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Fuji Blackrock

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  • 06-01-2019 7:28pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 2,567 ✭✭✭


    Has anyone used this lab for C41 processing?

    I'm trying to find a few more convenient places for processing than Gunn's and Conn's which aren't too close to my house.


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 3,944 ✭✭✭pete4130


    I used to work there way back in 2001. Back then digital wasn't big and they did a lot of C41 of course.
    They cleaned their developing machine regularly and the chemicals in their minilab printer (if they even have a mini lab these days....I'd doubt it?)

    I'm sure they'd be fine to use for developing.

    Ah, the memories of a wealthy, slightly tipsy person coming in at Xmas one year to buy a €900 camera but didn't want to pay for a 64MB memory card (yep...64MB) and tried to argue she only wanted to buy half the memory card for half the cost....

    Or the wealthy solicitor who left in 5 rolls of film to get developed and only got 4 back and accused us of losing it. it was explained 1 was slide film and we ddn't process that on site. He came in for the next 2 weeks berating us seeing if we found it and denied he gave us slide film. The following week we'd sent off the mysterious roll of slide film that he said wasn't his...and guess who's big head was in 90% of the photo...yep...the wealthy solicitor chap. He still claimed he never have is a roll of slide film and it wasn't his....

    Or the disposable cameras we'd get with adult photos from guys who had been on holidays to Thailand, Phillipines etc...


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,567 ✭✭✭mloc


    It seems they still have the minilab which they run every Tuesday and Friday. My concern was that with the low volume the chemistry might not be very fresh.

    Unfortunately, nowhere does slide film in Ireland any more.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,944 ✭✭✭pete4130


    If they just run it 2 days a week I'd say its fine. The chemicals themselves aren't that volitile that they go off. The developing machines they had when I was there had maybe 9 or 11 racks that slid in from the top. The machine would automatically say when the chemicals had run their course by the amount of processes they had run. It was all automatic. Stick the films onto a big plastc leader card, feed that into the machine, the pulls it out of the spool and it zig zagged up and down through the vertical racks going through the various chemicals until it came out the other end. Pretty foolproof. I can't imagine the process has changed much and once the temperatures were correct I can't see it being a bad process. Put a test roll through first. Shoot a roll with varying subject with lots of colour in some, contrast in others etc and see how that comes out. If you are happy with that, then put your decent rolls through.

    Ask when the last time they changed the chemicals or cleaned their racks (cleaning the racks was a dirty job....nobody liked it). I know they used to offer a 1 hour, 24 hour and 1 week service maybe? It's all the same really because it takes about 20 minutes to develop film through the machines either way. It just comes down to how much you want to pay to get your films developed sooner. Try a 1 hour service (if they do it) early/mid morning once the machine is up to temp.

    In my experience there, the developing machine was good. They are fool proof. People would complain their photos were under/over exposed but it was generally down to them and their camera settings (they'd ask us to remove and reload their camera as they didn't know how to....this ISO totally incorrect, shooting on manual thinking it was in auto mode, dead battery/no battery in camera, visibly broken or damaged camera......really stupid stuff and still try to argue it wasn't their fault).

    At the end of the day, its a FujiPhoto lab in a wealthy suburb so I can't imagine they'd want to lose customers. The store manager I had back in the day was really sound too and genuinely cared about doing the right thing for customers.

    The minilab they had there in my day was an ex Japanese demo model and was calibrated for Japan, so, no kidding, we had people complain that their skin tones were more yellow as the machine hadn't been calibrated for a paler European skin tone. We used to have to manually reduce the yellow tone to stop people looking like they had jaundice.


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