Film - developing and transfer to CD. Recommendations?

So, blew the dust off my MZ-7, took two rolls of film, now can't find anywhere to get the film processed and transferred to CD.

Can anyone recommend any firms please?

Do the likes of Boots, Asda, Tesco do this sort of thing, or does it have to be a specialist outfit? (I've seen Darkroom UK mentioned in other threads).

If you intend to do a lot of film work you would be better off investing in a film scanner, my experience of having film scanned to disc by a lab has not been a very good one, I bought a cheap scanner from Jessops and the results were twice as good, unfortunately it broke

The Darkroom UK do a good job and you can download a mailing label from their website. Their scans are generally OK. I normally pay for the lo res ones and if anything is worth doing to hi res I do it myself. Scanning to hi res oneself is so slow that it is worth doing it that way round.

I have also used Peak Imaging and they did a good job too.

K.

I have a couple of scanners - one is a Primefilm PF3600u, the other a Summit Photofix, which I suspect will be similar to the Jessops one you refer to. Tried using them but (a) too slow, and (b) not impressed by the results.

Besides, I have hundreds of sets of either 24 or 36 exp 35mm film negs, a good few dozen APS films and thousands of 35mm slides! I'd like to kick off transfer to digital of this whole collection with the two films I've just run though my MZ-7

Thanks for your reply. What scanner do you use?

As you'll see from my post I'm looking to eventually digitise the whole of my film collection.

Getting a 3rd party to do it would be easier but could prove prohibitively expensive so investment in a decent, fast, scanner could be on the cards.

Will still need the new film(s) processed though.

Given the amount of negs you have I would think investing in the most expensive scanner you can afford would be logical, as said my experience of scanned by lab negs leaves a lot to be desired, the effort you could possibly have to expend to get these "useable" may be better employed in the time it takes to scan them yourself.

I use an old Minolta Scan Dual III bought from a forum member. There is a newer model but it is no longer made. The main limitation is that it only does 35mm, not 120 or 5x4.

K.

All of my Kodak BW400CN images posted here, on Flickr and accepted into the PPG were scanned by The Darkroom UK. These are their low res scans! The XP2 Plus films I got processed by CVS (a drugstore chain) in the US were dirty, sometimes scratched, and badly scanned. You get what you pay for I guess. Shame really as XP2 is not cheap (unlike the Kodak equivalent) and there were some shots I really liked that were ruined.

For existing negs/slides getting your own scanner is probably the only way to go unless you win the pools.

K.

Thanks for your comments guys.

On the subject of scanners, one of the issues (for me) is that many of the better ones seem to be SCSI, an interface I'm not very familiar with but which seems to have the reputation for being a little 'tricky' to set up.

Is this the case with the Minolta Scan Dual III?

JohnX - the later versions of the Coolscan were USB. Same for the Minolta Dimage.

Setting up wasn't a problem with my Coolscan V.

Coolscans and Dimages only available second hand (unless you want to shell out big bucks for the Coolscan 9000 ED). Tend to hold their value on E-bay, so expect to spend £300+ for a good copy - if you can find one. Quick check and not much about at present.

Others have had good results with the cheaper sub £100 makes I beleive.


HTH


Steve

The big issue for me is that when I have used my scanners and then compared the results against the prints that match the negs, my results are rubbish! Colour and sharpness are nowhere as good as the prints.

Does it follow that perhaps the processing/scanning software is as important as the scanner hardware? What software comes with the Coolscans and Dimages?

The Scan Dual III is USB and you can either run it using the software that comes with it or using the third party Vuescan software. I find monochrome negs scan well, colour slides take more effort. It was suggested that remounting the slides in good quality glass mounts would improve the scans by holding the slides flat but I haven't tried that yet. It is also worth investing in some PEC fluid and pads. It is expensive but it goes a long way and it is easier to clean the negs before scanning than spend hours dust spotting afterwards.

K.

I get my negs put onto CD at 'Cumbria Photo', King Street, Penrith. I always ask for 'hi-res' images (around 5 - 6 Mb per image) and a full scan costs around eleven quid without prints, but with an index sheet.

I have a Primefilm 2700 and an Acer Scanwit slide/neg scanner, but the Scanwit is SCSI and I have to nip down the shed with it to connect it to my old PC, as I can't get it to work on XP!

I've found the odd dynamically-challenging shot comes out better on the Scanwit, but most of my stuff transfers well to CD at the lab. I get the impression that many independent labs offer this service; probably a function of the processing equipment?

Thanks Russell. Your post prompts me to up-date this thread with where I am.

For film processing/transfer to CD I've tried Asda and The Darkroom; huge difference in price but the jury's out on quality! On balance The Darkroom wins, but Asda weren't too bad, and at 25% of the price of The Darkroom...

In fairness, it wasn't a true apples for apples comparison as I discovered when the films/CDs were returned; one of the two films wasn't mine. My daughter had used my camera at some time, used half a roll, and..well, they were of her mates at school mucking around so I doubt there was any attention paid to camera settings! No idea where my other roll of film is.

On the scanner front, I've test driven VueScan with my PrimeFilm scanner with reasonable results, but established that this software will not run with my Photofix scanner. Notwithstanding, neither gave me want I want - press the button and in seconds - presto! - perfect scans, and my research indicates I won't get this with any of the other scanners that have been sugggested so far. I'm too impatient.

Thanks again for comments - keep 'em coming

My Holy Grail is out there somewhere

John,

I also use a 'Heath-Robinson' arrangement which works reasonably well, and which I mentioned in another post a while back. I use my Canon Ixus 750 digital compact to photograph a slide in one of those viewers you hold up to the light, but placed on a lightbox. Used on 'tulip' (close-up) mode, the resulting images are suitable for the web, but odd slides have aberrations visible.

I have experimented with bits of cut-down loo roll and various lenses and magnifying glasses, and I can copy about 80% of a 35mm slide without any chromatic aberration, bottom-up as follows:

Lightbox > Cut-off bog roll > 50mm PK lens with K-bayonet in bog-roll and filter uppermost > skylight filter > Canon Ixus 750 digital compact on close-up mode, set to 50ASA and on self-timer to minimise shake. The auto-focus seems to take care of this combination!

Copying 6x6 negs (or slides) is easier: 9 or so CD cases + 1 DVD box each side (one less CD case each side for 127 negs!), camera pointing down between them on the light-box - no need for extra glass in the way!

The only problem I have is copying colour negs and inverting them afterwards; the colours require great amounts of fiddling to get right, so I usually desaturate and do them as B&W.