Black's Processing and Musings on Digital

I've been thinking about the following statement by Tommy Oshima quite a lot lately:
"Using film has become my obsession, since I know at least in the next half-decade we all will have no choice but to give up and surrender to digital. I don't think "Film will be completely Dead" but it could possibly become one of the most luxurious things in our lives in few more years."

About a week ago, I shot a roll of Superia 400 to mainly test some old classic Takumars that I acquired a few months ago. I took them to Black's and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the negatives. I just had them process the roll with no prints. It came out to $8-something plus tax. This is about double what I paid before but there was no scratches, no hairs, no finger prints and very little dust. This certainly saves me a lot of time in post processing. What impressed me the most was the fine film grain. I was used to larger grain with this particular film. This tells me that Black's chemicals are well handled, fresh and perhaps better suited for Fuji films.


Taken with my Pentax Spotmatic II with 200mm f/4 Super-Multi-Coated Takumar on Fuji Superia 400. Film still does it for me much more than anything digital even in colour especially when using a spectacular lens like this 40-year-old jewel.

Now that Leica has released a full-frame digital rangefinder, the M9, I was all set to get one for my trip to Portugal next July. The M9 would be strictly for colour. However, I'm now realizing that it may be the last opportunity to shoot colour film when processing is still accessible and relatively affordable. If I don't do it now, by the time I take a subsequent trip to Portugal (or anywhere else), using colour film may be too expensive and/or too inconvenience. I don't see this as a problem with B&W film as processing is extremely cheap since I do it myself. I may hold off on the M9... for now.

I dropped off some rolls a few months ago to get negs only and, like you, they charged me just over $8. I started to complain because that was more than double what I was used to paying but when they called the guy from the back he was wearing white gloves while handling my film. Considering I've litterally watched the Wal-Mart staff pull my negs out of the machine with their bare hands and drop my film on the floor I instantly dropped my complaint with Black's.

I don't do a lot of colour but when I do something important I might give it to Toronto Image Works. They're $6 for C41 and $7 for E6, uncut. Shipping will be extra but I really like how they handled my B&W negs from my last trip to Toronto.