News & Notes

02-11-08 The best B&W film of all time?

I'm soooooo excited about a film I've been shooting recently that I just had to tell all of you about it. I picked up a Pentax 6x7 medium format SLR with a 45mm lens on eBay; and outfitted it with a FotoDiox panoramic conversion kit. It let's me shoot pano negs on 35mm. (Yeah, I know, it's a poor man's X-Pan.) I was in a mood to experiment so I decided to try the controversial Rollei R3. It took some time to work out the development time, but once I had it nailed, the film just blew me away. I'll never use another B&W film again. R3 is beautiful beyond describing. I printed some test images on Ilford's warm tone paper and then selenium toned them. The toner cooled the paper back to just short of neutral but left the highlight detail. The image jumps off the paper. Looks 3-D. Glows like a fibre print. If you want to see for your self what it looks like, I'll make you a 5x7 sample print from one of my negs for $15 including the shipping.

I loaded up Deb and Rio in my visiting Mother's new CRV and we took a day trip to the Salinas Ruins group, the four of us stopping along the way to photograph anything that caught out eyes. By day's end I was in love with the giant brick of a camera. The next day I spent printing 13.5 x 5 inch prints in the lab. I rated the film at 400 ISO 'cause I'm too impatient to deal with a tripod. It does have some grain, especially in the continuous tone areas like the sky, but it is pretty grain, if you know what I mean. Oh yes, you can shoot without a yellow filter and get great clouds!

I had some trouble getting this film from my usual supplier so I e-mailed Germany and found that Freestyle is their American partner. Freestyle assures me that they have a good supply of the film here: Freestyle Photographic Supplies. It does run a bit more than the film made by the other guys, but worth every penny. Awesome prints start with great negs. Great negs start with superior film.

I know that this is a first, I really don't plug other companies here at BestLab, but the folks at Freestyle have really made an effort to keep a huge variety of B&W stuff available to those of us who love the craft.

Oh, and the Pentax lens? Sharp enough to cut your eye looking at the prints! Every bit the equal of the Hasselblad X-Pan's lenses. I was able to see fine detail with a 8x loupe that I didn't even notice in the field!
Lee

01-05-08 Still here and still going strong!

Nothing really new to say, but I just wanted to wish everyone a healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year. I can't believe it is 2008. Yikes! Where do the years go?! Anyway, we had a great holiday season that included a major remodel of the lab building. It had been suffering from inefficiency due to the fact that various functions were spread out all over the building. I've consolidated all the production equipment into one area. It is wonderful. Small enough to be efficient, but large enough you don't bang your elbows. Now all film processing, drying, scanning, and printing are in one room instead of four.

It started to look a little bit like a submarine, so we figured why not go the extra mile? Some faux portholes, nautical accessories, and a ship's wheel were added and our five-year-old is in submarine heaven when he "works" with me. So if you hear sonar noises in the background when you call me, you'll know what is going on.

Film remains alive and well, in fact, December was one of the busiest months we've seen in the last few years.
Lee

09-01-07 No more credit cards

Effective October 31st we will no longer be accepting credit cards for payment of orders. We'll be happy to honor your business or personal check without any hold time; or you can use a money order if you prefer. Our decision came down to cost. The credit card companies take a pretty big bite out of every order, as well as charging a flat fee per month regardless of the amount of the receipts. New Federal laws have also mandated expensive new processing systems. All together it just didn't seem worth it. I appreciate your understanding and I promise that it really won't take anymore time to write a check than to write your credit card number in all those little boxes!

09-01-07 Important changes for autumn!!!!

Well, I've thrown in the towel on our Film Preservation Society. In nine months we've only had a dozen people join, including my mother. At the same time I'm closing the door on our color work. We had been processing both C-41 color print film and E-6 color slide film since the beginning of the year. The volume has been verrrrrrrrrry low and I need to get the chemicals for both films in liquid form. That makes them expensive to ship and gives them a limited shelf life. B&W chemicals on the other hand, I can get in powder form and mix as needed. Powders last forever. For those of you who were using us for your color, I apologize. Call me or email me and we'll set you up with someone we trust.

Every morning when I wake up, another fibre paper has bit the dust. I've decided to close the book on that chapter too. That leaves us with processing of all traditional B&W films, contact sheets, scanning and burning to CD to serve as a soft-proofs, and hand-printed RC enlargements from wallet-size to 20x24. Lots of labs have shut their doors forever this last year, sending a chill down the spine of anyone who uses and loves film. Once again, I don't want you to worry. We own the building and all the gear in it. I'm not around much, but the few hours per week I get to spend in the darkroom is some of my favorite time. If you end up being the last person on earth shooting B&W film; I'll be here for you!
Lee

06-08-07 Reaching me

OK, OK, OK. I know. I've been hard to reach and our hours have been a bit... erratic. We are absolutely still in businesses. That said, the work flow has been unpredictable. Some weekends there is no work to do and I'm out in the field shooting; other weekends I'm in the dark room late, late, late at night. Here's the deal: I check both voice and email virtually every night. Leave me a message, I promise I will get back to you promptly!
Lee



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