Film to 01010011?

October 1, 2008 12:09 AM

Where in the UK can I send my 24 + 36 exposure camera films to have them transferred to CD/otherwise digitalised?

I've looked into this online, but all of the 2-3 companies I've found require that I buy prints at the same time as getting the film developed. I'd much rather be able to see what the pictures are going to look like, before I splash out on prints.

The other avenue I've seen is getting a film scanner, but I don't want to do this. I can't afford it, it's not going to be worth buying the hardware for the half dozen films I have and I don't have the experience.

What I want is somewhere like Truprint, that I can send the films to, get them transferred to digital, and then order them (either from that company or elsewhere) once I can see how they're going to turn out. Preferably via post.

Where might I find such a place?

posted by Solomon to sports, hobbies, & recreation (5 comments total)

Tescos used to do a CD only developing service at their large stores with a photo desk. Quite cheap too iirc I used to pay £1.97 per film.

Might be worth seeing if they still do this?
posted by Tapioca at 12:33 AM on October 1, 2008

Back in about 2003 I used to use Peak Imaging for digitising slide films. They do negative film as well. Depending on how big you want to print, you want their 'images to CD', 'CD archive', or 'CD archive gold' service, which all include an index print as well.

The point is that they're a pro shop for that commercial and landscape photographers use, so they've got good systems that will get the best quality digital files from your negs. The quality was excellent for my stuff, and they're really helpful on the phone: [phone]
posted by dowcrag at 1:02 AM on October 1, 2008

I had the exact same problem, most of my photos aren't worth spending £7 or more a film to get processed, especially when I'll only use half the photos I take. Then I remembered BonusPrint. It's not clear from their envelopes that they will do CD only processing, but I have used them 3 times now and they've not argued it. I just pay the £1.99 per film and the postage costs and I get CDs back. I picked a Truprint envelope in a service station the other day, and it isn't clear that they will just do CD only, but I'm tempted to try it one day.
posted by Helga-woo at 1:51 AM on October 1, 2008

I think Boots will actually do this. I always got prints, but if you ask for just the CD, I'm sure that would work. It was always done really well at my location (across from Holborn station in London), and the files were high quality. It was actually the lack of comparable convenient developing in the States that made me recently switch to digital.
posted by awesomebrad at 5:08 AM on October 1, 2008

Whenever I've tried to do CD-only at Boots, they've charged me the same price to process the film as it would to get prints done, and then added the extra cost of CD processing on top.
posted by Helga-woo at 5:58 AM on October 1, 2008