35mm Film Processing Labs

Well since I haven't switched to digital for yet, I've got 10 rolls of film that need to get developed from our trip to Alaska. Makes it worthwhile figuring out the right way to develop them. Finding a great lab, then getting the pictures developed with a good contact sheet seems smart. Then, I can just reproduce the ones that come out. Scan the right images for later printing too.

So here's a guide to good 35mm developers:

• A&I. We use this for all our semi-serious development. The picture quality is way better than a Costco for instance. They have mailers for about $12.50 for their machine generate printing (that comes out to about $0.34 per photo, so not bad. By hand, this costs $17 per roll. Main issue is that they are in LA, so you can't just drop over there. But, they will do C41 processing and make a 11×14 contact sheet for $8.50 per roll, so this works out if you only need say 10 photos per roll. Nice thing about these is that each print is done by hand so higher quality than machine processed.
• Ivey. Steve Bush recommends these folks. Nice thing is that they are local, but I'm sure expensive but given the number of photos probably worthwhile to make a trip. Idea is the same, get them to do the film processing, generate a contact sheet, then reprint or digitally scan.
• Overlake Photo. Steve recommends these folks as a lower cost alternative. Prices are comparable to A&I. $2.19 to develop and $0.31 per 4×6. Or you can get 35mm just developed for $3.50 and with a contact sheet for $8.