Dolcedo
Hi everyone,
I’m not sure if this really belongs in this forum, but does anyone know of an affordable way to get prints made from a medium-format negative (colour)?
I’ve had a look around various photo shops, but in some places the prices start at 60–70 cents even for the smallest format. Contact prints for 12 images per film often cost around 10 euros...
Thanks for your replies and happy shooting,
Dolcedo
mau
It depends on what you mean by 'cheap'; I'd say 0.6
cfb_de
Hello Dolcedo,
I think the
Gast
Hello,
There used to be a lab just round the corner that used a Frontier (unfortunately it’s closed now), which offered C41 sheet processing including an ‘index print’ (A4 size) for €9. I then bought an Agfa Duo-Scan, which can handle up to A4-sized transparencies, so I could save on the index print and view the images on screen rather than having to print out small prints. I only wanted to send large prints to the specialist lab, as they handle the film properly. Since then, however, I haven’t taken any more colour film in medium format......
Regards, Peter
Gast
Hello,
Do you actually want decent prints, or just cheap ones?
If it’s the latter, nothing could be simpler: just pop into the nearest supermarket or department store with a photo service.
A 10x10 print costs 5–20 cents there; I happen to know this from my good old uncle, who had his photos from ‘Christmas 1958’ (Kodak film, masked, so it shouldn’t really be a problem) printed out again on the cheap for a few old acquaintances.
But to be perfectly honest, the prints were so poor that the over 40-year-old reference prints from back then were definitely better.
Roland
Renate
I work a lot with medium format, specifically 6x7. When I recently went to collect some colour films from my usual lab, I was quite shocked by the price. I had to pay 48 cents per 10x15 print. The same print from the same machine in 35mm costs less than half that. Film development was also considerably more expensive than 35mm film development, even though roughly the same amount of chemicals is used. The 10x15 prints were also poor quality because the machine cannot be adjusted to reproduce the entire negative whilst leaving a white border. Consequently, the top and bottom edges of the negative are missing. Up to now, I’ve put up with this because I just wanted the film developed and the prints served as a first guide. I then made the really good prints in my own darkroom. The price for that has also been quite reasonable so far.
I don’t think it’s right that I should now have to pay different prices for the same product. I’d rather go straight to a professional lab, which will then also make me good prints.
Not cheap, but in my experience very good, is the Farbglanz lab (www.farbglanz.de). The downside is that you always have to pay €5 for postage.
Regards, Renate
cfb_de
Hello Renate,
I can understand the difference in pricing: a roll film doesn’t fit into the standard workflow of a large-scale lab for APS/35mm/digital prints. So a bit more manual work is required, and that comes at a cost.
I can also understand the cropped images. The machine simply isn’t designed to handle the aspect ratio of a 6x7 negative.
The poor quality is probably intended to ‘help’ you stop bothering this large-scale lab with such special requests in future, as they don’t make any money from jobs like this. So they don’t bother and don’t offer any reasonable formats.
Best regards,
Franz
mau
Producing a print by hand takes time. The paper has to be placed under the enlarger in the dark, the exposure time has to be calculated, the print is exposed, and then there’s the finishing work – either in trays or, more commonly, in drums. All of this takes time. I allow about 10 minutes. Now, perhaps one or two of you in this discussion group might take a moment to reflect on the fact that even the famous 1.00
