[Kevin B123]

Back in the day when I used P&S cameras or even disposable cameras with colour APS-C or 35mm film, we’d take the roll along to get it developed and printed and soon we’d have nice bright colourful contrasty not-over or under saturated prints that looked just like the scene we’d photographed.

Today, I send off SLR exposed film and get images (scans and prints) with little contrast and I must process the blacks and whites to get the contrast back. The colours also generally lack punch.

The image below is un-processed from Kodak Colorplus 200 (Super A) f16 HD DA 40mm, scanned by the developing lab.

How is it that an automated P&S could blow away an SLR?
Is my memory faulty here?

Is it the C41 process? I understand there were other maybe better processes in the 80’s and 90’s.

I have looked through Flickr and rarely find images that look entirely natural. That’s a bit harsh yes, but I somehow expected the majority to look that way.

While thinking this, I then came across this recent article which gelled:
What's With All the Poor Negative Film Reviews?

Any thoughts on this?

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[pentageek]

I think this is the problem with scanning. Recently I have started to 'scan' film with DSLR, and I have not found yet simple method of post-processing of colour negative - ordinary reversal of colour gives low contrast and colours which are definitely off, just like in your example. Playing with tonal curves helps a lot, but this is pretty tedious task which rarely allows for batch processing. Nevertheless, I don't give up

[aaacb]

Kodak gold 200 isn't the best film out there, but it's definitely not that bad either. It lacks color accuracy in light that's not bright sunlight, but has decent contrast in my experience.

Does the negative look ok? You should be able to see clear detail etc and it shouldn't be washed out. If not, there's not much you can do to recover an image, otherwise try scanning it elsewhere.

With the super program/super A it's easy to forget setting the iso dial right (tiny text) and having exposure comp off (easy to move). Those would be my first two guesses, from personal experience with that camera. If the entire roll looks bad in the same way (not just this image) and you don't suspect incorrect settings, then maybe the meter is off. Of course, maybe the lab messed it up, but I think that's the least likely explanation.

[photoptimist]

It could be anything: expired film, inaccurate aging meter, aging aperture mechanism, aging shutter mechanism, bad chemicals, or bad scanning.

How do the negatives look? And is there any pattern to some frames seeming under- or over-exposed that seems to depend on the aperture or shutter speed?

[Swift1]

What you are seeing is just from poor scanning.
I would imagine that 20+ years ago nearly every lab employed a properly trained professional that would be in charge of scanning and/or printing. The industry depended on labs providing good, consistent results.
Nowadays, film is a novelty. Most labs will just run the film through their scanner using the simplest automatic settings.

I really recommend getting your own scanner and taking the time to properly learn scanning.

[mattt]

Colton has put his money where his mouth is with s great blog post step by step how to scan colour negs. I can’t find the link but maybe he can link again.

[Swift1]

FWIW, Kodak Colorplus, isn't Kodak Gold, but is fine film and with decent scanning will provide good results.

Fujifilm Klasse
Fujinon 38/2.6
Kodak Colorplus 200
Epson V750-M Pro

[Alex645]

The faded color and low contrast in your image could be caused by any one or combination of the following:
a) Old film
b) Exhausted C41 developer
c) Improper scanning

Back in the 80ʻs and 90ʻs, fresh film was constantly stocked in stores, labs were profiting from higher volumes of film, and poor printing was simply unacceptable.

I would categorize current labs as in one of three situations:
a) Less orders to process every month, resulting in less revenue=cutting corners, etc. When I managed a lab in the 80s, if we didnʻt get a minimum amount of film to process each week, and we were committed to quality control, we would be forced to dump our old chems and replace it with fresh chems. Thatʻs expensive, so to avoid it, we would have all sorts of incentives to get people to shoot more like buy one roll, get one free or half off, coupons, etc. These labs will eventually go out of business.

b) Aggressively marketed regional or national lab where walk-in business only represents 5% of their business. Pre-paid mailers and weekly shipments of film from franchises and chains like CVS, RiteAid, or bigger brick and mortar camera stores. Generally, these labs do above average quality because they have the volume to retain good employees and fresh chems and the latest tech scanners.

c) Custom labs. Pricey but a lot of repeat loyal customers. If they mess up, they know they have to fix it or else they will lose a customer for life. So their mission is to not mess up and develop a bad rep.

Final thoughts: Your Kodak Colorplus 200 (Super A) I believe is one that is marketed by Lomography. Lomography is known for funky color balances and contrast that is a far cry from results you should expect from Kodak Ektar or Portra or Fujifilm Fujicolor PRO or Superia. The differences between film emulsions are much, much greater than the difference between a Canon CMOS or Sony CMOS sensor.

[Swift1]

Colton has put his money where his mouth is with s great blog post step by step how to scan colour negs. I can’t find the link but maybe he can link again.

Thanks Matt
Here's the link,
Getting the most from color negative film with your Epson flatbed. – Photography by Colton Allen

[Kevin B123]

I think this is the problem with scanning. Recently I have started to 'scan' film with DSLR, and I have not found yet simple method of post-processing of colour negative - ordinary reversal of colour gives low contrast and colours which are definitely off, just like in your example. Playing with tonal curves helps a lot, but this is pretty tedious task which rarely allows for batch processing. Nevertheless, I don't give up

I have also seen a few shots where the white balance is off, in this image below, I adjusted the Temp by -17 blacks by -77 and whites by +46 and -0.24ev. Scanning sounds a likely cause. The second image is as scanned.

Kodak gold 200 isn't the best film out there, but it's definitely not that bad either. It lacks color accuracy in light that's not bright sunlight, but has decent contrast in my experience.

