Getting Film developed in Australia and its troubles!

So the last time I talked about film, I had my rolls sent off to the FIND lab in the US who did a great job and got a two thumbs up from me. The lovely Sara, suggested Carmencita Labs in the comments of that post and I thought I should send my latest three rolls there (Spain) to check them out :) I packaged them up and sent them on their merry way, well that was until Australia Post rang me up to tell me there was a problem - not something you want to hear when shipping away film :p Luckily the film was a-okay it had just never left our shores because apparently film is explosive and they refuse to ship it. So yup, just another reason to love Australia post.

I really think something is amiss here, everyone I've spoken to has been quite shocked to hear they wouldn't ship it and to add extra insult the lady at the Post Office told me I couldn't even send my film interstate - say what! ANYWAY, I got home and randomly found, just around the corner, a photo store (that I never even knew existed!) that could process my colour film - hurrah! It was nice to only have to wait 2 days for my film rather than 3 weeks.

When I got the prints back, I knew the scans just weren't producing the colours I knew the film should of contained. It reinstated why it's been worth the extra expense and time sending my film to a professional lab overseas. I did some more googling and found a lab in Brisbane who seem promising and who can process black and white film, so there is still one last option to try. I can't help but have my spirits dampened by lack of choice though. I even got to the point of googling how to develop my own film - an option I might investigate further in the future (if you have experience yourself with developing let me know in the comments!!).

So anyway, I still had the processed film in my hand from my local photo shop and wanted to go about scanning them myself to see if I could get some better results. Kid you not, the last week of my life has been googling scanning techniques and hours and hours of different attempts before I'm finally at a stage where I'm happy with the results. I've actually put together a guide (more for me than anything) so I can easily reference it in the future. If you find yourself in my situation you can find the guide here and here.

The first lot of film I'm showing you today is ektar 100 film, using my OM1.  I love my OM1, it was my first ever film camera, which I got from my Grandma and it made me fall in love with film. Unfortunately on a trip to Tasmania I slipped on ice and dropped the camera and since then the light mere has never worked, so it's been sitting in a box all lonely. I thought I'd take it for another spin but with the light metre not working, issues were abound. I did pick up a manual light metre from the op shop but really who has time for that :p I've also been known to copy the settings from my digital camera to the OM1 but again (who has time for that :p) so I'll admit, a lot of this roll I just guessed settings and thus a lot of this roll went pear shaped :p I still want to share it though!

So this picture - gosh, I'm slightly (okay more than slightly) scared of heights but Ben has the daredevil nature in him and is always willing to jump! I've jumped from that spot (once!) but I scaled down the wall (a lot!) and even then I was freaking out :p

I couldn't believe when I got back this roll (funnily enough just weeks after returning from Fraser) that it had a picture of Fraser from the previous year - oops! I really should try and finish film faster!  Also spoiler alert - this years Fraser trip photos to come in a form of a blog post, at some stage!

I also learnt about Newton Rings in my hours and hours of scanning madness! See those oil type marks near Ben's face? You get them if the film touches the scanner bed's glass plate! I'm all knowledgeable now and shall never have them ever ever again! 

and just for fun, above is the scan I did myself and below is the print I got back from my local lab....

I hope that shows you why I was intent on learning how to scan myself because I felt the photos needed help and I have a feeling Carmencita would of had me on the right path - stupid Australia Post :P

I took the majority of photos on this roll when My little bro, J and Ben's nephew, Sid came to stay with us. We went down to Kureelpa, which is our nearest water hole and one of the best!

I also cheated and converted a couple of scans into black and white because I thought they looked kick arse :)

The other roll of film I got processed locally was another Ektar 100 but this time I shot it rated at 400 (essentially pushing the film) and on my reliable canon 1000f with some great results :) Can't wait to share!  I also have a couple of black and white films but I'll have to wait till I venture down to Brisbane to put them in, unless of course I take the plunge and learn home developing in the meanwhile :P