Inside Look at a Film Lab // The Darkroom
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- Опубликовано: 18 окт 2024
- People all over the world ship their film off to a lab for processing and scanning, but few people actually get to see inside the lab and what the process is truly like. Today, I’m sharing a closer look inside The Darkroom and some of the things that make them so unique. Hope you guys enjoy this one!
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So great that film photographers and photography is still alive and especially labs like the Darkroom to process them.
I love the darkroom. They are THE place to send your film, always expedient and professional. The prints look amazing, and I love the fact that they do true black and white film processing. Good video matt, thanks for the behind the scenes look.
My job started this a few months ago (in NYC) and now so many people drop off that we might have to expand on the lab and get more machines and scanners to process all the film haha. Super cool seeing how seamless the processing / scanning is.
Where in NYC?
What's the name and address of your NYC lab?
@@ylliwgil TriBeca Area Off of Canal St.
@@mileschun143 368 Broadway - K&M Camera. Also ColorHouse NY. Both within a few blocks of eachother
What sort of experience does one need to get started at a film lab?
I started watching this and thought to myself "I wonder why my photos from The Darkroom are gonna be ready..." and then IMMEDIATELY got an email from them saying my photos are being uploaded. They are so quick! Thanks, Darkroom! #notsponsored
I sent The Darkroom one roll last year and was very happy with the service. Between mailing, processing/scanning the total outlay was enough that I'm going to try developing and scanning at home instead. Wish I lived within driving distance however!
Have been using The Darkroom for a year to develop color film. They do an amazing job. Fun to see the lab in operation. Thanks for the video.
Have my first roll being processed there now. Can’t wait
Great work as always Matt, I love this kind of content. This video could’ve easily been double the length :-)
Love the Darkroom! I am definitely sending them about 20 rolls of medium format film a month and their super scans have been ace.
State Film Lab in Kentucky is also great! Not the same turn around time as The Darkroom but the scans had much more attention paid to them and the TIFFs they sent were amazing. They also do dip and dunk and my negs and positives came back perfect (which they all do in house)
4:50min ?! I want 45:50min of this! Great video but way to short - was expecting a full walkthrough
Art of Niki Definitely more to come in the future! But we didn’t wanna do everything in one video, especially with them starting their own channel!
Matt Day realize my tone was a bit harsh. Love your work and love this video but I just want more :-D But I get why. Keep doing what you’re doing - all the best!
Great Video Matt. Loved seeing the inside of their facility.
Some of the best times of my life was 18 years working for Kodak Processing in Palo Alto CA.
this is so awesome, literally felt like an enlarged version of my job! i am going to show everyone this video tomorrow at work
Thank you sooo muchhh for showing us the process!!!
This is 🔥🔥🔥
Wow! That was fun!
Great video Matt!!! Thanks
Managed a couple one hour photo labs back in the 1990s, even though it's changed at lot this still brought back some great memories.
Wow what an interesting video! Reminds me of Ilford’s own Behind The Scenes video
Awesome insight! I've been sending film over this lab for over a year 👏
So cool to know all this! No wonder it’s pricy! Money well spent
Great video. I love The Darkroom and it was really great to see how much work they do behind the scenes.
First company I chose to develop my film when I started shooting several years ago. Just had 3 rolls developed last month. Awesome company and awesome video Matt ✌️
Wow man it’s beautiful!
Hi Matt! Cool video! I work at a lab in Melbourne, Australia that does dip and dunk C41, B&W and E6. I'm currently gaining a lot of experience, especially with loading and developing and process management and quality control -- I've got two weeks of solo developing and running the lab coming soon up which I'm super excited about. It's quite hard work since the environment is quite hot because of the temperature of the film chemistry and also backflow from the film dryers and because your senses are super heightened when you work in the dark (a lot of people think that we have safe lights but you cannot use these when handling film).
Very well done! Cinematic shots looking good
Love the Darkroom!
My favorite thing about The Darkroom is that they send you a mailer and an order form for your next roll.
Good stuff! I've been enjoying the short peeks people have been providing into this place. I think I'll have to send them some film soon, I have some weird FPP film to develop...
Yes! More darkroom stuff please. :)
I have been using the Darkroom for many years, and can't think of a single issue ever. Even with coast to coast shipping they are super consistent and reliable. I did my own processing for years but at the prices they charge why bother? This was interesting although it would be fun to see even more......Thanks for doing this.
I like the film index on the dark room website. I think anyone that's getting into film photography should definitely check that out to get an idea of what the different film stocks look like.
Great video 👌 reminds me of this 'how it's made' videos on PBS
Wish this was longer and we would get a better glimpse of the whole process since we drop our rolls at the lab. Thanks for the little insight though!
Yeah, he was there "a couple of days" and yet we only get 4:50m of video? No interviews? No footage of him inside the lab? Honni soit qui mal y pense.
Cool! I've been sending all my film there for the past six months. Execllent service.
I used to deliver and pick up their stuff when they were called Swan Photo.
used to send my film to the darkroom before i started doing it myself and always wondered how theyll developed stuff on such a big scale
Great video. Informative and concise. Hoping for more videos on them in the future.
I tried their service after doing a couple rolls at drug store services. The difference in quality was amazing!
How bad is the drug store? I've always heard bad things but I've never been able to compare
@@Georgiaboy_ Drug store developing in my experience has a slow turnaround of around two weeks or more. the negative scans are lower quality than even the basic darkroom scans. And the pics themselves seemed softer and a little more muted than darkroom when using the same film stock.
