> Richard Knoppow
> Los Angeles, CA, USA
> dickburk@ix.netcom.com

Ok now, you all have got me scared with horror stories.

The lab that I have been using for years is no longer doing medium format
anymore or 4x5 for that matter, just one hour 35mm. I have therefore looked
around for a lab in my neck of the woods (between Tampa and Miami on the
west coast of Florida) and found one that seems like they might know a thing
or two, their name is, Thomas Photo Imaging, in Coral Gables Florida. There
prices seem reasonable and their on line ads if you read between the lines
sounds like they should have there act together, supposedly all dip and dunk
processing. Anyone out there ever have any dealing with this company? I have
around 40 rolls or so of transparencies from a sports event, medium and 35mm
format, as well as some T-Max film that needs developed soon. I've been
dithering about who to send the stuff to for a couple weeks now, plus I have
been kind of waiting on my daughter who will be finished shooting a project
that she is doing, any time now and will add her film to mine for
processing.

Or, does anyone know of a good company in Southwest Florida, other than the
one I mentioned above, or anywhere in the US for that matter that they feel
is exceptional enough to schlep film allover the US via UPS or USPS or FedEx
just for processing.

Who is the best carrier? UPS, FedEx, USPS?

Which now begs another question that I had not thought of before this, do
these services X-Ray packages and do I need to lead bag this stuff?

Anyone want to venture a guess as to how much it would run to set up a Jobo
or something similar to do E6 in 35mm, 2 1/4 and 4x5, and a guesstamate cost
per roll?

Any and all comments or thoughts gladly and greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Larry Heath
Received on Fri Apr 28 12:43:16 2006