Does the negative look ok? You should be able to see clear detail etc and it shouldn't be washed out. If not, there's not much you can do to recover an image, otherwise try scanning it elsewhere.

With the super program/super A it's easy to forget setting the iso dial right (tiny text) and having exposure comp off (easy to move). Those would be my first two guesses, from personal experience with that camera. If the entire roll looks bad in the same way (not just this image) and you don't suspect incorrect settings, then maybe the meter is off. Of course, maybe the lab messed it up, but I think that's the least likely explanation.

Most shots have this defect to some degree and a few are not bad, and I think the meter is OK, it's had a CLA and I have checked it against my K-50, so scanning may well be at fault. I have yet to examine the negatives, and I have no experience of doings so. It will be hard for me to tell if they are good or bad.
I should add, I used a hood in all cases and have not used any filters.

It could be anything: expired film, inaccurate aging meter, aging aperture mechanism, aging shutter mechanism, bad chemicals, or bad scanning.

How do the negatives look? And is there any pattern to some frames seeming under- or over-exposed that seems to depend on the aperture or shutter speed?

The film is fresh stock. I send three rolls in at a time, and the first set of three were expired Kodak Gold and came out even worse (same lab) so I put those down to the film expiry at the time.
The prints look like the scans as well, I would assume then the print is made from a scanned image and not through an enlarger.

What you are seeing is just from poor scanning.
I would imagine that 20+ years ago nearly every lab employed a properly trained professional that would be in charge of scanning and/or printing. The industry depended on labs providing good, consistent results.
Nowadays, film is a novelty. Most labs will just run the film through their scanner using the simplest automatic settings.

I really recommend getting your own scanner and taking the time to properly learn scanning.

Thanks, i now have an excuse to get a 50mm Macro

All,
The scanning theme here is quite likely I feel. My next set of films will go to a different lab and that will be a clincher. I can't tell at this point if the development is off or not, perhaps I can revisit the negs another time to improve them. Home scanning is not something I envisaged doing, but hey I know I have 30 years worth of negs around in a box somewhere

[thazooo]

If my negs came out of processing like that I'd be a member of the free film club, IMHO the lab messed up Big.

[Kevin B123]

The faded color and low contrast in your image could be caused by any one or combination of the following:
a) Old film
b) Exhausted C41 developer
c) Improper scanning

Back in the 80ʻs and 90ʻs, fresh film was constantly stocked in stores, labs were profiting from higher volumes of film, and poor printing was simply unacceptable.

I would categorize current labs as in one of three situations:
a) Less orders to process every month, resulting in less revenue=cutting corners, etc. When I managed a lab in the 80s, if we didnʻt get a minimum amount of film to process each week, and we were committed to quality control, we would be forced to dump our old chems and replace it with fresh chems. Thatʻs expensive, so to avoid it, we would have all sorts of incentives to get people to shoot more like buy one roll, get one free or half off, coupons, etc. These labs will eventually go out of business.

b) Aggressively marketed regional or national lab where walk-in business only represents 5% of their business. Pre-paid mailers and weekly shipments of film from franchises and chains like CVS, RiteAid, or bigger brick and mortar camera stores. Generally, these labs do above average quality because they have the volume to retain good employees and fresh chems and the latest tech scanners.

c) Custom labs. Pricey but a lot of repeat loyal customers. If they mess up, they know they have to fix it or else they will lose a customer for life. So their mission is to not mess up and develop a bad rep.

Final thoughts: Your Kodak Colorplus 200 (Super A) I believe is one that is marketed by Lomography. Lomography is known for funky color balances and contrast that is a far cry from results you should expect from Kodak Ektar or Portra or Fujifilm Fujicolor PRO or Superia. The differences between film emulsions are much, much greater than the difference between a Canon CMOS or Sony CMOS sensor.

Your post came in while I was typing my reply above

A few thoughts here.
In the UK there are a limited number of places to get film developed so any of them should be good enough as they all see plenty of trade, and exhausted developer would be a catastrophe for them I would think. As I noted above the film is new stock, but it's a shocker for me to link that to lomography.

My link to the article was because I also saw less than stellar results using Fuji Superia 200 in a P30T at a different lab, so i'm also thinking is it me or the C41 process?, since nothing I have had developed in the last year matches the output (from memory) of past decades.

[filmamigo]

I’ve seen results like this even in the last heyday of film. I had ten rolls from a vacation in Scotland ruined by processing at a Costco, circa 2002. Scanning them myself could do little to rescue the images as they were running exhausted chemistry and the negs were thin and extremely low contrast.

Since then, every important shoot goes to a local lab I trust, who has a reasonable volume of pros, students and dedicated amateurs to maintain top quality. It means paying almost $20 a roll for processing and scanning, but it’s worth it.

Black and white I started developing myself - but color I shoot infrequently and it’s usually important (weddings and portraits) so it goes straight to that lab.

[Kevin B123]

Thanks Matt
Here's the link,
Getting the most from color negative film with your Epson flatbed. – Photography by Colton Allen

I just looked up an Epson flatbed scanner cost and it's 2/3rds the cost of a refurb DFA 28-105, you can guess which is more attractive at this point.
Finding a lab that can deliver is my first call I think.

[Swift1]

I just looked up an Epson flatbed scanner cost and it's 2/3rds the cost of a refurb DFA 28-105, you can guess which is more attractive at this point.
Finding a lab that can deliver is my first call I think.

A film scanner is a great investment and will pay for itself in a short time. Plus, if you're depending on a lab to provide scans, you don't really get a good sense of what you different exposure bias really does to different film stocks.