Developing films in Galway

CaptSolo

Hi, All!

Can anyone suggest best places to develop films in Galway?
What I am looking for is low price and good quality.

Specifically - places to:
a) develop regular (negative) color film
b) develop color slide film
c) make digital scans of the film (negative and slide)

I think the developing part would have a similar quality in all places (making prints can differ in quality though), but when it comes to scanning, quality is important. Some places put too much sharpening on, etc...

If you do not know a good place in Galway, but can suggest them in Dublin or London, please do so.

Best,
CaptSolo

DotOrg

most regular photolabs aren't all that careful with your negs and the colour of your prints and alot of pro developing places are vanishing because of digital and the fantastic inkjet prints you can make nowadays

i know i wouldn't reccomend MCG or spectra in dublin but don't have any idea who still does truely good quality developing

cecilwinthorpe

DotOrg wrote:

i know i wouldn't reccomend MCG or spectra in dublin but don't have any idea who still does truely good quality developing

i definitely agree about spectra they're rubbish! stay well clear of em

CaptSolo

Why not Spectra?

I would assume that the developing itself is an automatic process and for the most part depend on the hardware, which is probably quite the same in most of the labs.

The reason I ask this is - after exploring what is available in Galway and before I received replies here, I chose one of the photo labs and it was Spectra. The personnel seem to know their stuff and the results were quite ok.

The scans are grainy, but that was an ISO 800 film, probably the main reason for grain.

As for the slide film, all of the labs I found here either do not take slide or send it to develop outside Galway. Will ask them to scan it and then could tell more about the results.

I wonder though if NUIG Photography Society has a slide scanner - i would prefer to scan the slides myself rather than having it done automatically without having control over this process.

cecilwinthorpe

CaptSolo wrote:

Why not Spectra?

well last time i used spectra they charged me twice as much as what whey had originally quoted then when i got home i realised that have the negatives were missing and they had reprinted all the wrong pics from the ones i had originally asked them to do and when i went back to them later that day to explain to them what had happened the woman shruggered her shoulders and said it wasnt here problem.

this was in the main place where all the spectra outlets in dublin send the negatives to be processed so its not like it was one specific one if that makes sense

DotOrg

Why not Spectra?

I would assume that the developing itself is an automatic process and for the most part depend on the hardware, which is probably quite the same in most of the labs.

you assume wrong then.
quality of developing depends on a huge number of factors such as how often they change their chemicals, how often they clear the rollers on their labs, the kind of paper they use, how dust free they keep their lab. I used to send films to spectra on a dialy basis as part of my job and they scratch most negs, don't cut them properly, a vast majority of prints have colour casts which they can't even be bothered to correct when you send the negs back. a whole host of horror stories about them and losing films and damaging films.