Re: ATM My new "death ray"

["Chuck Hards" <chuckh@companionsystems.com>]

Thread names like this must make searching the archives a chore!

Dominic wrote:

> I'll go ahead and pose this as a question to see what
> crawls out of the woods: Does anyone know any film
> developing shops that will develop and print medium
> or large format film with faint images without charging
> bodily appendages for manual printing?

Having been a custom color & b&w printer for 5 years in my youth (as well as
color lab technician and chemist), I can say that you probably won't find
such an animal.  Although custom printers don't make a huge wage, it can
still take a couple of hours to print an entire roll of 120 negs when
color-balance and density are critical.  Any required dodging or burning can
add to the time, and if there is a density difference between negs, then
exposure times must be adjusted, requiring tests for each.  As density
changes between frames, color balance can shift also, requiring even more
tests.  Hopefully the lab uses machine-processing, so the chemistry doesn't
change appreciably between frames; small batches of processing chemicals
just add another variable, and thus more time required.  So, it is neccesary
to charge for the paper used for the tests, paper used for the actual
prints, chemistry used, the printer's time, plus a reasonable profit margin.
Just two hours at the enlarger can easily cost the lab fifty dollars or
more.  Now you can see why most astro-photographers develop their own films,
and make their own prints.  And this was 25 years ago, I'm sure costs and
wages have risen appreciably in the meantime.

Chuck