Hi this is Jay P Morgan. Today on The Slanted Lens we're gonna go through
Richard Lab. We're gonna see every step of how color film and black and white
film are processed- we'll see it right from the beginning to the end so you know
exactly where your film goes when you send it off to lab so let's get started and
see what we can do. Everybody needs lights and we're giving
away two lights from F&V this month so get onto theslantedlens.com/giveaway
and enter to win. We're here at Richard photo lab I've always wanted to
come to this place to see how they process our film so here we are and this
is Albany nice to meet you tell us what's here and I mean we've
sent our film here but never been here before so yeah well we're pro lab we've
been in business for about 50 years we scan and print photographers work we
work with photographers all around the world so what we want to do today is
just see the step by step process as it goes through the entire lab and just see
it come out the other end perfect let's go get back there let's go
we just got all the film boxes for the day so our team is unpackaging all the
film and is about to write up all the orders to put them into production we're
double checking their account to make sure we have all the rolls we don't want
to lose any rolls we need to make sure that we have everything so that's what
we're doing here all right so once we get to processing the processors are
going to sort the film between color and black and white because we have two
different dark rooms for that so they sort the film and then they will put it
on two racks they prep the film on racks because obviously everything has to be
done in the darkroom in the dark right outside okay so this is what it means to
prep the film here yeah so what's really important in this process is applying
the twin check sticker so a tall film has a twin check sticker that's what's
going to align it with the actual order that it comes with
because right now you don't see any order so the only thing that is telling
us what order it comes from is the twin check sticker this is really really
important because it keeps all the film organized throughout the lab something
that we're really proud of is that we use dip and dunk processors a lot of
labs still use pull through machines that can damage your film and and you
know it might be quicker to process your film that way but it's not the best way
to process your film we used up and dunk processors that means that your film is
literally dipping into a destination and it's only touching the chemistry
tire time it's not touching anything else I'm gonna sneak in the magic door
here okay so this is going into where the films actually dip and dunked yeah
it is it being dipped right now Here I am in the developing area imagine that
so this is bill bill used to work at... AIM forever ago processed
a ton of my film but now he works here bill is actually the one to talk to
with this because he really built this thing so we opened the film hang it here
off that all the rolls check everything of course we can't do it visually
because we have no vision is perfectly black perfectly dark
and so then we so we have to touch we touch and feel so we touch every roll in
of every rack and touch the flags to make sure the speed indicated
this is a normal rack it's not a push or a pull we check the replenishment flags
we touch all the film across its aiming here you have to make believe that
that's happening judging everything because if there's a weight on the
bottom of its set perfect it should all be digital
and you can tell that if it's like... absolutely yeah
placement senses right yeah and so we touch to make sure
everything's okay and then we then we wrap our arms around all this filaments
here and make sure everything's perfect by running and binded on 120 film
there's paper so if you don't if you don't plug every rack that paper might
be hanging down it might have something hanging on there it's not clearance in
the machine so you have to make sure this is all perfect maybe more you put
it in so once the operators perform that they'll then take it he knows his whole
rack is set and perfect so when you take the rack set up like this and put it and
this is a pre loading position you can see that it says which flags indicate
which these are replenishing flags that will hit sensors the proximity sensor is
right underneath here it's a little metal magnet and when this little metal
bar passes underneath it it tells right now this is a normal role of 35
millimeter and it just needs to replenish so it's just gonna replenish
but if you need to put plus or minus top plus two stops reminds of stop you'd put
this sensor can I move in here sure I move that sensor right here let you see
right there this is going to go underneath the plus two stops and that
means it's going to be in the chemistry a lot longer be able to give it that
plus two stops of processing yeah so the different up concept
nothing touches the film at any time and it's just dropping down the weights are
on the bottom of the film and it's just sitting in the chemistry the agitation
is happening by bubbles there's nitrogen in the developer and there's air and all
the secondary chemistry this film is past the point where it's like sensitive
yeah therefore we can shoot we can we can have the lights on and see this
happen but very few people actually see this process yeah because we're busy
running film but it's it's for the prescribed amount of time in each tank
and then it moves to the next stage so developer and then bleed and then bleach
and then there's a wash and it washes off the bleach and it sits there and
then it moves into the fixed tank where the fixer limits the silver from the
film and then it moves into a wash tank where the film
and then to a final rinse which is sort of a photo float solution
wetting agent which assures a clean and clear drying process yeah from there it
goes into the space between the film processing the wet section in the dark
section where which allows it to pass from dark to light and that enters the
dryer then so what's the timeframe from going into developer to dry film at the
other end I'm a little over an hour I don't know about an hour and we're
fortunate to have a lot of film so a lot of film makes a very healthy
makes a better process absolutely this developer has been the same developer
