Trust is the issue.

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I mentioned that after the debacle with the first processing lab I tried that I had sought out two more which offered processing, high quality scanning and online download of the scanned images.

The first I tried was Sharprints.com in Wisconsin, and it proved to be excellent. Fast, meaning 3.5 business days from mailing to download, quality work and all promises met. Bare bones, maybe, but that’s all I need. That and promises made being kept. Click the link for more details.

The other lab I tried, ProPhoto.com in Irvine, CA came with the usual flakiness associated with large coastal city operations, just like the execrable TheDarkroom.com, also in the Golden State. Emails were not replied to, statements that the download was ready were false, calls resulted in infinite hold times and the process took 4.5 business days, which is mystifying given that Irvine, CA is but 384 miles from my home whereas Eau Claire, WI is 1,712 miles distant. Based on comparative performance and honesty and clarity of communications, I recommend Sharpprints.com in WI for film processing, scanning and download. Price is also a factor – $14 for the WI lab, $22.50 for the one in CA. One roll of Kodak Ektar 100 was the test in each case.

Here are some snaps from the latest film foray, in downtown Phoenix. Hardware was again the Nikon FE with the 43-86mm f/3.5 Zoom Nikkor:

Just the ticket.

For an index of all my Film related articles, click here.

A friend had passed his last remaining roll of Kodak Ektar 100 to be for experimentation, and I am very pleased with the results.

This is a slow – 100 ASA – emulsion with a reputation for fine grain and punchy, contrasty colors, one it lived up to in spades.

This was also an opportunity to try another processing and scanning service after the disaster that was TheDarkroom.com which I concluded was an “offensively bad business”. I wasn’t about to give them another chance.

After some Googling I came up with a couple of services which offer high resolution scans along with online downloads of scanned images. Neither returns the original film unless you ask and that’s fine with me as I would only shred it. It’s extremely unlikely that high volume industrial grade scanners will be materially improved as the business opportunity is simply too small, so the state-of-the-art is either the Noritsu or the Fuji Frontier, both maxing out at around 4000 x 6000 pixels per scan. So retaining the original film strips, with all the attendant cataloging chores, in the hope of further scanning improvements down the road is a quixotic quest.

The first lab I tried is named Sharpprints and here’s the statement from their home page:

Click the image to go the the lab’s site.

Yes, their choice of camera, the Russkie POS Zenit, is execrable, as is the way the film is being held in that image with greasy, badly manicured fingers, but that’s really all the bad news there is. But rather than sit on my hands, I wrote them about that boo-boo:

I mailed my film roll of 36 exposures on a Monday morning using USPS ($3.50) and the scans were available for download the same Thursday at 2:17pm, accompanied by a terse email alerting me to the fact. This lab also uses Dropbox for online delivery but unlike TheDarkroom.com clearly knows what it is doing as the scans were immediately available and easily downloaded in a couple of minutes.

I found the results to be fine grained and much improved on Kodak Gold 200’s coarse and nasty grain. I’m thinking Gold 200 is just a poor quality product. Of the 36 scans one image had a fine piece of dirt on it – easily fixed in Photoshop – and all the others were fault free. The processing and scanning cost was just $14.

This roll of film gave me another chance to look at the abstraction of the varied architecture in downtown Phoenix and here is the ‘contact sheet’ from Lightroom after the cull:

34 keepers out of 36. All those years with film inculcated economy of effort.

The colors jump out at you and the film requires careful handling of highlights to avoid burn out. A little underexposure – say 1/2-1 stop – is a good idea in high contrast situations, what was called ‘exposing for the highlights’ in the previous century.

Noritsu scanner data.

Here are some favorites from this roll, all snapped on the Nikon FE and the experts assure us (who are these fools?) taken with the ‘worst zoom lens on the planet’, the excellent Nikon 43-86mm f/3.5 ‘walkabout wonder’:

It would be churlish to deny the influence of the great Keld Helmer-Petersen on my work, for he is one of the masters who taught me how to see all those decades ago in the era of film.

Sharpprints.com is located in Eau Claire, Wisoncsin and the results of their work testify to solid, midwestern American values. There’s no nonsense about creating an account so that they can inundate you with junk mail. Just mail in the film after printing, completing and including their online form and you are done. I recommend them.