Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/03
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]From: Jay Coleman <jcoleman@interport.net> Sent: Sunday, October 03, 1999 10:49 Subject: [Leica] Re: Leica Users digest V12 #35 > The first thing anyone who is serious about > photography should do, regardless of camera or > lens, is to use professional processing ... Maybe for prints, but not for negatives or slides. I went to a one-hour place today to have my film developed (somehow I managed to shoot five rolls today). When I got to my preferred place, there was a _long_ line leading to the counter--all professional photographers. There were others milling about holding a dozen or more uncut rolls of developed color negative film in their hands, and still others looking at the negatives on a light table. It turns out that today was a major day for the fall fashion shows, and these photographers were simply stopping off at the nearest one-hour lab to get their film developed. It didn't seem to bother them that it wasn't a "professional" lab. I can't blame them; as far as I can tell, there's no difference between one-hour processing and a fancy professional lab, for negatives and slides. They did mess up one of my rolls, though: apparently my T-Max 400 and T-Max P3200 went into the same envelope, and they both got developed as P3200, which pushed the T-Max by three stops. The result was whiteness with a few scraps of detail. I plan to go back and ask for a free replacement roll tomorrow, as that should not have happened--the cartridges are marked, after all. They processed B&W film in one hour for about $3.80 a roll (24 exposures). > Even with C-41 professional processing (and professional > film that has been properly stored, is not expired, etc.) > makes a big difference. Any examples? Were all those professionals I saw this evening simply misguided? -- Anthony