Topic: UK Processing - anyone ever used www.filmdev.co.uk?

[This-is-damion]

They seem new...  saw someone say they were using them on instagram -  they seem well priced  basically £7 for dev and scan

[Late Developer]

Damion, they certainly look as if they know what they're up to and I'm looking for an alternative now that UKFL is now relocating to Canada - so thanks for posting.

£7 per roll is their cheapest price including "small" scans but it can go to £14 per roll for different media, format and larger scan size.  Still not bad if a professional lab is required and the quality is right.

[This-is-damion]

Yeah  - I would only ever get small scans  - if I ever wanted to do anything with a picture id end up scanning myself.
I think ill give them a whirl!

[Urban Hafner]

I haven't used them myself but one of this year's participants in the 52rolls project seems to be very satisfied with them. Here's an example: https://52rolls.net/2016/08/30/week-31-original-agfa-vista-200-expired/

[This-is-damion]

nice, thanks!  I spoke to the guy yesterday -seems nice.  Order is going off today.  10 rolls - 3 or 4 of these have been sat in the fridge for over a year

[Sandeha Lynch]

This caught my eye, which might seem like a bit long over the postage time, but for anyone in Europe it may be a good deal:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Black-White-B-W-B-W-Film-Processing-Developing-Scanning-Lomography-35mm-120-620-/222224363928?hash=item33bd9ab198:m:mMkipLoLGXNrf2mbwwKMzMg

About £7 for dev and scan, 35mm or 120 and including for other odd sizes.

Now I'm not recommending them as I haven't used them, but I am delighted to see new companies in Europe picking up the slack where other companies have folded.  There's another company in Vilnius, Lithuania, Vist Camera, that is producing ground glass and pinholes that are a very good price (available on eBay).  And I would recommend them as I've bought both and found them excellent quality.

[Ed Wenn]

But isn't Peak Imaging about the same for dev and scan? I'm pretty sure they are (since I use them a fair bit). Their service is great. AG is comparable price-wise for colour, but more expensive for b/w....which is what usually swings it for me to go with Peak as I tend to have a mix most times.

[This-is-damion]

Posted my order Tuesday - the scans are available today via d/l link and negs being posted back today also!  Nice turnaround.

I cant actually get the link until I get home - but good turnaround for sure.

[Pete_R]

I tried them this week with a couple of rolls. Here's my comments.

I sent two rolls of 35mm Ektar on Monday. £3.00 a roll for dev and small scan including return postage - pretty good. The scans came back 1228 x 1818 with file sizes up to about 2.5MB.

I got a call from them Wednesday to say films were done and how did I want to pay. They then sent me a Paypal invoice and another email with a link to download the scans (this was before I had paid).

The negs turned up today (Friday).

Negs look good and pretty clean. No complaints there.

The scans all looked a bit 'heavy' to me with blocked up shadows and not like Ektar at all. I've now done my own scans with VueScan using the VueScan Ektar channel (which I don't think is perfect but OK). Some results below:

Shadows are definitely blocked up though a bit of tweaking of the curves seems to have recovered the detail. Colours are just weird. Some colours just seem to have been removed and parts of the image are black when they should have colour. Two examples below - first one, one of the people look like they are dressed in black in the lab scan but clearly not in mine - second one, the steelwork was rusty and brown colour but in the lab scan it's black.

One thing which is very obvious from the lab scans though is that I have a focus problem with my scanner. The lab ones are VERY sharp - mine are very soft.

The other comment I would make is the scans are quite cropped - look at the difference in the first two pics below.

I would use them again for the cheap dev and the scans are good enough as a quick preview but I wouldn't use their scaans for anything else.

P.S. anyone recommend a scanner that can produce scans as sharp as the lab ones here? Because I clearly need one.


My scan


Lab scan


My scan


Lab scan


Lab scan tweaked for shadows


My scan


Lab scan

[Nigel]

Hi Peter, I can be no help on the colour I'm afraid, colour scanning has always been a bit of a struggle for me. But you're right they are sharp. My scans are similar to yours. I use an Epson 4490, it's the only scanner I've ever owned so it must be at least 10 years old. I'm interested to hear what other people use.

[MacArron]

If you only shoot 135 negative, then the Pakon F135 Plus is your scanner. It is discontinued though it appears from time to time on eBay. I had the same problems as you using a flat V500 scanner and when I bought it and scanned the first roll I really saw the light :-)

The other day I read an article about a modern scanner that worked similarly (taking a complete roll) but I can't remember which one it was. Maybe a Reflecta? Sorry, but I can't remember.

[Kai-san]

I use an Epson V750 which is quite good, but nowhere near the performance of the lab scan shown here. On 120 film it's fine, but I'm not at all happy with the results on 35mm film. I'm looking for a Nikon Coolscan 9000, but whenever I find one that I could afford I don't have the money, and vice versa. One day.............

[Francois]

All flatbed scanners will produce slightly soft results. This is due to the glass which diffuses slightly the image. Also, flatbeds don't have a focus mechanism and rely of DOF to the the image into focus.
There are tricks that can bring sharpness up, but none of them can compete with a dedicated film scanner.
I know the Minolta Dimage, Nikon Coolscan and Polaroid Sprintscan were all pretty good. The Polaroid ones don't have digital ICE though...
Just watch out because some of them did use SCSI (AKA Pain in the...)

[Pete_R]

I had a go at getting a better scan from my scanner. I adjusted the height of the holder (something I had already done with my 120 holder so I knew how much lift I needed), scanned at max resolution and used some sharpening. Big difference.



I think the lab scans have also been sharpened as they ask you to tell them if you don't want sharpening.

[jojonas~]

If you only shoot 135 negative, then the Pakon F135 Plus is your scanner. It is discontinued though it appears from time to time on eBay. I had the same problems as you using a flat V500 scanner and when I bought it and scanned the first roll I really saw the light :-)

The other day I read an article about a modern scanner that worked similarly (taking a complete roll) but I can't remember which one it was. Maybe a Reflecta? Sorry, but I can't remember.

yeah, Reflecta RPS7200 for example. can do complete rolls in a go.
other than that there's the Plustek Opticfilm series. seems to give sharp scans but I wouldn't want to scan a whole roll frame by frame. maybe if I got preview scans like this from the lab and did the keepers myself