[Leica] Frugal step program long but worth it

["Don Dory" <dorysrus@mindspring.com>]

To do your own B&W find either a large camera store in your area that sells
used equipment or find a nearby camera "swap meet".  If you choose the
camera store suck up to whoever does the majority of trading in, this might
take three or four visits.  What you are after is the tanks, reels, jugs,
etc to process B&W.  They pay next to nothing for this stuff and if you are
liked you can acquire tanks, reels, etc for next to nothing.  Try loading no
name reels, if they jam for you then you are stuck paying for the Hewe's
reels(buy from B&H)  If you choose the swap meet, again, they paid next to
nothing for the stuff and don't want to cart it around any more so make an
offer toward the end of the day.  Example, I paid $10 dollars for a 7 reel
tank and a 4 reel tank with reels; 6 reels were salvageable.

Choose a mainstream developer(I vote for Xtol)and ask the group for starting
time/temp.  You will get some very good advice and your cost will be around
10 cents a roll plus your time.  Try having a conversation with your
child/spouse while you are developing, they will love your new avocation.

For color I would strongly suggest slides as bargains can be had on film if
you watch the short dated lists at B&H, and other mail houses. Another
option is to place a really large order at your favorite store(say 500
rolls) and ask if they can buy "gray".  I once was able to buy some Sensia
100 at $3.00/roll this way.   Buy processing envelopes when you find them
cheap or again suck up to a quality lab.  Ask them how to lower your price.
Sometimes they can help out especially if dip and dunk as they will want to
"fill er up" and if you are patient then they might reduce their fee's, you
can definitely reduce your cost if you mount your own as that is the major
cost to E-6 except for labor and depreciation which are really fixed costs.

If you really want to shoot print film then do the following.  Go to a large
very high volume processing house be it Costco, Sam's, Wal-Mart, Ritz,
whatever.  The really high volume stores get the best people who take care
of the equipment.  Have your film processed and hung.  You don't want them
doing anything to your film but loading it into the C-41 machine.  In a well
run lab the scratches happen during printing and sleeving, not in the
machine.  Get a pair of cotton gloves, a good pair of scissors, and some
archival files of your choice.  At the lab, cut and sleeve your own negs.
Learn to read a negative so you don't have to print everything.

Why did you go to all this trouble?  Because most of these places will
process your film for a couple of bucks maybe less if they really get to
know you.  For the few that you want printed you will be charged something
around 20-30 cents.  Try to find a lab with a Fuji Frontier, a good operator
can make your print look just they way you want it.  On an average roll you
will spend less than $3 and end up with good prints.  Eventually you will
end up with a high dpi scanner and a really good ink jet or two if you do
B&W for total control of you time and your pictures quality.

Don Dory
dorysrus@mindspring.com


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