that we that I've run for the last ten years nearly yes absolutely we just keep
adding a little bit more we measure exactly how much film goes in indicate
that by little flags that are on the rack and then a precise amount of
developer and mobic chemistry is added to compensate for the
for the amount of chemistry that was used by that right so it's almost like
an aged developer it's really interesting it's like why I lay a good
wine you know developers gotta be aged that's incredible
so after processing we head to the drier area and this is where the film you know
is drying and we take it out and hang it up on the rack here and we inspect it
for any issues because this is when we're actually first gonna visually see
the frames yeah after spent process yes and so we're gonna see if there were any
issues that we need to alert the photographer about that in their blank
roles huge do you actually call photographer you email yeah we're all
that well or you know that we saw x-ray damage all over the film or if we saw
you know drastically underexposed negatives so this is the the case when
we were inside and we saw the racks or going through the chemistry then as it
left that washing process that went into this dryer and then they bring it out
here on the scene yeah so they take it out right here and it's still in the
dryer so it's not gonna come out right now but then we will hang it up here and
inspect it like I said for any issues well then grab the twin checks we'll
make sure that we grab all the twin checks from the same order put them in a
box and then get them ready for scanning sure you should head out to the scanners
yeah it'll scan as we go - actually I'll follow you that way do the scan as we go
I'll follow Albany this way yes so these are our scanners we have our frontier
scanners over here and we have our noritsu scanners over there
so tell me why you would choose one over the other unfortunately our answer is
that it's really your personal preference you need to do the testing
and figure out which one you like better I can tell you the technical differences
and you know this is an older technology the frontier scanner is
yeah it's an older technology so we scan one frame at a time and so it is slower
it takes a little bit more time whereas with the noritsu scanner you can kind of
see from here but they actually do a pre scan and you get to see six images on
the frame minutes on the screen at a time so it was a little bit more
consistent that way so you can compare them one to another
that way you're not just going watch the frame at a time also the files
that it produces just hold up a lot better when you're trying to print if
your aim is to print then we always recommend the noritsu scanner
because you really can print those a lot thicker um you know we've seen people do
30 by 40 prints from a medium scan from 120 negative which is awesome you really
couldn't get that kind of quality from this standard from the frontier yeah my
biggest question for you about scanning and I ask you this upfront and that is
how can you communicate with the lab in a way that allowed the operator to give
you an outcome that you would like to have and see communication is key that
is the number one thing I'm going to tell anybody is that we need to know
what you want or else how are we gonna be able to deliver the results you want
so on your order form we actually have a note section where you can write in your
color and density preferences we also have color profiles which kind of make
it a little bit easier for people to request a direction so we work with tons
of photographers and all of them have cut a lot of them have custom color
profiles and you can actually utilize their profiles on your scans if you
don't have your own color profile which kind of gives the scanner operator a
direction it's like they're requesting this profile I will scan that film with
that profile in mind it's not really a preset it's really like okay this
photographer really likes a warmer brighter look then I'm gonna scan this
film with a warmer brighter look so after scanning what happens we take it
down to our digital department and our digital department is gonna go through
all of the scans and just check for any scan lines or any issues that we see
that we need to tell the client about like scratches or you know anything that
you know they might need to get their camera cleaned because we saw really
tilde from there just change this line then they send the scans to the client
via FTP zip zip folder and then the negative the physical negatives are
often egg cutting all right so this or they get them ready to go out yep we
still cut all the negatives by hand you really can't do it any other way
nope so after they're cut they'll go to our shipping area and they'll be
packaged up and shipped to our client this is our big shipping area in our
past labs our shipping area has really been the size of this counter
and so once we were able to move to Valencia we had so much more space and
so many packages so much film that we have our own shipping area and the
shipping carrier picks up every day at the same time and it's very efficient
give us your lab information so we have so Richard photo lab .com will give you
all of our Richard not Richard's right no that's Richard Photo Lab .com and
check out our blog while you were there because it has tons of great resources
for shooting film started shoot film you know lab lab relationship communication
all that and then our Instagram is really huge it's just Richard photo lab
and we just encourage you to hashtag Richard photo lab and all of your film
images that we scan so we can share them on that platform and any questions you
have don't feel free to come into the lab see us in person and call us email
us whatever you want to do what would it cost to shoot a photograph on this
seamless setup here if you want to know how to estimate get our video download
it's at the slam lens comm where you can understand the estimating process don't
let yourself estimate without it get over to the silence comm all right this
has been fabulous Albin thank you so very much it allows you to come it's
been very educational for me if you want more this kind of content make sure that
you like us that you follow us you do all those kinds of things on our
platform we really want you a part of the slanted lens family and keep those
cameras rolling and keep on clicking