Isn’t all 35mm film created equal (barring differences in ASA and exposures)? Why can’t my local 1-hr lab develop a roll of 35mm which does NOT specify C-41 processing? They claim it could damage their machine!
I WAG that their machine wouldn’t really know any difference whe feeding in the film, but perhaps an image could not be printed on photo paper using this method. And, maybe, I WAG that the only way thisa might hurt their machine is when it tries to do some print test to verify the quality? (Maybe it’ll eat up its chemicals trying to obtain the right balance, which it simply cannot acheive, or something?)
Different films require different chemicals. They are NOT b.s.'ing you, and introducing a different film layering won’t damage the machines, I don’t think- but it’d sully the chemicals and they’d have to ditch the batch. Expensive error.
To illustrate this, there is now a black and white film that is MADE specifically to be run through C-41 processing. Me, I wouldn’t touch the stuff. I’ve seen it, it has a funky tone to it. For most lay people who like the ‘artsy look’ of B&W, it solves the issues of who will develop and print their shots.
If you are shooting a film that can’t be run through C-41, find a professional lab in your town, and run it there. Likely you will be thrilled with the results. ( Most Pro Labs keep a closer quality control going on their printing…)
Cartooniverse, currently living on the edge with ASA 3200 B&W
there are several different chemical developing systems. C-41 is by far the most common, but there is also E-6 (Ektachrome type slides), K-something (Kodachrome slides), standard B&W, and then the weird stuff-- like the old Seattle Filmworks. (I suspect that is what you have)
A roll of Seattle Filmworks would not process in a C-41 machine. It probably wouldn’t ruin the machine but it might contaminate the chemistry.
Seattle Filmworks was a big scam going on 10 or 20 years ago (i’m not sure if it still exists). the deal was they give you free rolls of (really bad) film but then you can’t develop it anywhere but at their plant (for a fairly high price). People grabbed up the free film in bunches, then got mad as hell when the local photo lab told them the bad news, "You’ve been HAD. Never EVER use that ghastly crap again.
Oh, Seattle Filmworks still does that. Or did about three years ago anyway. They sent me some of their “free” film and I just tossed it into my camera bag and thought no more about it. One day I ran out of the film I was using and used a roll of theirs and got it rejected by the local developer. I had to mail it off to get it developed.
I’m mostly into digital now. No processing and immediate gratification baby!
Seattle film run through the C-41 developing process will come out looking like clear cellophane, with the images lost. It will not damage the machine.
Qualex, the Kodak subsidiary that does off-site processing for all of your major pharmacies and such, will do Seattle film, although after seeing about 1 or 2 rolls a week up to two years ago, I haven’t had anyone bring it in in over a year. They also do non-C41 types of black and white film. Frankly, as long as the technician remembered to calibrate the machine when he turned it on that morning, the C41 black and white will look just as good as anything else that comes out of a properly used camera for amateur photographers. If you’re taking pictures for the cover of Time, then you probably use 70 millimiter film and develop it by hand at home anyhow.
That is one of the est fims around. Me, I used to use ASA 1600 colour film - great for oudoor night shooting without a flash (just lay off the beer before shooting)
One thing that you have probably gathered by now from the responses is that the difference is in the process used to develop the negative. From the wording in your question I think you were assuming that printing is the issue. Printing is not the issue. Once you have a developed negative, I don’t think the process for developing matters when printing.
1600 asa color??? Sign me up, pal ! I detest flash shots SO much that years ago, I carefully taped a scrap of thick diffusion over my flash. Now it lights the shot without turning my subjects into zombies.
Meet me behind the church ruins at midnight when the moon is full and ripe in the cold winter sky. I’ll bring the 3200, you bring the 1600, we’ll have some good clean fun.
markdiscordia, the overwhelming majority of newsphotos are shot with 35mm or digital cameras these days. The next step up is 2 1/2 " square medium format cameras. Those are MOSTLY the purvey of the fashion world, where hair by hair clarity is valued way over accessability, portability and speed of use. From there you move to 4X5 negative and 8X10 negative.
