Camera film processing in Birmingham

[Chunky AC]

Bit of History for you in the mid 1960s a 20 exposure cassette of Kodachrome sold for 25 shillings and 2 pence. A sliced loaf of bread was a shilling. So a cassette of colour slide film was expensive, A colour enprint was 2 shillings and 9 pence, almost three loaves of bread. In the latter days of film pre digital photography was incredibly cheap in comparison.
I was very fortunate having been in the trade and knowing the Kodak, Agfa, and Fuji representatives I rarely bought film. I used a lot of Agfa CT18, Fuji, my favourite once I started processing my own slides was Kodak Ektachrome. But it needed home processing. Commercial processors did it to quickly and the results were too blue/cyan.
I spent a lot of the lockdown time re photographing old colour slides onto my iPhone. I must say the results have been very acceptable. See attached example. Shot on Ektachrome mid 1990’s tidied up in Photoshop.

 

[Vivienne14]

Remember when you had to take the film out of the camera in the dark ? I used to put the camera under a towel to do this in a darkened room. Viv

 

[Chunky AC]

I remember well the efforts to protect exposed film from the light when removing it from the camera. 127 and 620 films were prone to winding loosely. Before investing in a proper darkroom bag, I folded up a rain coat around the camera then by inserting my hands and arms up the sleeves the wrong way I was able extract the exposed film from the camera safely in total darkness. The lengths we went to protect our precious images.

 

[AnnS]

Yes, but only for the High Street processor to mess it up when they got their hands on it.

Thank goodness for digital....

 

[Richard Dye]

Yes, but only for the High Street processor to mess it up when they got their hands on it.

Thank goodness for digital....

Ann, you are SO right!

 

[Richard Dye]

Remember when you had to take the film out of the camera in the dark ? I used to put the camera under a towel to do this in a darkened room. Viv

Viv, you must be older than I thought , just kidding. I actually never did that, I guess that's why my early photos with a 620 box camera were noy very good!