I have been using the Darkroom for a few years now. And in fact I have about 41 sheets of 4x5 I am thinking of sending them right now. As doing it myself is very time consuming.
EXCELLENT.
I've used a mobile phone in my enlarger to make silver gelatin prints from a digital negative, but I had no idea there was a purpose built machine for this, wow
I drove by San Clemente today! ... I’d be too embarrassed to show my face there, because the lab techs know more about my private life than my mama from all the film I send them! LoL
Why so short! Give us a longer film.
also, rad music in the beginning
This is just the beginning! We'll film more in the future, I'm sure of it.
@@mattdayphoto yeah, You are the person that got me to send my film here. Thank you, they are Amazing. Would Love to see more of their operation.
Sad to see they don't have the machines that make prints directly from the negatives. Seems like there aren't many of those left.
Cant wait for next year PADEAI !
Interesting!
I always have to wonder... When you're sending in rolls using an old manual focus SLR, if they get judgemental about out of focus shots or annoyed that their time is being wasted on things like that.
I know for me at least, I'm still working on manual focus on moving subjects and my hit rate still sucks.
I work at a lab and we don't. The only thing that pains us is when a nice film stock hasn't been loaded correctly so ends up blank. Especially painful if it's a film stock no longer in production. We always suggest if they want help loading to come in and we will be more than happy to supervise or do it.
Zach Hanford Not at all!
@@edshotsdotcodotuk as a person who wasted a roll of Acros thinking the flash/strobe was working on my camera - I feel the same way when I get the results (or lack thereof) 😁
love it! thanks for sharing! a toast to everyone!!!
where my standard scanners at??
Awesome video, I've been tempted on submit my film out for the darkroom to process... The only reason I haven't is because they only had the option of scanning on a Noritz true and no option for a Fuji Frontier... they want double the price of what my local prolab charges ($8= process & scan)
For a noritsu scan, and my local lab offers approximately 3000 x 2000 and the scans are pretty good... so it would be a leap of faith to use them and pay more for the same type of scan, but I would not mind to make a comparison at some point maybe... but I would hate to put out the extra money and wait time for the same results... With my lab I can drop off and pick up within 2 days.
Alexander Holden well, the thing is that maybe you won’t be getting the same results, specially with all that dedication to development
@@alvareo92 it's very possible, my local lab here where I live has been working with Film and developing for over 30 years they're pretty good at what they do, even though they don't do E6 processing. I've already tested the find lab once and compared their Noritsu scans to my local lab and there was not much difference as far as a basic scans goes.
Damn man. I say keep supporting the local biz and leave the Darkroom for us without local outlets 😄😁.
That's awesome that you got a crew local to you though.
@@shifteleven very true, we're lucky to have them here oh, they're pretty knowledgeable considering...
I'm still sad how they blamed me for their processing error. They claim my camera was faulty and a whole roll wasn't exposed, but the negatives they send back had zero edge markings.
Maybe I'll try them again someday.
Negative Grain which film was it?
@@alvareo92 I was some color film. I remember which. It was some important photos of me hanging out with my friend for the last time.
Negative Grain they develop in huge batches. So, if it was TheDarkrooms fault, there would be a ton of orders with the same problem.... unlike machines that develop one roll at a time. Maybe your film wasn’t advancing in your camera.... it happens to everyone at least once.
@@JP1050x that's highly unlikely as it was the F100 which automatically advance the film. Like I said the edge marks were blank which wouldn't happen if it was the camera's fault.
Negative Grain was it black & white film? You’d loose edge markings if B&W was developed in C41 chemistry.
lots of film pr0n in this one - its great haha
Amazing place, who said film is dead.
Are you still using their service?
I do all of my black and white developing at home, which is mostly all I shoot when it comes to film these days. But when I do shoot color from time to time, I still send out to The Darkroom.
@@mattdayphoto you’ve probably got videos on this so forgive my asking but what developer do you use for black and whites. They are always the perfect amount of contrast. Really beautiful.
@@jimhestermanphotography thank you! I usually use Ilfotec HC but due to the price increase, I’ve been using Kodak HC-110 which is very very similar.
Matt Day - Heads up Bro, RUclips automatically unsubscribed me from your channel. Just noticed it and re-subscribed. Strange shit. This is the second time it happened to me, the other one was a political channel I follow. (Jimmy Dore)
Good looking out! Glad you're back. Haha.
I was pretty happy with The Darkroom until they lost 4 rolls of my film with no explanation. That still stings for me to think about months later.
Lost by USPS or lost by Darkroom after they received your film?
Lost by them after they scanned them. They thought originally that they had accidentally sent them to someone else by mistake but then just admitted that they lost them somehow.
Thanks for a glimpse at what goes on in The Darkroom, Matt. As has been mentioned, that could easily have been twice as long and still keep us glued to our screens. :)
You been pushin darkroom a lot latey... they doing all your scans/developing for free now????
Haha, I wish! No, I’ve just been collaborating with them since the spring when I was a speaker at their event. We did a video/blog post together on metering a couple of months ago as well! Just makes sense for me to send my film there with all of the work we’ve been doing together. 👍🏻
With all them subs, makes sense for them to hook you up with at least a fatty discount.
Matt, I get that you need to make a living but you are doing more and more content that feels like an advertisement. I liked your channel when you used to share your personal experiences without all of the sponsorships. Now, I check in to see what you're doing but i don't expect much any more. Please try to find a way to make money from this channel without destroying what we watch for. And let us know when your content is sponsored.