Typically, 70mm negative is a misnomer. No stills are shot with 65mm or 70mm film. Motion pictures shot for so-called “70mm” release are photographed using 65mm camera negative. The extra 5mm- and it is truly 5mm wider in release prints than the film run through the movie camera- is taken up with the sound track data. These days, instead of an older-style optical stripe, that 5mm is crammed with digital sound data, to be used at your local GigaGoogleMultiPlex with its 6 -way Surround Sound. Sorry for the small hijack, and didn’t mean to sound offish with the answer.
You did say something else there that I wished to remark upon. I happen to send my 35mm negative film out for processing. This includes the 3200 asa B&W. I simply don’t do it at home, have no desire to, etc. I leave the magic of film developing to the Pro Labs in the Photo District in NYC. I DO print my own prints.
I just wished to clarify the terms you were using, a bit.
Seattle Filmworks is now Photoworks (www.photoworks.com), and they’re now just a normal, reliable, mail-in photo processing shop. The film they provide is regular C-41 process film (probably Agfa, rebranded for Photoworks). They do all the normal stuff (pictures available on CD, downloadable from the web, etc., etc.). Nothing the least bit sinister about them.
A satisfied customer who’s sent countless rolls of travel pictures to them.
Actually, when Seattle Filmworks was using non-C-41 film, the resulting negatives couldn’t be printed normally, either. They’d come out looking weird shades of blue and purple. Without getting technical about it, the color balance of those negatives was utterly unlike the color balance of “normal” color negatives.
I agree completely, but AFAIK mass-market labs’ printing machinery usually does automatic color balancing. I have gotten a couple of weird “color corrected” prints back that have an unusual amount of one color, and a couple of unexpectedly great prints using daylight balanced film in tungsten lighting. I don’t think the machine cares what process was used, although I suppose that the processing could conceivably produce a color balance that the machine is not calibrated to correct properly.
That the mail-in film was a type of movie film that had black stuff on the back. The correct processing included hosing the icky stuff off the film. Regular processing would get the black stuff in the C41, which would ruin the chemicals.
The film was cheap because there were often unused tailings on a roll of movie film.
Developing film in the wrong chemicals causes, in addition to other problems, the color to be wrong. One idiot (asst. manager) where I work wasn’t paying attention and developed a roll of slide film in the minilab. The negative was purple, and the corresponding prints were green.
For those discussing really fast films, have you found something that isn’t really grainy? I tried some 1600 at a badly lit wedding and the resulting pictures were bad. I would have been better off with 400 and more planning. I too dislike using a flash.
The one advantage of C-41 B&W is that a few of those films have a huge tolerance for under and over exposure, which makes them useful on occasion.
On the other end of the spectrum, I never use C-41 because that large exposure lattitude meant that I never learned anything.
Another issue with the Seattle Filmworks film is their poor life once developed. The developed negatives fade in a matter of a year or two, apparently, unless refrigerated.
jsleek is correct about the black sludge. It ends up on the bottom of the C41 tanks. As a photo lab employee I spent a great deal of time explaining to people why we couldn’t process their Seattle Filmworks film in our mini-lab.
Re: C41 black-and-white: It’s not the development that’s the issue, but the printing. It’s hard for a regular mini-lab to get the prints completely neutral. But the negatives are (for at least the Ilford brand) pretty much normal-looking B&W negatives and they print nicely with conventional B&W techniques.
Trust me, I’ve got some old negatives from the non-C-41 Seattle Filmworks film (1970s vintage), and even my local pro lab can’t make prints from them, even with a human being working on the color balance. Apparently, they require unique paper and processing chemicals.
est fims around. Me, I used to use ASA 1600 colour film - great for oudoor night shooting without a flash (just lay off the beer before shooting)