Film is expensive

Today I sent out 19 sheets of 4x5 velvia to Color Services in Needham, Mass. The film is 2.50 a sheet and costs 2.65 to process in total 97$. How can that be worth it?

Quality.

I wanted to visted Color Services before committing my film to them. I have been processing my own film throughout collage and I didn't like the idea of giving up that control. I woke up early, got my coffee and set up my tripod behind the coffee shop. I shot a few holders, and then drove down to the lab.

It felt busy and well run. I got my film 2 days later in the mail and they were beautiful! With negitives you can tell content, sharpness and contrast. With slide film you see it all. I scanned the best exposed sheet with an Epson v700 at a 6,400 dpi. It took 10 minutes to scan which is awsome compared to our previous scanners which a similar task would take about an hour.

I tweaked the file a bit and then printed out a 4x5 foot print. I tacked it up on the wall and I was sold. I had been trying to get that quality and scale for a few years now first with a Nikon d50 and more recently a Nikon d300. I was able to do it, but it would take around 80 raw files and a few hours to combine them into a seamless hdr panorama.

Like this one