Diana F+ film developing and printing

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~sadafka Dec 28, 2012

hello and merry xmas to everyone!!

First of all I would like to say that I am nearly completely new to photography so forgive me if I use a term wrongly.

So, I received a lovely Diana F+ for xmas which I really love. However, as soon as I googled about 120 film processing and printing and its costs, well it kind of put me of it

How do you analogue camera lovers develop and print your 120 films? Do you send it to a lab? or develop at home and scan with a negative scanner? doesnt that effect the quality?

I have been told that noone uses enlargers anymore to make photographic prints. Even in labs, they use pro negative scanners, which means turning analogue into digital then print it of :/ so im just thinking? WHAT IS THE POINNNT IN ANALOGUE IF THEY GONNA TURN IT INTO DIGITAL ANYWAY? :/// surely the same effects can be applied to any digital photo using Photoshop etc.

Can someone please help me on this topic, and maybe try and make me feel a bit better abotu the whole analogue and digital thing please?

I really would appreciate any help or advice.

Thank yoooooou

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Devious Comments

`FallisPhoto Jan 4, 2013

1. There most certainly are people who use enlargers. I do and you will find many more people here who do, especially in medium and large format.

2. If you are using a Diana, Holga, Lubitel or other LOMO type camera, quality isn't really very high on your list of priorities, so don't worry about scanning film.

3. handle that thing with kid gloves. They are incredibly fragile.

~blepfo Dec 31, 2012 Student Photographer

I'm fortunate enough to live within 10 miles of a Penn Camera that will take colour medium format and process the negatives... but when I do medium format, it's pretty much exclusively B&W because my high school has B&W developing chemicals. As for scanning, I would say scan it yourself.

~Shurakai-Stock Dec 31, 2012 Professional Photographer

I’m fortunate to live in a city big enough to have three or four professional labs that still process medium- and large-format film. I also have a scanner – not the best by a longshot, but decent enough for what I need. If I wanted to shoot 120 again, I would likely take it to one of the labs for developing. If it was something that I considered to be “fine art” worthy, I might have them make a chemical print (I think they still use a physical enlarger there, but I’m not sure how much of a difference it makes), or I might have them scan the film on their Imacon scanner. If I’m feeling especially flush with cash and want that little extra bit of detail, I might opt for a drum scan. Then I could either print it myself or send it to a commercial printer, after doing some post work on it.

TL;DR: photography is and always has been expensive.

As for the whole digital/analogue thing, yes you can get a pretty accurate facsimile of just about any darkroom process if you know what you’re doing in Photoshop. But some of those things would require so much effort that it’s almost not worth it. For instance, I can get a rough-edged rebate on a film print just by using an oversized film holder with filed-down edges. Including time spent on the enlarger and in the chemical processor, it might take me 3 minutes, tops. To do the same thing in Photoshop, and have it look anywhere near realistic, I’d need a Wacom and a couple of hours to kill, or else be willing to fork over a couple hundred for a plug-in.

`TimberClipse Dec 30, 2012 Professional Filmographer

Any film processing these days is expensive. See if there might be somewhere you could learn to do it yourself near where you live. There are -sometimes- dark-rooms that will lend out/rent out their space.

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