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Medium Format Film ?
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You could try Esler Crawford for BW 120 process – I recently ran a roll of 35mm EIR to them and there was not problem processing – http://www.eslercrawford.com or similar address
Hi,
Our studio is still film based.
We have our own in-house very clean b&w darkrooms.
We shoot thousands of rolls of both 120 and 35mm every year – it’s still easily available from all of the pro suppliers. And we print on b&w paper – dish toned.
So there is plenty of life left in film – some of our clients actively dislike digital!!
Margaret.Margaret wrote:
So there is plenty of life left in film – some of our clients actively dislike digital!!
Margaret.Welcome to the forum Margaret.
I prefer film myself so I’m not being smart when I ask you why do some of your clients prefer film? Is it the look? the process they are used to, archival resons or why?
Can’t help wondering if that’s Margaret Moore of http://www.photogenicdalkey.com/? I suspect it is. Welcome aboard. Great to see that this site continues to attract the interest of both professional and amateur photographers.
Hi Fintan/ Thorsten,
Yes, I am from Photogenic (we also have the url http://www.photogenic.ie).
Most of the images on our site are from (un-Photoshopped) film except for two of the slideshows which are from the Happy faces Day 2006 event. They were captured digitally for ease of use in the calendar of the event and are on the Contact and Fees & FAQs pages.Some of our clients have had poor experiences with the quality of output from other studios – i.e. finished print quality. Our print quality is still good from our b&w darkrooms and nothing printed on RC paper or inkjets comes close as yet (IMHO).
For our wedding work some people choose us because we are still film based – again for matters of the poor print quality they see from others – but that could also be because so many photographers are letting clients print their own albums and it may be the prints they are judging other studios on aren’t professionally printed.Some of our overseas portrait clients do come to us specifically for the archival and tonal quality of our prints – because they are ‘silver halide’ and very few studios shoot this way now. In our business, it’s still all about print quality because that’s all we sell here.
It has shown us that the public are very savvy when it comes to these issues. Don’t get me wrong, we’re pretty clued in on digital matters – we just have a great printing ‘solution’ so we’re not too keen to fix what isn’t broken. It’s a commercial decision as well as a personal preference.
If we were shooting commercial assignments I might think differently but then I really don’t envy the situation of commercial photographers in the digital era from a business point of view.
Margaret.
Margaret wrote:
Our print quality is still good from our b&w darkrooms and nothing printed on RC paper or inkjets comes close as yet (IMHO).
Theres nothing to beat a well printed fibre print, but I was wondering if joe public could see that. Your clients obviously do, fair play to them. Thanks for your post.
I am surprised that a studio would still generate fibre prints for clients. With a minimum 1 hour washing time per print, without toning and taking into account the large volume such a studio would output i am sure they must be concerned with the negative impact they are having on the environment. This is one of my main concerns and i only produce 5 to 6 fibre prints a month.
We don’t print on fibre – but we do individually hand tone each b&w print regardless of size. We recover all our fixer ( the most toxic chemical) for safe disposal.
We have many stragtegies in place in other ways to minimize our environmental impact – every piece of waste paper (inc reject prints) is recylcled and all packing material is reused to destruction…I’m sure all businesses do what they can…
Margaret.
PS Fibre ceased to be a commercial option for most businesses long before we came to the business in 1991
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